This exercise is to help me to edit an image to its main structural form to practice creating a clear visual.
My first illustration attempt from Dune
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/03/dune-50-years-on-science-fiction-novel-world
I do like its colours design, artistic conception and the spaces arrangement.

Sketch 1

I have drawn a draft which is 2.5 times larger than the original. After this quick draft I hope I can get the structural frame in my mind. I didn’t put any more details in it because I need to draw it again.
First attempt was to help me to know how many elements and their respective spaces.
As there are so many colours, blocks, beautiful curved lines, flowing shapes and perspective space. How can I use the form of a line to describe it? I am going to try with a pencil but also use a rubber to remove my incorrect lines.
Sketch 2

What I have done here I think is to make the front/main elements darker but I still can’t express the sense of visual space. Is there any way without drawing all the colours, instead using a single colour to put in all the elements? I was thinking about using a paper silhouette.

Well this is rough draft because the real silhouette skill I won’t learn all the process in a few days. I think about the fact that I still copy the center man with black colour, I am not sure of another way to do this.
My second illustration is from Alice in Wonderland.

There are four facial characters in this one which is difficult but I like their features so I am going to except the challenge of using it.
Sketch 1 this is help me to know the original one’s form of expression maybe I followed too much from it.

Sketch 2 try to get rid of the traditional expression and simplify it.

I will come back in a few days and take another look and evaluate of them.

I found these examples about art direction online these gave me some insight in to how the pictures were put together. In my example of the Dune illustration all the parts are working together to form a greater whole. When I separated them out and removed the colour I could see s simplified version of the whole thing. In my opinion this is the basis of art direction putting the parts together to make the final picture greater than just the sum of its parts.

Reference:
http://alistapart.com/article/art-direction-and-design