So far, in my Book and Illustration series, I have talked about illustrated fiction. For that matter, most of my blog is about how various kinds of images stimulate visualizations for creative writing. But art plays a big role in the page design and impact of non-fiction, too. Right now, I'm reading The Continent of Antarctica by Julian Dowdeswell and Michael Hambrey, which is heavily illustrated with page after page of stunning photographs. Yet here and there, Edward Adrian Wilson's watercolors are reproduced also. Besides being of historic interest, they add a different texture and subjective beauty to layouts. In this picture of a leopard seal chasing penguins (which appears between two photographs on p. 176), the sweep of the artist's lines introduce a sense of motion and felt immediacy.
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