an exercise in illustration

Hello all, two posts in two days, what a notion! I've made yet another image, shaped around the same concept that drove the illustration in my previous post seen here. This time I tried the illustration in the collage style which I've been doing off and on since 2007. For these illustrations I head to my collection of books, older than 100 years, for images, and then I repurpose them, cut them up, reassemble them, and altogether alter them so that they work as I'd like them to. The concept, once again, is an article about canning. I think some of the concept may be lost in the digital collage-styled image, however, I think it makes up for it with visual and textural interest. What do you, the readers think? Should I pour more effort into the cartoon or the collage style?

~Faux

Canned Summer

So here we are, in winter, and my wife and I are digging into our stash of wonderful stored foods. Sometimes there's nothing like a peach smoothie in the middle of the winter, to brighten your day! This illustration was self-initiated. I thought about the blogs I enjoy reading and imagined an article about the growing popularity of canning. I'm not sure I should really say more about it, as I feel that it's pretty self-explanatory. If you do have any questions just direct them my way, I'd be glad to answer them.

As I made it I had a brainwave, the result of said brainwave can be found here:

http://www.threadless.com/critique/61891/Canned_Summer

Currently it's up for shirt design critiquing on threadless, so if you have an opinion on it let me know!

~Faux