As I stated
in my first post on October 19th 2017, my line of enquiry and
research would be based less in my illustration practise and more in literary theory,
art theory, picturebook theory, and idea generation. I boarded a lot of ideas
down, some like poetry, some that would be better suited to a comic or film,
some that failed to have the impact I was looking for, and lots of small pieces
that sort of ended up in a way working together to make the dummy version I
have now. When I look back over it all as one body of work I can see how there
is a thread in each experiment that links it to the next and no matter how
different the story ideas are, they were all trying to get at the same thing; How
to use the format to tell the story? And how to make the text carry only part
of the information to encourage the reader to look to the images to find the
rest of the story for themselves.
My plan for semester two:
My plan for
semester two is to take all of the research I have done, including what I have
learned from writing my essay, and my experiments with story and carry it forward
into the development of my first authored/illustrated picturebook. The dummy
books I have made are coming close to where I want them to be, but are still in
the process of revision. Really what needs attention now is the development of
the artwork. This is what will be my focus in semester two. I have done some experimentation
with hand drawn material in semester one – but I want to take this much further
in semester two. Up until now the majority of my work has been done digitally,
and I think one of the most logical steps in pushing that work forward would
come from hand drawn experimentation. In the end, I might still choose to
composite or colour or experiment with the images digitally, but for the
initial stages of development I am going to do as much as I can on paper.
Over the
mid-term break in March I am going to attend Bologna’s children’s book fair, it
is the biggest book fair in the world and will give me access to meetings with
the biggest international publishers in the world. It will be a great
opportunity to see first-hand the illustration work that will be being
published over the course of the next year, to spot trends, new developments,
and to get a sense of what there is too much of. I plan to bring my development
work, to meetings with publishers and sales reps to generate interest, make
connections and gather some feedback to help pinpoint any problem areas that
need further development. When I return I plan to take this feedback, and
experience and revisit the work.
