Picture Books Anonymous

2011-12-02T00:08:00.000-08:00

good idea katie!

Katie's things! (Not Tristram's)

2011-11-30T14:49:00.000-08:00

Above are some images I've been working on for my new story.

Its about hairy Harry and how he finds a monster in his wardrobe.

Its explained in a fairly brief page by page description in the video.

I did these in the opposite order than they appear.

Thanks!

Katie

I don't know why all of this is underlined, or how to stop it.

Here is a snippet of the mine scene!

2011-11-30T12:15:00.001-08:00

Cartoonimation

2011-11-30T09:08:00.000-08:00

Hi All, Here is a catch up of what i have been up to in the last week.

Basically it's an awful lot of drawing, water colouring and scanning.. There are lots of props and scenery pieces to create too, but i am happy with the consistency of it all.

badabing on a wacom!

2011-11-28T12:09:00.000-08:00

finished page (pop up still needs doing) just tried adding some handwritten text. I like the text centred at the top as it makes an impact but the text at the side will probably need to be smaller when its printed. And my handwritings a bit messy! OH and rubbish photo, need to use uni a3 scanner.

Oliver Jeffers at Offset Festival

2011-11-17T10:22:00.000-08:00

A video of my processsess

2011-11-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

Today i made my end papers - and filmed the process! It was very fun to make :) I did print the green paper as well so might add that in at a later date.

Stop-frame animation of making picture book illustration from Jasmine Hortop on Vimeo.

Kevin Waldron

2011-10-17T13:43:00.000-07:00

Amazing picture book artist and author of

Mr Peek and the Misunderstanding at the Zoo

http://www.kevinwaldron.co.uk/

pop UP!

2011-09-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

RIGHT its been a tricky start, and what may seem simple may actually be extremely fiddly - but ive started my pop-up experimentation. I began just in white and have only recently moved on to colour, this was to concentrate purely on the shape and cut of the pop-ups, and to see what could be achieved through the simplicity of light and shadow. When moving on to colour I have kept it blocked - one baby step at a time! - but tried to introduce some of my own style through the colour and textures.

Some practice folds -

when working in white I've been looking at the work of David Pelham and his book 'Trail' as well as the series white picture books by Robert Sabuda. All pop-up books are first built in a similar way to a dummy book called a white dummy, working from a rough design and then building a white dummy concentrating first on the engineering of the pop-ups and then illustrating after.

In this book Pelham uses the cut of the paper, the engineering, and how it transpires with the light all to his advantage. Although it may look very complicated its all based on a series of simple folds (but gets very complicated when its all put together!) . It was really good to look at when beginning the project as I want to really feel comfortable with the engineering before I start incoroprating illustrations into them as well, but hopefully thats not far off :) I'm having fun introducing colour at the moment!

Velociraptor development for picture book

2011-09-04T09:32:00.000-07:00

I have chosen to focus on dinosaurs and move away from dragons. I will be producing illustrations for an information/category book on dinosaurs and I have decided to start with a species called velociraptor, made famous by the Jurassic park films. There are more drawings to come including some drawings of raptors in interesting positions and angles. The drawings so far I am happy with although they have all come out as darker images. This could be because I am using a mechanical pencil that I only have one shade for. The images are fairly consistent with each other but i feel detail is lost because of this.

Rough plan of things I could include

Drawn from the jurassic park film.

Fossil of foot print

Fossil of tooth

Raptor killing claw

Raptor egg fully developed

more detailed head of previous drawing

Velociraptor skull

my very first digital painting on photoshop

I will also be drawing diagrams of how the raptors kill their prey and also a diagram of their scale. These are just some drawings so far. I will need to think about the text to accompany the drawings and also layout for the book for example double page spreads. I will continue to draw and hopefully improve the quality as i progress.

nature centre!

2011-08-18T13:40:00.000-07:00

just thought id let everyone know incase anyone didnt.. for some animal reference drawing practice i advise everyone to go to the nature centre on pershore road! theres loads of animals and its only £3 for students... giant tortoises, a lynx, monkeys, porquepines, a red panda, loads of cool birds, lemurs, meerkats, as well as goats, bunnies and emus?! i only live about 4 minutes walk so have invested in a year season ticket for £30 so i can go hang with the animals all the tiiiime.

Dragon Concepts And Inspiration.

2011-08-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

Have been drawing reptiles as they have given me more inspiration towards the dragon picture book.

Looking in particular at eyes and skin/skin patterns. May now use this more realistic look and apply it to my dragon for the picture book. Once I have applied it I will start focusing on whats going on around the dragon, like the scenery and other things. I'm not happy with the style at the moment of the dragon scene i illustrated previously. If i want it to look realistic I need to refine my drawing but this will be hard work.

Dragon Concepts

These are my original sketches from before. It was here I was deciding wether to go more realistic or do my own take on the dragons skin and going for more of a simple pattern that iv'e used in previous work. so i'm just showing were I am at the moment, trying to get more realism into my drawings. i think this is one of the main things I have realised from doing this project and also the fact that i need to be drawing the bigger picture and not just focusing on one thing. I will be putting the drawings up of the scenes soon with a more realistic take on them. Any comments or advise on what i'm doing would help thanks.

Beauty and the beast

2011-07-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

Scene with Belle approaching castle.

Dragon with background

2011-06-20T08:07:00.000-07:00

I have attempted a background, trying to get the balance right so it doesn't all merge together. but may try

using pencil as well as just pen and try to get some grey tones in there. but i will photocopy and experiment. any feed back would be grand. for the next pieces i will include more characters interacting in a scene and see how that goes but this one is just the dragon and his castle.

This is it more detailed i may photocopy it and see what the trees look like black then the dragon

may stand out more. image is also slightly slanted because i had to take a photo, need an a3 scanner still looking at the moment.

Initial ideas...

2011-06-11T15:39:00.000-07:00

Initial ideas....

After researching into the story and the author i decided i wanted to go with making the characters more modern, putting them in more recogniseable clothes etc.

The Enchantress: disguised as homeless woman...

Beauty:

Pre-Beast:
Im still experimenting with characters, these are the best out of a bunch so far. Probably focus on the Beast for a while and other main characters... any feedback/advice would be appreciated :)

some inspiration

2011-06-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

Good to see a few sketches already posted up, I thought you could look at the following website, for a variety of visual styles, but especially in the way these illustrators sketch out ideas :)

http://twisted-genius.squarespace.com/

and especially:
http://twisted-genius.squarespace.com/journal/category/motivation-monday

Character drawing for Belle

2011-06-09T06:46:00.000-07:00

Decided to go for the traditional feel towards the story, Keeping a 1700's look.
Now im going to try to arrange the character into scenarios aswell as working on the other characters.

Characters so far.

2011-06-08T02:16:00.000-07:00

Not as much done as I'd hoped, found it hard to get into the project, but here's what I've got at the moment.

I've decided to go with having the Beast as a more humanoid animal rather than a mythical beast.

This drawing of the Prince was meant to be a starting point to give an idea of his appearance, I'm working on drawing more versions of him since this is quite flat but I won't be able to post them until I'm back in a week.

Haven't got many angles since I haven't got round to putting the characters more in situation, more colour will be added eventually. I've also got ideas for another few characters if they're needed in my development - but these four are my favourites to work on further at the minute.

Initial Beast Character drawings

2011-06-05T09:04:00.000-07:00

Looking at using a dragon as the beast, working on some other drawings with the dragon illustrated in a scene with beauty and also more 3d looking drawings, these are the first drawings any advice would be appreciated.

Beauty and The Beast.

2011-06-04T08:54:00.000-07:00

I've been reading the requirements for the entries, and I'm a bit stumped because it asks for two of the characters to be animals and one human, unless the fairytale has no animals in it - which depends on the version of Beauty and the Beast that's being retold as some of them don't have any important animal characters (apart from the Beast obviously).

Does anyone know which version we're illustrating? Or have any suggestions of how this can be solved?

Eric Carle

2011-05-12T08:34:00.000-07:00

Obviously we all know who Eric Carle is but did you all know he has a blog?! It's got some really interesting bits and pieces- I especially liked this post about the rejects he makes, the things that didn't make it into books: http://ericcarleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/rejects.html

Enjoy! x

Cheltenham awards extended!

2011-05-11T10:37:00.000-07:00

Ayup folks! So today was a nice day of finishing off the Cheltenham awards piece and then I found out, the deadline has now BEEN EXTENDED UNTIL 23RD!

Kind of dismayed to find I've been working my ass off and didn't need to put quite as much pressure on myself, but now I might well go back and explore some other ideas...maybe even submit two pieces DAYUM!

Just thought I'd share in case anyone was starting to panic!

http://www.cheltenham-illustration-awards.com/

Different fonts

2011-05-05T03:32:00.000-07:00

A couple of different fonts for my Rabbit story, I'm thinking of using the top one which is the same font as my Birds book.

Moustache cat

2011-03-29T13:24:00.000-07:00

Not at all related to anything, but heres a cat with a moustache...relaxing.

new story!

2011-03-28T11:04:00.000-07:00

Ive taken your advice chiu and decided to do a smaller side project to keep myself from getting too bogged down with the owl and the pussycat. As I've used a found story for my other book, I decided to try my hand at writing my own story this time. I quite like it! I'm not sure how many pages I will actually do to a finished state, or even how many pages it will be at this point! But here is the story..

Home, Sweet Home

Henry the hedghog was very lost. That morning he had left his mum to go sunbathe in his usual sunny spot, when suddenly he was picked up by something much bigger than him, and started travelling at much faster speeds than was normal for hedgehogs like Henry!

Henry rolled up into a little ball and hoped it would all be over soon.

But next… THUD… THUD THUD THUD THUD ….. BUMP!

At least that’s what he thought had happened..

‘Owwwww’ moaned Henry.

See, ever since that bump Henry couldn’t really remember … anything!

He couldn’t remember his way back home, and thinking about it, he couldn’t even remember what his home looked like!

Glumly he stumbled along wondering if he would ever see his brothers or sisters again, and after a couple of hours of hedgehog paced wandering, Henry hadn’t gotten any closer to finding them. He sat back and started to cry.

‘Oh what ever could be the matter?’ a big badger had come over – even bigger than whatever had picked him up that morning!

‘Well… I cant remember what my home looks like!’ he sniffed.

‘Oh dear..! How about you come see where I live, maybe it will ring some bells.’ Kindly said the badger, who led him down a hole, and down, and down, and down!

‘OH, I don’t think this is right. It’s much too dark, and way too big for me!’

Henry thanked the badger and carried on his journey.

Before long Henry got talking to a blackbird.

‘Maybe you live where I live! Come on, I’ll show you’ She took him in her claws up, and up, and up!

It was very spiky and..

‘OH I don’t think this is right. It’s much too high, I don’t like it at all!’

The blackbird gently put him back down on the ground, Henry thanked her and carried on his way.

Looking around him, Henry tried very hard to think of his home… He didn’t think it was high in a nest like the blackbird, but it seemed much too dark and underground in that burrow with the badger too.

‘You look lost’ said a caterpiller who had wriggled up beside Henry without him noticing ‘Can I help?’

Henry explained his bump, his memory loss, and how now he couldn’t find his way home. He felt himself begin to cry, but tried to be brave, and the caterpiller kindly offered to show Henry his home. Henry followed the caterpiller up and up the wobbly plant stalk, put one paw carefully on to the leaf ahead, then the other …..

THUMP!

‘OWW!'
' I think I’m a bit too big and heavy for where you live caterpiller! That can’t be right either’

Henry tried not to look too disappointed, thanked the caterpiller and stumbled on. It was beginning to get dark now, and it was Henry’s feeding time hours ago. He shuffled his way through the thick leaves , where suddenly it started to smell very familiar… He rummaged faster and faster until – ‘MUM!’

Henrys mum took him into a big hug and cried ‘Oh Henry! Where have you been!? I was so worried.’

‘Oh mum I made so many friends! There was a really nice badger, and a..’

Suddenly Henry wasn’t so unhappy anymore, looking around his den at all his brothers and sisters, he snuggled into his mum’s arms and told them all of his adventure, with the big bump, the badger, the blackbird, and the caterpiller, and how he eventually found his way home, sweet home.

Any thoughts?

Owl and Pussycat

2011-03-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

I actually did this a couple of weeks ago but have been extra-ordinarily busy and forgot to share, this is nottt a final. just a larger experiment to do with finishing techniques. it is heading in the direction i want though! more to come over the next week hopefully.... text placement looks a bit dodge to me, any suggestions with it anyone?

also - people who didnt go to london on tuesday, i took lots of photos some of which are on my blog www.jasminehortop.com feel free to steal!

Writers & Artists announces writing conference

2011-03-23T08:04:00.000-07:00

Just got an email from Writer's and Artists, thought it could be useful to some people? It is quite expensive though.

Writers & Artists announces writing conference

How do you submit your material? How do you attract an agent? How do you negotiate a deal?

Writers & Artists invites aspiring authors to attend a one-day event in central London, aimed specifically at answering your industry-related questions, providing expert advice on exactly how to get your book published. Attend a W&A Conference, and you're guaranteed to hear from and network with major publishers, national booksellers, senior agents, senior Commissioning Editors and your fellow writers.

The Insider Guide on How to Get Published
Saturday June 18th 2011
9.45am-4.30pm
WELLCOME COLLECTION
Euston, Central London

Early Bird Discount
Book by 18 April 2011 for £31 off the ticket price
(RRP £95 each)

Post-event, stay, mingle and enjoy a free tour of the Wellcome Galleries.

Find out more and book your ticket (http://www.writersandartists.co.uk/events-for-writers/how-to-get-published/)

small birds

2011-03-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

The colours didn't come out quite as they are in the actual piece, the background is more blue. Much easier to do a lighter wash as a background though.

slightly altered version...

2011-03-09T08:55:00.000-08:00

This is another version, I painted the sky on this one and I think it looks better than a sky layered on photoshop. The tree is cut out instead too so it's more like a collaged image.

First experiment with layering

2011-03-09T07:16:00.000-08:00

I tried to do a finished piece but with painting layers separately and putting the image together on photoshop. It was a lot easier to do the fiddly bits like the tree and the bird separately because you don't get the paint overlapping, and you don't have to leave space on the background layer. Also putting it together on photoshop gave the ability to move things around, initially the tree was smaller.

cheltenham-illustration-awards 2011

2011-02-22T10:36:00.000-08:00

http://www.cheltenham-illustration-awards.com/

really useful site

2011-02-18T13:50:00.000-08:00

Hey folks,

Found this site on my travels and it's got loads of good advice/info on contracts/publishes/promo packs and allsorts!

Really helpful stuff :) http://blog.illustrationcastle.com/illustrator-resources/

Howl and his Grandma.

2011-02-18T08:51:00.000-08:00

Here are some colour roughs for howl and his grandma and the first 2 double spreads of my book. :)

I'm aware Howl looks abit like a girl, I'm going to have a look into his character a little more soon and just iron it out :)

These are the ones I had clearest in my head, so the other colour roughs (that are not just watercolours) are coming along but a tad more slowly.

Any thoughts would be lovely.

lou xx

Liv bargman!

2011-02-01T12:55:00.000-08:00

some gorgeous stuff here, both in 3D & 2D - note how the drawings relate to Liv's ability to work three dimensional - the hand drawn text looks inspired from her cut-out text
lots more here

some great blog sites to browse over

2011-02-01T03:47:00.000-08:00

http://capaduraemcingapura.blogspot.com/ (thank you Lou for this one)
http://atelierpourenfants.blogspot.com/
http://olivroinfantil.blogspot.com/
http://www.apple-egg.co.uk/

Lovely integration of text and image by Stuart Kolakovic

2011-02-01T03:33:00.001-08:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39765109@N08/4849367157/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Tomorrow & Rcc!

2011-01-21T09:08:00.000-08:00

Hello, and happy Friday, yey :)

I wanted to post an image up to accompany this post else it might of been boring....

So, is NO-ONE else going to the SCBWI thing tomorrow? Well I'm going, albeit on my own and a little scared!

And also, Chiu, when I hand in RCC do you want any sketchbook stuff handed in too, or doesn't it matter? If we do I haven't been annotating sketchbook or anything so I'll get it sorted if needs be.

That's all from me for now :) Some other people need to post work up, I'm getting bored of just seeing mine!!

MACMILLAN PRIZE FOR CHILDREN'S BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS

2011-01-18T12:58:00.000-08:00

ENTRY DETAILS FAQs When does the competition usually take place?
For 2011, submissions will be accepted from Tuesday 3rd May to Friday 6th May.
How do I enter?
An information leaflet, that includes an entry form are sent to Universities and Colleges in January. Entry forms can be photocopied but must be signed by the student's tutor and submitted along with their artwork. Entry forms can also be obtained by emailing childrens@macmillan.co.uk
Download an entry form >
How can I submit my entry?
It is encouraged that tutors collect student entries and send them in one delivery to MCB by courier.
Students are also welcome to hand deliver their entries from Tuesday 3rd May – Friday 6th May from 9.30am-5.30pm, to 20 New Wharf Road, London, N1 9RR.
When is the winner chosen?
The winners & highly commended will be chosen & notified by Friday 13th May
Who chooses the winner?
The winners and highly commended are chosen by a judging panel that will include 2 leading children's book illustrators, an experienced children's bookseller, the Managing Director of MCB, Emma Hopkin and the Art Director, Anne Glenn.
How will the winners be notified?
Winners will be notified by phone by a representative from MCB. Those that have been highly commended will receive letters by email/by post, advising them of their success. Chosen pieces from the winners and highly commended will be exhibited for one week and each student will receive an invitation to the Private view/Awards ceremony.
How will I know if I have not been successful?
An email/letter will be sent out during the second or third week of May to all entrants that have not been chosen as a winner/highly commended, advising them that they have not been successful. All entrants and their tutors will also receive an invitation to attend the general exhibition.
When will the winners' and highly commended work be exhibited?
In 2011, the general exhibition will take place from Tuesday 24th May to Friday 27th May.
When will the entries be returned?
If the student is unsuccessful the entries will be returned during the last 2 weeks of May by Securicor c/o the University or College. A cheque for £3.20 needs to be included by each student with their entry to cover the cost of delivery. Students are also welcome to collect their work in person from the Macmillan office once they have received a letter notifying them that they have not been successful. Usually this will be mid-May. If the students work has been chosen to be exhibited their work will be returned by Securicor or will be available for collection, as nominated on their entry, the week after the exhibition ends.
What if I fail to collect my entry?
If a student has nominated to collect their entry from the Macmillan office and fails to do so by the end of May, their work will be destroyed.
THE BRIEF FAQs
(A full description of the brief is included on the information leaflet)
Do we accept reproductions of the work or are only originals acceptable?
We do accept reproductions that are of a high quality but in most cases our judges prefer to see the original artwork where possible. Please make sure if you plan to send in reproductions that they do not detract from the quality of the artwork.
What age should the picture books be targeted to?

Up to around 5 years of age. You may find it useful to make yourselves familiar with current titles on the market but will be looking for any form of plagiarism.

http://www.panmacmillan.com/About%20Us/displayPage.asp?PageTitle=Macmillan%20Prize

Next saturday!

2011-01-14T03:30:00.000-08:00

Guys, is anyone going to the illustration thingymabob next sat at waterstones? :)

2011-01-11T14:50:00.001-08:00

Latest on the owl and the pussycat

2011-01-11T14:02:00.000-08:00

Haven't done as much work over christmas as I would have liked to, but getting back into finishing the final page for my book, this is really big and I havent quite worked out how to get the finished thing on to computer yet to play around with? This is just a photo on my SLR and has worked out ok so may have to use this method. Is there a scanner big enough or would I have to scan it in pieces then join it? This is watercolour on my screenprint, Im going to do another watercolour to try put behind my acetate for screenprint as I lost alot of the detail in the screenprint. Been playing around with the colouring , still havent got it right yet though.

As for the text, just popped it on quickly to try get an idea of what it will look like as a whole, it is the font im using but will obviously fiddle with size and placement. and will have it printed seperately on acetate!

And another

2011-01-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

Another one that's on my computer already, might as well share! (The bottom one will be holding one of my favourite books) ----And chiu I haven't ignored your advice yesterday, there is to be more research and processes in the 2nd chapter, and once I've got the first one looking better I'm going to look at adapting at a tad if theres not enough later on :)

Lou x

RCC

2011-01-11T06:31:00.000-08:00

2 colour roughs. The top one is missing snow flakes, but aside from that any thought's would be great :)

Allan Ahlberg

2011-01-11T04:06:00.000-08:00

Great article by the author Allan Ahlberg:

http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Author/AuthorPage/0%2C%2C1000000334%2C00.html

merry merry

2010-12-24T01:22:00.000-08:00

Some birds fly south

2010-12-11T16:23:00.000-08:00

Double page spread, full size too I might add :)

miaw

2010-12-11T06:09:00.000-08:00

I'm REALLY REALLY...

2010-12-10T14:08:00.000-08:00

....struggling to get my final's up to standard with my roughs....do you think it might be worth me making nice smaller pieces and scanning them in at a larger dpi? :(

some tests with the dreaded bear.

2010-12-10T04:01:00.000-08:00

I still think I might hate him.

It's been one of those days...

2010-12-09T16:46:00.000-08:00

Where everything I try and draw looks damn awful, anyway, here's a rough idea for a bear that's a little tinsy bit scary, any thoughts? :/

I think I hate him, but I'll sleep on it and look again in the morning....

Watercolour birds

2010-12-07T13:12:00.000-08:00

Just testing watercolour still, not filling as much with the lines. Think these blue ones look much better than the brown birds in my sketchbook

ROUGH with text again

2010-12-07T08:01:00.000-08:00

I think I love this type face...

I'm working on the final piece of this today, this is the rough for it :)

Do they curl up by the fire?

2010-12-06T11:21:00.000-08:00

Text testing....

ipad books.

2010-12-05T14:26:00.000-08:00

Not a reason to buy an ipad buuuut, looks quite nice :)

experimentingg

2010-12-02T08:24:00.000-08:00

had a go at using waterproof ink fineliner in 0.1 and 0.8 and then using watercolour to fill in, might try screenprint the black and do watercolour on top.. also going to try acrylic with acetate on top for the details any other ideass would be appreciatedd :)

question

2010-11-29T15:30:00.000-08:00

chiu ive got the book together and penciled out in the correct size, with penciled text, but ive only got the first few pages inked, do we have till next week to complete them fully?
thanks

Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2010 By THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

2010-11-29T09:00:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/gift-guide/holiday-2010/best-illustrated-childrens-books-2010/list.html

from two weeks back

2010-11-28T10:02:00.001-08:00

Introducing The Picture Book genre

Found stories – Copyright/Authorship

Fractured Stories

http://www.anholt.co.uk/bookshop/seriously-silly

Self-written stories

Concept books

http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/concept-picture-books

Introducing simple narrative structures and manuscripts

Books for Young Readers Submissions Guidelines

http://www.walkerbooks.com/info/index.php?wb_section=about&wb_page=submissions

Peggy Tibbetts on what makes a good story

http://www.writing-world.com/children/sparkle.shtml

The Slush Pile

http://somethingsbegun.com/slush.shtml

Task 01 Find, Fracture & Write your own 24 page stories

Task 01x Make some rough thumbnail designs & character sketches for the puffin comp

Task 02 (research) Having chosen the narrative genre that you want to work in, find similar picture book examples and break down the story into a simple narrative structure

+ Reverse-engineer them into just written scripts!

RCC rough ideas.....

2010-11-23T16:10:00.000-08:00

To begin with I felt very lost

Memories of the desert entwined with the winter

And created a block in my mind.

But slowly...

Things began to make a little more sence

And after finding my feet again

I saw the end was in sight

Just a little red book in my blue hands.

The formatting on this post has gone to pot and I can't seem to sort it, but I think it still gets the idea across.

I have tried to make this more about experimentation and design and my journey of trying to work past a block....but is this enough for an RCC?

There are 3 double page spreads missing which I'm working on, and obviously the text isn't on yet, but I just wanted to play around with much more collage and work on the backgrounds first.

The 4th image down will have collaged clocks on it which are not there yet, and the 2nd and 3rd needs much more work but these are just preliminary ideas and I'm not even sure if the story is appropriate!?

Any feedback would be great. :)

Lou

My Manuscript

2010-11-20T03:55:00.000-08:00

This is my new improved Manuscript that follows the existing formula of the three bears but parodies elements of it and tries to recreate it in to a school scenario

target audience i am aiming for is 4 to 8s.

Rough Flat plan keeping it fairly linear layout for the moment

The only concern i have with this sprit is whether to call them bears throughout the whole story or teachers as its supposed to be a cheap gag just like how Russell Ayto nick names characters in his story Captain Flinn and the pirate Dinosaurs.

here’s an example......

(Mrs Pie)

And the three protagonist names are parodies of different bear species.

I also began thinking about what media would work well for my story and looked in to watercolour for my scenes and objects the characters interact with.

week 02

2010-11-16T01:46:00.001-08:00

Character development based on narratives or concepts - narratives or concepts based on Characters – The chicken or the egg?

Characters in Action

Characters within Scenes/Backgrounds

Developing media

Oliver Jeffers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnPk8gmwPuQ&feature=player_embedded

Carson Ellis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLQfgag-uqs&feature=player_embedded

Emily Gravett

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrO-6fRO8gM&feature=player_embedded

Task 03 Developing your characters (possible group project)

i) Write down detailed descriptions for a character from your manuscripts

ii) Expand the family of characters drawing friends/family/enemies/groups

iii) Invent sub plots and backgrounds for these characters

iv) Draw character scenes with backgrounds.

Task 04 Create Thumbnail page Sequences

Task 05 (research) Find out how applicable/related picture book artists get inspiration for their character development.

Wonderland Characters

2010-11-14T12:15:00.000-08:00

Since 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' is one of my favourite books (and also happens to be in the public domain) one idea I have for this project is to recreate certain scenes from that story, but in a way that's more suited to a full-scale picture book. The main idea I have is creating the characters in doll forms from the initial sketches, and posing them with armature wire, and then taking photographs of them within an illustrated set.

I'm not sure if that veers too much away from illustration or not, but there are other ideas I'd like to look into, most of which involve writing the story myself.

The above picture is two experiments with creating Alice and the White Rabbit in doll format. The button-eyes was heavily-inspired by Neil Gaiman's 'Coraline'.

Manuscript

2010-11-09T06:36:00.001-08:00

32 page Picture book
Narrative structure: Intro, activating agent, rise in conflict, climax, resolution
Narrative structure
Description of images
Story text broken down onto each page
Front cover

End paper

End paper

Copyright

Title page

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

End paper

End paper

Back cover

Puffin Children's Prize

2010-11-08T14:55:00.000-08:00

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

An enormous, angry rhinoceros that has escaped from London Zoo has eaten James’s parents. And it gets worse! James is packed off to live with his two really horrible aunts, Sponge and Spiker. Poor James is miserable, until something peculiar happens and James finds himself on the most wonderful and extraordinary journey he could ever
imagine …

full brief here:

http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/minisites/penguindesignaward/puffin_brief.php

Emulating Cezanne

2010-11-03T16:11:00.000-07:00

Not sure this really works as a piece but I was just testing out different painting styles, looking at painters like Cezanne.

Cards for Book fair?

2010-10-26T09:28:00.000-07:00

I just knocked together a couple of cards that I thought I could make for the book fair, I thought about screen printing them, but I quite like the watercolour background.

Test piece done

2010-10-24T06:55:00.000-07:00

Put the two images together to make the double page spread, text would go on the second page in the white space.

Compositions in colour

2010-10-19T10:08:00.000-07:00

This is one single page of my story to see how they will look with my finishing techniques. It's quite time-consuming, I've been doing this one for days. I'm trying to use pen more and use the lines to add detail.

Dissertation Presentation Notes

2010-10-19T08:04:00.000-07:00

Dissertation Presentation (presentation will be up on Moodle at some point.)
• To be submitted end of January, week 15.
• 90% will be the 5000-6000 word essay or critical commentary
• 10% will be seminar presentation.
• Think about the link to Negotiated Project.
• Mode and Topic.
• Research and References
• Time management (production plan)

Action points:
1. Devise a coherent argument underpinned by appropriate use of scholarly research from primary and secondary sources.
2. Communicate an understanding of the theoretical and philosophical aspects in your chosen area.
3. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the key aspects of a defined area of your subject.
4. Reflect an effectiveness of research and its impact on your development.
5. Construct a well presented and referenced dissertation with good English.

Mode 1 – Illustrated Essay
• Should be a sustainable topic closely related to your Negotiated Project.
• Presented in an academic form.
• Structured in a recognisable way;
o Contents page
o Chapters (Should include 3 – 4 chapters)
o Bibliography
o Appendix (Everything you have gathered whilst researching and referenced, for example questionnaires, interviews, surveys, telephone conversation transcripts/evidence.)

Mode 2 – Reflective Critical Commentary
• Should reflect an intellectual journey tailored to suit your practice.
• Develop and reflect your visual and intellectual practice.
• Organised and critically structured interpretation.
• Should be a linear creative journey.
• Consider research areas and content analysis.
• Make sure you state your reasoning for the routes and decisions you make.
• Evaluation of your own work – concepts/ideas/visual language.
• Reach a conclusion.
• Keep in mind layout and it’s potential as a creative and designed document.

George kept saying how important it was not to forget to put your research and references into this as a lot of students didn’t last year.
There’s no word limit but should be the same amount of time spent as the Essay.

Dos and Don’ts
Mode 1
• Must relate to Negotiated project.
• Must include Primary and Secondary research.
• Be academic in structure but should convey some personality and your area of interest.
• Investigation, Discussion, Proposition and Argument.
• Plan your essay, consider its structure and make sure it’s clear and coherent.
• Should be a clear thread of investigation.
• Must include a bibliography (Harvard referencing)
• Must be informative.
• Should be intended for yourself as well as others – make it interesting and engaging.
• Check grammar and spelling.
• Make sure you leave enough time to get it bound appropriately.
• Don’t waffle – be concise.
• Don’t plagiarise – reference all material used from other sources.

Mode 2
• Show your design process and journey.
• Should be a marriage of research and its effect on your own work and your thinking.
• Should be an evaluation/analysis of your work and research
• Include a bibliography.
• Make sure the overall design matches your area of practice.
• Be creative.
• Check grammar and spelling.
• Don’t fail to include research and its connections.
• Use your time wisely.
• Don’t rush the design; show creative design skills.
• Deadlines – think ahead if using things like Blurb to put journal together.

Advice and Help
- Help at the Academic Skills Centre on Campus North. Tutorials on academic writing for example.
- Ask for guidance.

Seminar
- Should be used to structure presentation
- Include introduction, chapters, people to interview etc.
- Highlight line of discussion/interrogation.
- Show clearly proposition and research area.
- May include written piece also.

Black and white line drawings

2010-10-01T05:21:00.001-07:00

Some images from a story idea I'm thinking of developing, drawn with a 1 point fine liner. I used a black overlay in Photoshop to make some darker areas stand out more.

Childhood

2010-08-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

Taken from one of my family photo albums

Thought this was brilliant

2010-07-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

Best thing I've watched in a long time!!!

Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty from Darragh O'Connell on Vimeo.

Another great blog

2010-07-19T04:14:00.000-07:00

http://picturebookreport.com/

(Meg Hunt)

blog

2010-07-08T15:01:00.001-07:00

A great blog to inspire over the summer:
http://ajourneyroundmyskull.blogspot.com/

Kt.
:)

Looking for inspiration further afield

2010-07-03T15:24:00.000-07:00

Looking further afield into other forms of Illustration, Fine Art and Graphics may be just the motivational inspiration that you need
Here's my pick for the week: Olaf Hajek

http://www.olafhajek.de/gallery/gallery.php?gazimage=426&gazpart=view&gazimage=422

Quentin Blake

2010-05-29T04:46:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, this is a the link for a short n sweet video of Quentin Blake talkin while drawing some characters, for anyone who's a Blake fan think they'd like it :)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/video/2010/may/29/guardian-hay-festival-quentin-blake

useful website

2010-05-23T07:45:00.000-07:00

http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/

This website has lots of picture book illustrators' interview e.g. Oliver Jeffers, Emily Gravett, Mini Gray.... They talked about where the ideas came from, what they will do when they planning a picture book or how they publish their first book.....

I'm sad at being indoors today. But then this happened....

2010-05-22T06:27:00.000-07:00

Any thoughts?

New Piece

2010-05-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

This is the new piece from the 'Halo' story im working on, any coments would be wickedawesomeclass!

a whale for Lou

2010-05-13T04:20:00.001-07:00

But then the whale said....

2010-05-11T09:21:00.000-07:00

I have to emphasise that this is a photo! So I've lost alot of colour detail unfortunately. Any thoughts would be great.

Lou xx

Texture Sun

2010-05-10T06:09:00.000-07:00

Did this approximately A3, drawn with a 0.2 mm fine line pen. Would love to know what people think :-)

Drawing, drawing, drawing!

2010-05-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, just some kind of stream of consciousness drawings I'm doing of my own little world to put together in a book format for fmp. The first ones are how i initially started quite structured and regimented, and the last two are more free flowing and floaty- just wondering what people think looks best and any ideas and input? Cheers, Hannah.

About Bologna

2010-04-28T06:42:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,

Here is some information about Bologna Book fair that I attended in March.

you may interested in. :)

The event holed for 4 days, and it contains:

· Exhibition- All the selected illustrators’ works but not all of them are the original one.

· Programs- They invited some illustrators, publishers and authors, any kinds of experts related to picture book to gave a talk.

The rest of the event are lots lots of publisher came from all over the world to sell & buy copyright. And some of them are retail, so you also can buy some special picture books from there.

And the only think that I think it worth to visit there is that you can show yourself in there. There had a big wall for illustrators. You can post your works and contact details on there.

How to stand out in front of lots illustrators?

Maybe try special demonstration.

If you want to know more information about the fair, please fell free to ask. I’ll tell everything I saw :D

Elly

2010-04-27T16:09:00.000-07:00

Have you ever felt like there was nothing there?

Like there's a crack in side you and you are slipping away thought it.

and all you seem to do is go through the motions.

trapped in an empty world.

even when there’s someone there its like there’s an invisible wall between you

And it only gets wider with each day that passes.

But you can’t seem to get past it as if there’s a great weight inside you.

And all you want to do is hide away from the world.

And life is like being in a dark tunnel but no matter how far you move forward you never seem to escape the darkness

But in the end there is an end.

Micah Lidberg

2010-04-23T13:18:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, I haven't posted in a while and stumbled across this the other day, so thought I'd share :)

http://www.micahlidberg.com/

Lou xx

For Katie

2010-04-22T12:32:00.000-07:00

Hey all, I saw this on the Drawn blog and it reminded me of Katie Coultons work so I just thought I'd post him up. Jorge Gonzalez....You may already of heard of him anyway!

http://jfgv.blogspot.com/

Interesting Website about Sketch

2010-04-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,

I just found this interesting website about sketch.

http://sketch.odopod.com/

You can drawing on this website and the whole drawing process will be recorded.

I got 2 ideas from here.

1. If you find some picture you are interested in, just click it, you will see how the illustrator draw it.

2. This may be another way to promote your work, because you can write down your contact information on the screen :D

email from macmillans:

2010-04-19T02:08:00.001-07:00

Hi Katherine,

We require at least 4 finished spreads of art work, and then pencil roughs of the whole story line, i.e the full 32 pages. The pencil roughs can be in the form of a dummy. They can be quite basic - it's just so we can see and read the story in its entirety.

I hope that's clearer. Give me a ring if you want to discuss it further (020 7014 6124)

Best,

Lindsey

... Phew!

Macmillans brief?

2010-04-18T04:33:00.001-07:00

Hiya,
Quick question:

It states in the macmillans brief that pencil roughs or sketches are required 'cover to cover', as well as 4 finished spreads.

Does this mean that all 32 original layout drawings for each page are required, or that only the dummy book is needed?

Me and Milan spoke about this and it still seems unclear ....
What is everybody else doing?

Thanks,
Kt.

Cover Letters

2010-04-17T14:11:00.000-07:00

Hi guys, I was just wondering if anybody had a good example of a cover letter? Especially if it's been used to write to a publisher. The ones I've seen on the internet aren't that great and I'm a little stuck with what to write after the first paragraph!
thanks
beckie x

Some silly questions about finished works

2010-04-16T05:38:00.000-07:00

Hi guys,

I have some silly questions about hand in the finished work.

Should we stick the finished works on blackboards?

and the text, can we type on the pictures directly or should I stick them on the transparent films?

Sorry for the silly questions and my bad English.

Elly

Finished work

2010-04-15T22:25:00.000-07:00

Hi guys,

Here is one of my finished work, the texts I may change into real handwriting.

And I still thinking about the yellow background under the book. It's looks so drab, should I add some texture?.

Please give me advice and comments.

Sorry, I post it soooooo late.

deleted.

2010-04-14T04:32:00.000-07:00

Guys, I deleted that last post because it was really frustrating me that that photo looked so awful, the next time I'm in town I'll see if i can hop into uni and use the scanner there which should hopefully be big enough.

I'm slighty freaking out about professional practice because I haven't been putting that before Macmillan's stuff. Do you think I should swap focus? I mean the fact is, how can I be submiting work to publishers when the work I'd want to be submitting is the stuff I'm doing now- therefore it's not finished??

lou x

New Spread

2010-04-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

This is a piece I've just completed, any comments or advice would be appreciated :) The text placement needs tightening on the right hand and I might still mute the colours a litttle.

another idea

2010-04-07T13:00:00.001-07:00

Ok, this is another rough spread i'm thinking of doing, tried to keep the detail there but it's a bit simpler than the other one, is that going to be a problem? I'm having some problems trying to make the other images look as good as my first one!

finishing techniques

2010-04-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

Hey,

I've been experimenting with finishing techniques and i'm not sure which one works best. One is just a painting and the other is the same painting but with ink on top (the colours look better on the original) also what do you think of the composition and overall layout of this spread? any opinions or advice would be great

thanks

Which one?

2010-04-06T13:38:00.001-07:00

Hi, i've done a new painting which is slightly different to the original, but i'm unsure on which looks best to do on my final one. The first image is the new one, its not quite finished as i just need to put the stars on. (apologies for the line, i scanned it as 2 images) I haven't put as many washes on so it looks lighter, which I quite like but I need some opinions please!
Thanks Beckie x

london Book Fair 19th to 21st April

2010-04-05T12:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.londonbookfair.co.uk/page.cfm/Action=ShowCategory/CatPageID=25

13:00 - 14:00

The Big Picture with Children’s Laureate Anthony Browne – the importance of illustrating for older children
Westminster Room, Earls Court 1
Organised by Booktrust

Chair: Nicolette Jones
Speakers
Mr Anthony Browne, Children's Laureate
Mr Martin Brown, Illustrator of The Horrible Histories
Ms Marcia Williams, Illustrator

"Looking at Children’s Books" booked to go down on Monday the 26th of April

2010-04-01T04:56:00.000-07:00

If you want to go down, you can get a five pound reduction as we are now college members of the AOI

http://www.theaoi.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=141&Itemid=47

	Narrative structure	Description of images	Story text broken down onto each page
Front cover
End paper
End paper
Copyright
Title page
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
End paper
End paper
Back cover