Where have all the book illustrators gone?

Independent Review

The Independent recently published an article on 'where have all the illustrators gone?' The clip deals with the bicentenary of Dickens' birth and holds him at the core of the writing, but author Melanie Mcdonagh poses some interesting questions about contemporary illustrators in comparison to his age old classics;

'Why don't contemporary novels have illustrations as standard? Why are illustrators corralled into children's fiction? Are modern novelists just too precious to collaborate with artists? Is it the additional cost in an already tight budget? Are modern illustrators just not that good?'

It is true that more often than not illustrators illustrate children's books moreover than adults. The market for adult illustration still exists but it is often considered less stimulating for the artist as imagination is required less so. And, for what it’s worth, the adult fiction that I personally digest gives no need for illustration. Providing illustrations takes away, for me, the power of my own imagination. It is this mature imagination of the adult that provides images of their own whereas a child's less mature mind often needs that extra stimulation in the form of pictures. Children's fiction requires images to stimulate the child's imagination and the story gives more opportunity for the artist to convey their own imagination on the given subject i.e. both parties gain. Contemporary adult fiction can often be dry or the subject matter, for illustration purposes especially, can be monotonous or repetitive resulting in limited outcomes for similar story lines. There is then a clear divide between adult and child literature where images are prevalent in the latter but not the former, which is a definite reversal of times gone by. Images are seen as something which people grow out of with age, considered more for this ‘immature’ mind and mentality, where children cannot imagine or picture text as clearly as adults.

Of course money is a big issue, certainly in such uncertain economic times. If a novel can escape having to pay additional costs such as an illustrator then of course this will mean a bigger profit and businesses are predominantly centred on that, the highest profit margin. So in response to the question that Melanie poses, modern illustrators are still good but unfortunately they require the wage to match, but in the world of dog eat dog business, if a company can wriggle out of commissioning an extra contract to save money they will. So is it a case of where have all the illustrators gone? Or a case of where have all the commissions gone?

Quentin Blake and Roald Dahl are probably one of the most renowned marriages of illustration and fiction and have stood the tests of time with millions of copies of the classics still being purchased today. Blake goes on to say ‘You don't always want to see what the protagonist looks like. Are you drawing surroundings, atmosphere, furniture?’ It is true that even in other illustration arenas such as editorials, it is key not to be overly literal because that can get very boring very quickly.

The Independent’s article I commented on can be found here: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/where-have-all-the-book-illustrators-gone-6291792.html accessed 04/02/2012

Totem Research

'A totem is a stipulated ancestor of a group of people, such as a family, clan, group, lineage or tribe' (Wikipedia)

'Each person has nine animal essences or totems that walk through life with them, teaching and guiding them and in some cases, protecting them' (Linsdomain.com/totems)

The totem that I propose to make would be a family or group of temptation elements found within the Grimm's fairy-tales. If I could find nine elements to utilise this will fit nicely with the second piece of research I found from linsdomain.com. The preliminary totem I have produced so far has six elements and so a further three elements would need to be found and produced.

I have found in other research that many of the fairy-tales do have a teaching and guiding theme as well as protection. For example the apple in Snow White teaches children to do as they are told and listen to worthy advice but she is protected by the seven dwarves, the wolf in Little Red Cap teaches children to stay away from potential danger and the radish in Rapunzel teaches children the consequences of stealing.

The temptation elements I have used so far are; the Apple from Snow White, the Spindle from Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty), the Dove from Hansel and Grethel, the Radish from Rapunzel, the Frog from the Frog Prince and the Wolf from Little Red Cap. I have found further temptation elements in the Key from the Woodcutter's Child and the Mouse from Cat and Mouse in Partnership. I still need then a further temptation element to secure my nine elements to produce a totem.

The black and white drawing above is my preliminary totem made out of my original six elements, the further two will need to be added to make it more representative and a further elements will need to be found and added.

Temptation

So, I’ve decided that my Final Major Project requires an underpinning theme and theory to tie all three aspects together; the book covers re-design the puppets and costume. In my proposal I highlighted that I would be selecting one of the Grimm’s fairy-tales after I have finished the book cover re-design for Puffin which will link the two final aspects together, however, it would be nice to see a theme running through all three evidencing that they all follow on in succession rather than having three disjointed outcomes.

After researching the fairy-tales for just over a week I have noticed that there are some key themes running through many if not all of the stories. Themes such as greed and jealousy rear their ugly heads often and provide a good base for my underpinning theme but I’m struggling with how I would portray this in my final design. Instead, I have chosen to work with temptation. Temptation, unlike some of the other themes which I have highlighted, is not one of the seven deadly sins although it many ways it can be compared to lust; the emotional force which is associated with thinking about one’s desire and as seen in Snow White when she takes the apple from her wicked step-mother in disguise, the temptation of the apple leads to the lusting after it and thus eventually caving to this desire and taking a bite despite the dwarfs multiple warnings. Although I do think that researching the seven deadly sins could have a positive impact on my overall understanding of the stories.

Temptation then, is an act which looks appealing to an individual but which often has negative connotations and usually leads to negative emotions such as guilt and regret. I have found this underpinning theme in Rapunzel; where her mother was tempted by the radishes which grew in the witch’s garden but in return for the radishes the witch wanted their first child (Rapunzel), in Snow White; where Snow White was tempted by the lace which her wicked step-mother used to lace up her bodice much too tightly and resulted in her collapsing, the comb and the apple, in Little Red Cap; where the Little Red Cap is tempted by the wolf and in the original version strips for him and climbs in bed to be by his side and in the Golden Bird; where Dummling was tempted by other obstacles than what he should have been focusing on the complete his challenge amongst many others.

In discovering my underpinning theme, my critical theory can also now be established. I will be looking at Carl Jung, Lucian Freud and other psychoanalytical founders and their thoughts on fairy-tales, in particular the temptation aspects contained within. I will be looking more broadly at fairy-tales in addition to gain a better perspective and understanding of them as the institution which they now appear to have become and at Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Into The Woods’ production. To inform me with my puppet making I will be investigating Picasso’s theatre, Klee’s puppets and Hockney’s theatre, this in turn will also impact my research for costume design. Also, it would be interesting to look at how these lessons impact children when translated through fairy-tales.

My idea for the book cover re-design entry is to compose elements from the different fairy-tales and combine them in a totem pole. I have chosen the idea of the totem as it is a representation of a family and can then be manipulated to show the idea of a family of temptation that has enticed our main characters on their travels. It will be this underpinning temptation that will mesh the different elements together, in this it will be key to show how these elements are related (in their portrayal of temptation).

I need to keep in mind the lessons that I have learned from last semester too, with colour application, typography and integration of both the image and type seamlessly. If I can keep all of this in perspective then I think my chances of having a strong winning outcome will be exceptionally higher.

Final Major Project

Today I submitted my final, final, final plans for my final major project. This will last approximately eighteen weeks (including the two weeks for Easter break).

My proposal is as follows:

Title:

'An exploration of the fairy-tales of the Brothers Grimm with particular reference to the stories' underlying themes'

Proposal:

'I intend to produce a book cover to enter into the Puffin children's prize competition in relation to the fairy-tales of the Brothers Grimm. I would like to use my cover to illustrate the underlying themes which span across many stories which will not make my work overly literal of any one story. After this I will choose one of the stories to focus on where I will produce puppets to film a short play. Alongside this I will look at designing costumes for this chosen story as though it were being translated into a play. These costumes will not be visual representations but will also reference underlying themes'

You:

'This proposal links to my graduation ambitions as it is aimed at a child friendly audience. After graduation I aim to secure a place on a primary PGCE or TESOL. If I were to continue in the illustration sector however, I would want to illustrate for a child audience/market as I enjoy the interaction and communication with younger children (primarily ages 6-8)'

Research:

'As I am interested in the underlying themes of the fairy-tales such as greed or jealousy etc. I will be looking at fairy-tales from a psych-analytical perspective. In this, I will be looking at Freud, Jung and Bruno Bettelheim's 'The uses of Enchantment'. Additionally, I will be researching the different forms a puppet can take and which form would best describe my underlying theme/s'

Context:

'My audience will primarily by children. It is for this reason that my work must by carefully executed as it may be an adult who purchases the final outcome for the child'

Deliverables:

'A body of work showing experimentation with individual elements from a variety of the fairy-tales. A completed re-design of the Brothers Grimm cover for Puffin. A body of work exploring puppets and their different forms. A complete set of puppets for one of the fairy-tales and a short video clip of the fairy-tales being acted out. A body of work exploring costume design and how this can be manipulated to best describe the underlying themes. At least one completed costume'

This all sounds very well and good. I think that my aims are ambitious but still realistic... let us hope so, fingers crossed!

Self analysis & critical reflection - project 3

Little White Lies Competition Project

Self-analysis and critical reflection

My initial ideas for this project were to combine the main character portrait (Gary Oldman) with spy themes such as mazes, codes and puzzles. I researched jigsaws, board games and typefaces that would be appropriate for the subject matter and incorporate these themes. In this project I wanted the three things I struggled with in the first project to come together; the colour, the type and the overall composition. In tying these elements together seamlessly I would generate a strong piece of work that was all on one layer and would need very limited tweaking via the use of Photoshop. By embroidering the image onto fabric and turning it into a cushion I have achieved these three things, the colour has been carefully considered and is appropriate for the era, the type has been fully integrated into the composition by being stitched and the composition is all on one layer. I have mixed the title of the film up to make it a mini puzzle trying to find the words and link them together.

I have researched type in accordance with my personal thoughts on my failings on the last project. On my portraits of Gary Oldman the type is hand rendered and integrated fully into the image rather than worked on top of. I haven’t worked like this before with the integration of type within the image itself but the result is far superior to an additional layer on top and is definitely a process which I will utilise in future projects. It has also aided my desire for limited use of software. Although my initial attempts at hand rendered type failed as they were illegible, given more time I could develop these to transform the idea from my head into a reality.

Again I have painted onto a board, but I have also used stitch onto mustard material and collaged onto a board in a similar method to Ian Wright who was highlighted to me in a group crit. I decided that the subject matter being a spy film, trying to disguise the main character would be entirely appropriate. However, I didn’t want to make him totally unrecognisable as the archive of Little White Lies previous magazine covers have all been recognisable main characters. Integrating alternative processes along side wet media still gives me the chance to experiment and explore other options whilst still keeping the outcome mine. The wet media I found is quite limiting as it didn’t really resonate with the Little White Lies audience.

I have spent time again considering my palette, as the film was set in the 1970’s I have decided on brown, beige and mustard tones. The contrasting white collaged board gives an air of office work to parallel the work undertaken in the ‘circus’. All my outcomes on this project have been on the one layer which has made the work look much more authentic but doesn’t give the same amount of flexibility as working on separate layers would offer.

To make this project outcome even better, which I intent to work on next semester before the competition deadline, would be to photograph the cushion with a 1970’s camera to give the true gritty quality that would come from the era. Also, I need to be very selective about which particular elements I use for my set, I cannot use just any ashtray or any sideboard, and they have to be the perfect pieces. Additionally, I like the idea of pasting my image of Gary onto some wood to make a jigsaw out of his face again using this theme of puzzles. When cutting the wood into its pieces I would like to use the type Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy to fit them together.

I have noticed that through all of these projects this semester I have had some very good ideas, but rather than following just one through and developing it to its full potential I flit from one to the other. During the course of next semester I intend to sketch out all my ideas initially and then take just one that I think has the most mileage and develop it thoroughly to explore its true full potential. Not only will the outcome and body of sketchbook work be much richer and better quality through research but it will give me the opportunity to really dig deep into a project and earn those much needed marks from the learning outcomes.

Self analysis & critical reflection - project 2

Manchester Museum Project

Self-analysis and critical reflection

At first I struggled with this project. I changed my process from the last project which in itself was a mistake as I knew that the original process worked really well and produced some fantastic outcomes. Instead of the initial painting of characters I started to paint washes similar to Eric Carle’s style and cutting out the shapes to layer up with each other to create compositions. The aim was to produce children’s fact book 10-12 pages long. I struggled with type and how to make it stand out from the remainder of the image and the images themselves were weak in comparison to the work I have produced for the previous project. After deliberating for a few weeks, which on its own was too long, I decided to return to the process I used on the previous project. I have a problem working with black which is the realistic colour of a scarab so I concentrated on the jewellery aspect of the insect instead, giving me more scope to work with other colours. By doing this I have turned the project into ‘my’ project, it reflects me and I have proudly and independently found a solution to fix my struggles. My jewelled amulet now faces a new challenge though, as this project requires me to produce an A2 poster aimed at children I need to highlight that the main image is in fact an amulet and not the actual thing and is only a representation.

From the last project I have assessed that colour is an issue which needs addressing, therefore my first element of research was colour palettes. I created a mood board in accordance with the subject matter and so it needed to be appropriate. After debating which colours would be appropriate (which took a while, as you can see through the development of the work) I ended up choosing royal colours to symbolise the jewellery I was trying to represent; gold, topaz and emerald. These main colours are accompanied by spot use of red. I think that the colours work well together and harmoniously on the muted plain background. After trying the image on white, I decided that the dark grey was much more complementary to the use of colour in the title and main image. The facts ended up being white as it was the only colour that showed up well on such a dark background.

The type on the poster is again the generic Myriad Pro Photoshop default type face and doesn’t look as sophisticated as it could. I need to research type more for my next project as I think it is the one element that lets the poster down if anything. I understand that with the target audience being children it needs to be easily read but the generalness of the type is quite crude and ugly. Of course Comic Sans would have been even worse. I did attempt to hand render some type and the title of the poster however, is hand painted and matches the main feature well which I like.

I have tried to keep the tactile quality that my painted characters had in the last project and I think that I have succeeded on this front. The number of layers of paint which makes up the finished outcome essentially leads to this result.

During the course of the next project I will aim to integrate any type fully into the image rather than it being an afterthought and put on a separate layer on top. Sometimes, as seen in this and the last project this layering especially with type can look unfinished and an afterthought rather than thought of as the image as a whole. I will concentrate on use of colour again by creating another mood board as this has worked well for this project; the board gives me a reference point and inspiration. I will try to incorporate stitch instead of continuing with acrylic as I think it has more scope to be developed and explored. Additionally, stitched work has no boundaries or limits I can reach all audiences without having to change style if I utilise this process. As I have found with wet media it tends to be limited to a mainly child orientated audience and I need a process that can work well on all levels.

To make this particular project better I could have experimented with the type by hand rendering it in line with the title. Additionally, the dark background looks ugly; being a flat colour the lines start to appear from where the printer has brushed across the paper, so adding texture here could be useful. Again with the image being an amulet it would be useful for a younger audience to have an actual representation of the arthropod too, although the scarabs will be available to view on the day of the event. Creating additional dimensions for the project such as a short animation or paper model would show that the image can work across many platforms and has strength in all fields.

Self analysis & critical reflection - project 1

Personal Project

Self-analysis and critical reflection

Initially, my personal project was going to be an exploration purely based on process spurred on late last year by Jo’s encouragement for me to find ‘me’. Over the summer I started to experiment with dyes and fabrics and saw the different outcomes I could achieve according to the different processes and techniques I applied. As much as I loved experimenting with these materials and stitch the project had no backbone and no final goal; it has been a steep learning curve but I am starting to discover that I need a very tight prescriptive brief to stick to which will allow a specific outcome and a goal for me to aim for. You can see the start of my original personal project with the work handed in to be assessed; I thought that it would be necessary to include it as it shows my development over the summer months and through the first half of September.

When we were given our first brief after the summer holidays I committed myself 100% and the result was really encouraging. I enjoyed producing the work so much and I could see this final outcome that needed to be achieved. This is why I eventually made the decision to switch the project that I had started over the summer to the Helping Uganda Schools Christmas story book which I then went on to present in a PowerPoint presentation a few weeks after. I have had my work professionally printed for this project and I feel that the majority of it looks great. You can most certainly tell which pages were rushed, these have been highlighted in the book with post-its which I hope to work further on over the Christmas period, but I did know at the beginning of the brief that completing all the pages for the deadline was going to be extremely demanding. Overall, I am proud of the finished piece as I finally have some work which I am really confident with, enough so as to present to prospective clients and employers in my portfolio.

Colour has been a major issue in this first project and one which will need addressing over the next project to eliminate the ‘zaney’ quality from reappearing. I think that I have been producing individual elements and thinking of their colour individually too rather than the individual elements together making up the whole composition. In future projects it will be vital to limit my palette and stick to those colours for all elements in order for the end composition to feel united.

It was encouraging to receive such kind and encouraging support from Denise Ead the Helping Uganda Schools project manager; in particular she liked the tactile quality of my work. I seem to prefer working with wet media such as paint and drawing inks and I intend to carry this forward as it appears to be working well for me. This tactile quality that is evident in my work is obviously a positive one with Pete Adlington and Ben Jones also commenting on this feature and thus I intend to try can carry this forward too.

Helen Taylor at Taylor O’Brien brought the type on the work to my attention as she didn’t think that it offered anything extra to the images. I used a default Photoshop font Myriad Pro and type is often something that I shy away from although I understand that originally type too was a means of illustration. I could try to hand render the type for future projects but for now I’ve taken all type off these images for adding to my portfolio.

Of course, in the original personal project work, there are some very interesting thoughts and ideas emerging and threads that could possibly form the basis of my final major project next semester. My subject matter was DNA and this provided the ideal opportunity for me to work with pattern which I haven’t really experimented with or explored before.

Over the next project I will pay particular attention to colour with a view to researching appropriate colour palettes. Although as a rule illustrators don’t use mood boards, I think that it may help to achieve the appropriate outcome as I did struggle with colour on this project. Using wet media gave me an outcome that I really like and one which I think is aesthetically pleasing and so I will continue to use acrylic. I will also address the issue of type should it raise its head and try to hand render it where possible and appropriate.