Illustration Friday: Polar (Bipolar)

Digital illustration in Corel Painter started from scanned sketchy ideas drawn on the back of a receipt sitting on the kitchen table.

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge is “Polar.” I first thought of polar bears of course, but I did a polar bear illustration before for Illo Friday when the word was DANCE. Next stop on the train of though was “bipolar.” I hope that this image won’t be considered insensitive. I’ve done some reading about bipolar disorder in relation to artists, since many famous artists and writers have had this disorder. Kay Redfield Jamison, a professor of psychiatry who is also bipolar wrote Touched By Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament and An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (bipolar disorder used to be known as manic depressive illness).

I was inspired to do Illustration Friday today because I received an email this morning from the editor of an-inflight magazine for a middle-eastern airline asking for permission to use my previous illustration for phobia in an article they’re publishing on phobias. The internet is sure amazing the way it connects people all over the world!