patterned birds + ideas

Here are some little paper birds that I made today. I like using different found papers and patterns for each part of the bird. I could push these further by adding more detail.. or even making little 3d birds. I want to use pattern within my images, because I think they can really lift an image, and make it more interesting if used correctly. I was thinking of looking at some folk art, and the patterns that are used within it. Also, this might be useful for looking at colour schemes, because folk art images normally have a very distinctive colour scheme. I would like to use a limite colour scheme within the illustations, so have been trying to look at combinations that have worked successfully together in the past. I need to think about what feel I want to book to have, as the colour scheme will be a big part of how it feels.


oh here, i did some quick ideas of children dressed as the characters. Im not sure how well this would work with young children readers because they might not understand the concept, so I think I will leave this.

birds and eyes shut drawing

Just some drawings to get going. The main character in my story is a bird, hence lots of bird drawings. The other characters are some woodland animals - fox, deer, rabbit..


I have also been doing some drawing to loosen up my drawing style, so Ive been drawing without looking at the page, which results in some strange results, but I find it frees up my drawing because I cant worry about what it is looking like. I actually quite like a few of the results, (some i like less!)

Storyboard

This is the storyboard I have drawn out to give an idea of the story, format, and how each page will look. Obviously it will develop as I develop the characters and style.

Childrens Illustration Research - Karen Runge

Karen Runge uses a mix of painterly backgrounds and dainty characters with pieces of pasted on paper. It is refreshing to see bits of collage being used with more traditional media.

Childrens Illustration Research - Morteza Zahedi

Morteza Zahedi
I think there is something intriguing about Morteza Zahedi's work, its quite bizarre in the use of strnage characters and little patterns, I really like it! I like the use of the cut and pasted bits of paper which are then drawn over. The layouts of the pages are really different from traditional or usual page layouts for childrens (or any) books, but I think thats part of what makes the illustrations interesting and different to look at. I think I could use this as inspiration to play around with maybe more unusual layout designs for my pages.
SEE MORE HERE

Childrens Illustration Research - Emily Gravett

Emily GravettEmily Gravett uses a mixed media style of loose ink drawings, cut/ripped paper and other found photos/papers. I like this style because it creates an interactiveness, the reader can feel all the rough edges and lift up flaps of paper which have been left unstuck, and she even invites the reader of this book to write and draw on the pages to add their own feelings of fears. I like that, because the book then becomes more personal to each reader.
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drawing

I have been writing my own stories, I have two possible stories that I could illustrate. I found that looking for an existing story was quite difficult, because alot of the folk tales are really quite wierd, too wierd for children, and some just dont inspire me. I thought that I would try writing my own story to give me another option, and I think that these two stories are strong options. I need to just tweak them and then I will post them up and decide. In the mean time I have started drawing. I felt like I wanted to get going with the project, so even though I havent got a definate story yet, I wanted to start getting some sketches down and some drawing ideas.
heres a few of the sketches. more to come. i apologise for the dodgy quality.

stories + research

This week I am trying to decide on a story to illustrate for this project. I did have my own story loosly planned out, but don't know if it will be strong enough, so I am researching folk tales and fairy tales at the moment. There are so many great stories out there, how am I going to chose?

I need to chose a story that hasn't been done loads before, and then make it my own, illustrate it in a way that no one has illustrated it before. Then it will hopefully stand out from the crowd.

I am hoping to enter this book for the macmillian childrens book competition.

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly...
Here is a version of ' there was an old lady who swallowed a fly' illustrated by Jeremy Holmes. Its so different from how it has been illustrated before. The book takes the shape of the old lady, and the story unfolds within the middle of her (her tummy!) I think it is an interesting and dark way of interpreting the story.

artist research : Stuart Kolakovic

Thought I would liven up this blog with some artist research, and it is an excuse to share some lovely things that I have found. First up is work by Stuart Kolakovic, who is brilliant. I love love love the colour schemes that run through his work.

EXTENDED MAJOR PROJECT

This is the learning log for my extended major project.

At the moment, I am unsure as to what to do for this project, but I know that I want to create something for children. A childrens book.

I think to start with I am just going to do some drawings, of whatever I feel I want to draw, and then I might be able to develop an idea from them. I need to draw more, so this is a good start.

We had our assessment for Negotiated Practice yesterday, and my tutors said that my images were strong and worked well together. They said that they liked my collage-y style of mixing different medias and elements together, but they wanted me to push this further.
I need to look at more childrens books, and see what they do right and what they do wrong, and then i can see how I can make my images better, and what I can do better than the existing books.
I already enjoy looking childrens books, so this will be a good task for me to do.