Brainstorming

The brief was encounters, experiences and meetings and I decided to focus on the meetings side of the brief thinking about two groups of people meeting for the first but one idea began to stick in my head more than the others, this was to follow someone and their experiences and who they encounter. I then focussed on the actual story line and what the character will do throughout the book. 

Anything and Everything

I collected images of childrens books and looked to see what was good about them and the different techniques that they used to see if I could apply it the my final piece. I also looked to see how the text and the images worked well off each other combined with the colour palette, can give the overall affect of the book.

Paraphernalia

Drawings, Roughs and Thumbnails

Here are some drawing I have done focusing on what my final character design will be but also taking into consideration how characters in children books are commonly drawn with over sized heads compared to their bodies. I have refined my style of drawing by taking the shape of the head and starting with a basic circle with no detail apart from eyes, nose, mouth and ears, I then took this basis and added more detail such as hair and clothing to give the characters differentiation and definition. I also focused on created scenes that could feature in the final piece with the scenes being where he meets other characters in the book.

Flat Plans

Here are two flat plans I have done to get a better understanding of how a book is made and how it is laid out, I created one for a book a chose called Billy's Beetle and I then applied my own book in the same way using double page spreads and end pages in it.

Storyline

Here I am planning what the storyline line will be and the progress the character will take though out the book.

This is a story board before I had decided on my definate storyline and what will happen at the beginning, middle and end.

This is now the story board once I decided on the story ... with the character waking up and finding teddy missing and has to go out and find him asking people if they have seen him along the way.

Case Study - Oliver Jeffers

Here is a scene taken from my final piece which has been done in the style of Oliver Jeffers.

Here are some artists copies I have done taken from the book he created called Lost and Found.

Case Study - John Lawrence

Here is my artist copy of an illustration done by John Lawrence. I created it by using lino to carve out the drawing, then to cut out each individual section of the drawing separating each colour. After this I then printing them and created the background by scratching into paint with a knife, once I had made each section I scanned them in and put them together on photoshop adding some effects to it there.

JOHN LAWRENCE CASE STUDY


What drew my attention was the unique technique of the background; contrasting colours making certain bits stand out and the distinctive style of the picture, creating a powerful memorable image. The image looks like an old fashioned drawing of plants especially the black and white prints. It makes you feel intrigued about what the parts of the picture are and how it is made.   What I like about it is the technique and complexity of making it stand out especially with the use of colour and bold outline. The part I dislike is how the writing style stands out as being very simple compared to the rest of the picture. 


The piece has been done for a children's book for Martin Waddell called Tiny's Big Adventure. It includes the scene of a mouse jumping through some plants. The overarching theme of this book is that you can be timid but someone can show you how big and wonderful the world outside can be. The protagonist of the image is the mouse flying through the plants on the front cover. The contextual matters that have influenced this work are that the book wanted a really handmade, old fashioned style of work that suited the overall style of the book, with very little alteration from computers making it have a more natural and intimate feel. Similar works include that of John McNought who also uses lino. The audience that it is aimed at are the parents that will buy the book but also the children that will have to like it once they have it. 


The colour palette uses very complimentary colours with there being subjective colour as the grass is blue, however this then makes the orange stand out even more. The image has no depth giving you no concept to how different parts of the piece are sized. Lino was used to give the idea of texture and definition. This picture is made to look like it was done by chance but is very controlled by the way it is cut out not perfectly and the varying sizes of the lines. The evidence of the hand that made it is the wash and the cutting out of the flowers as well as the scratchy texture of the background. The composition in the picture is that leading lines and framing draws your eyes to the main character as well as it having no background making it stand out more creating a hierarchy to the image. In the picture the orange of the flowers is juxtaposed to the blue lines, as well as the text being juxtaposed against the background. Also the colours have a high saturation on the cover.


The process includes a background which has been scratched with sandpaper. The lino of the grass and plants has been printed on top of that, however, the prints of the flowers have been done separately and stuck on later. There is also a watercolour wash within the leaves of the plant. Skills the artist needs are patience and imagination to create the lino print as well as being able to think outside the box with colour schemes. Within the piece you can see the cutting marks from the printing technique and the brush marks in the wash from the watercolour. 

Case Study - Scott C

This is my artist copy of a piece done by Scott C taken from his book Amazing Everything.

This is my artist emulation taking my character and his bear from my final piece and creating a scene using the same technique as Scott C.

Here are some other little artists copies of his work also taken from the book Amazing Everything.

Experiments

In this experiment it involved having seperate sheets of paper for the water colour background and detail and another sheet for the inky detail which I then combined on the computer changing the line colour to make certain areas of the page stand out. The risks I took was using water colour and  possibly using it in my final piece as water colour is not my strongest skill but works the best in this type of experiment. The limitations to this is getting the two separate sheets of paper to line up perfectly and getting the inky lines to flow and run smoothly especially in the circles. 

This is planning out the areas that will be certain colours to see if they will work together and still looks balanced.

This experiment is a screenprint of a possible book cover design, focusing on three main colours to be printed. This piece is influenced by Oliver Jeffers work as I have taken his idea of drawing very simple basic character but changing them to fit into the type of story I have created. From looking at his work I have learnt a valuable technique of how to draw people which I could never before.

This experiment is a monoprint of a scene from my childrens book, which I then put into photoshop and added colour over the top.