Assignment 5 Seven days – Part 1

To start this assignment I will be trying to record what has been happening and recent things around me? I am going to use the seven days of my holiday starting with one days preparation and the six days of the holiday. For the random days I am thinking about how I tried to change my job few months ago. I can do how did I join the new job and things/ people around me.

Brief: Seven days

1. The seven days of the week or random days that tell a story.
2. Produce seven separate, one large diagrammatic or a continuous strip illustration.
3. Objective or subjective.
4. Decide on the media and methods I will use.
5. The context – magazine, newspaper, book, brochure or poster.
6. The intended audience.

Starting a new job gives me lots of pressure and jitters. But  it’s exciting to learn and see new things. I am trying to record what of my feeling from my starting. I have made a brainstorm board and spider diagram.

Then I have done some research which was reading about other people talking about their new jobs. Some are experiences are similar to mine and some are different..

Your First Days Working at a New Job: 20 Tips to Help You Make a Great Impression

After this I searched some illustrators’ works to inspire me how to imagine/convey the emotional effects.

I found a very interesting website of illustrations. I really like two of the images which are “Learn from failure” and “Stress and pressure in job interview”.

http://magoz.is/

Thinking about my style. Starting from my first exercise (the cross of 2014) to my last exercise (the ballerina) I feel I need to change the style of my illustrations. I need to learn to draw in a more abstract style to convey my images and not just draw simply line drawings.

So in this assignment I am trying to change the way I am expressing the emotions.

Educational strip(Exercise)

I have been asked to produce an illustration strip for use in schools explaining to young teenagers how to cope with the onset of puberty. It up to five frames and the client would like to see a single illustration on the front cover. I should use metaphor and humour when conveying the message through but not to trivialise a serious message.

I started of reaching some physical changes from website. Then made a brainstorming to help me to create my leaflet.

Step 1  An average girl 9 years old, ballerina dress and starting learning ballet. Not expecting the changes to come.

Step 2 The puberty has started, everything is strange and this girl is feeling a bit shy. Changes have started.

Step 3 Breasts growing more, underarm hair growing more, pubic hair growing more and acne more on face.

Step 4 Everything still growing more and more. It’s all going mad.

Step 5 Everything’s ok! Puberty is a beautiful thing!

So my idea is going to draw a ballerina growing up with puberty.

I am going to practice my leaflet. First stage I have drawn an ballerina’s growing up with a black fineliner pen. Size 42cm*16.3cm

I have realised that the final pose of the ballerina would look better if she raised her head but I am still working on it.I am going to add the emoticons  to the background to show the changes of puberty. Then I am going to add the background and puberty things on the images.

The background form light pink going to dark pink. I used some green flower petals to mentions the main body’s change when girls are in puberty.

Next I am going to add the words by photoshop on this leaflet.

Overall I am happy with my thoughts but the character is without too much detail so it feels a little over complicated.  My original idea was with simple lines for the character but the ballerina came out with more and more detail. I used the green flowers as a collage onto the pink paper. Perhaps the theme of this leaflet is not immediately obvious. Maybe the audiences can’t see the theme straight away.

I don’t know why at the bottom of the leaflet the colours are not evenly distributed maybe because I rubbed on the soft pastel with my fingers.

 

Working for children(Exercise)

Collect as many examples of imagery for children as possible. Group the illustrations I’ve collected into the target age groups.

Pre-reader

My first word book by Joy Wotton, Jenny Tulip

My first touch and feel words book/Jojo’s frist word book by Xavier Deneux

My first book of animals/Alphabet by Alain Gree

These books have adorable characters and are showing the babies starting to learn the basics of life.

Pre-school (3-5)

Where the wild things are by Maurice Sendak

This story grew up in the 70’s and most people say it is suitable for all ages. But I think it is best for pre-school(3-5).  It’s a truly dreamlike story to read to children.

The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child By Author Julia Donaldson , Illustrated by Axel Scheffler

These are suitable to read to children 3-5 years. They are fantastic stories. These books have  very appealing characters in exuberant colour and lots of wisdom.

Early reader (5-7)

Many Moons written by James Thurber and illustrated by Louis Slobodkin

I like this story in clever way with vibrant colourful pictures.

Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, Mary Azarian

I like the illustrator used the exuberant colour-saturated blue and white background to match the colourful characters and building etc.

Established reader (7-9)

Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by  Simms Taback

It’s another exuberant colour-saturated book.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

My husband and I watched this film in the cinema. The recommend said for age 7-9 but I think it is quite good for adults as well.

Rapunzel by Paul O. Zelinsky

This illustration book with traditional elements in it.

Older age groups

Tintin by Georges Remi

This series of illustration books is my husband’s favourite one. He has got a big pack as collection.

I am going to practice Pre-reader and pre-school(3-5) through the words growing and family. I have chosen the animals kangaroos and birds.

So my brainstorming

And also some sketches to find out some themes with brainstorm.

I think the age 0-2 years old children just started learning basic things so “touch” is the theme of things to give an early connection to.

My pre-reader idea is from mummy and baby clues, because this age is just starting to learn perception. My original idea was to use some fur fabric material (fur or fleece) as a collage to create a part of the kangaroo’s body. Then my illustration can show the 0-2 years old what the animal’s skin is like. But I couldn’t find any of the fabric that was correct for what I wanted to show. Finally I decided use a flowers’ pattern for mummy kangaroo’s pouch. The soft fabric would be just like the baby’s blanket. My illustration shows the baby kangaroo is being spoiled by its mummy, I tried to make them both seem happy and content. I just showed the babies in the world what they like when they were this age. The kindly mummy’s face and one hand is with milk then other one is holding the baby’s hand.

I have used fineliner pens and soft pastels mixed up for this image. I was enjoying working with the new material which I have not used for a while maybe since my childhood. I didn’t scan it because I felt the colours would come off the paper if I put it in the scanner. So next I need to acquire some more skill with using pastel and see how to make the colour correctly stay on the paper. Then I used the photoshop to adjust its brightness and contrast for my final image.

A couple of days ago I was in the kitchen and saw a bird was picking up some dries weeds and branches from my garden. It was picking more and more until couldn’t get any more for its beak and fell out a bit. Then it was very hard to fly back on the tree.

I have been inspired by this. So a story came out from my mind.

It’s a family story for children. I think it suitable for age 3-5 years.

I have drawing the image but I didn’t give any text apart the staves from the little pink baby bird. I may write down a couple of words about the story and put on the pictures.

For my illustrations I used the ‘tough’ faction which is let the baby touch the pouch and to learn basic like things are like mummy’s love and baby’s blanket. My second illustration the children need to learn fly/walk and sing just like the little birds.

I used the bright colours for all the images but some areas have been mixed to dark brown giving a darker effect was because the pastels were smudged by my hands. I should not draw the branches of trees so thick and luxurious because simple and clear pictures will have made the birds emerge.