Methodologies In Children's Book Illustration (Sara Fanelli)

Children’s book illustrations comes in many different styles, ranging from cute drawings to obscure visuals that helps brings the essence of the story’s narrative to the readers. The methodologies in children’s book illustrations are all varied, usually stemming from the style of the artist who is creating the illustrations for the children’s book. The majority of these are usually traditional painted visuals, as well as digital pieces, although that doesn’t restrict them from using any medium at all.

Sarah Fanelli’s technique in creating her illustrations for children’s book uses collage as her primary tool to produce bizarre, yet interesting and appealing visuals and broken away from the traditional way of illustrating for children, by using cut-outs of photographed and photocopied eyes as her textural interests and style. Her methodologies is ‘photocollage’, by adding a human element that is recognizable (eyes, nose, teeth) to any drawing, to create abstract compositions. 

‘Argus the monster with 100 eyes’, Mythological Monsters, 2005, Sara Fanelli

Experiments using Fanelli’s technique of using photographed and photocopied eyes on my simple drawings of characters on coloured backgrounds, making each one unique and somewhat absurd and appealing at the same time. The eyes is what give the characters life and there was very little effort in drawing them, as they consists of quick, simple scribbles to create their arms and legs, which relates to the quote by Fanelli, (1) “Scribbles, often have a visual function – they appear where I want some energy in the picture, but not too dominant.” 

Another experiment using the ones I did earlier but mixing the character’s heads and bodies with one and another, generating new characters and surreal combinations. This idea can relate to Anthropomorphism in a way, where we add human elements to other things rather than animals which is always a popular choice. In a way this experiment can relate to ‘Absurd Anthropomorphism’, where we give human behaviours instead of physical human features to unexpected objects, such as the artist Edward Lear, whose poem, “The Table and the Chair” consists of two unexpected characters, the table and the chair with human behaviour. Both Fanelli and Lear uses absurdity for their characters, making them unconventionally funny and to surprise the readers (given that Fanelli uses this a lot to appeal children by surprising them).

Experiment based on Edward Lear’s characters from the poem “The Table and the Chair”. Lear’s characters does not have any form of physical human characteristics, which can be hard to identify as characters visually, unless they speak. Here is to demonstrate that by giving them human like features such as arms and legs, regardless whether they do not speak, they show to the audience signs of activity and characteristics. Without these we would simply see them as objects, nothing more. We as audience have gotten used to identify things with limbs as characters, in film, television, illustration (especially in children’s books), regardless how cliché or obscure they are, relating to my earlier point of ‘Absurd Anthropomorphism’, but more of a physical aspect than a behavioural one.

References

(1) Robins

Bibliography

Robins, G. Books for Keeps, The Children’s Book Magazine Online [Online] Date Accessed: 1^st Nov 2015. Available from: http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/issue/195/childrens-books/articles/the-dream-like-images-of-sara-fanelli

Images

Mythological Monsters, 2005, Sara Fanelli [Online] [Date Accessed: 1^st Nov 2015] Available from: https://simonsterg.wordpress.com/tag/sara-fanelli/

Methodologies In Sequential (Chris Ware)

The methodologies in sequential illustrations to visually communicate doesn’t have to be a linear like a comic strip reading from left to right, in fact there are a lot of unusual methods in telling stories by using several tricks to make it more visually interesting and interactive with the reader’s eyes.

Chris Ware, an American cartoonist, explores the reality of social, emotional torment and isolation, including depression, through his works by manipulating the comic panels in a way to make things more interesting and some-what mind boggling. His methodologies in structuring his sequences consists of ‘slowness’ by which he use several panels of recurring images to visually represent the passing of time. Another method is non-linear reading where the viewer can read his storytelling from any direction, and manipulating the surrounding space within the sequence to generate interesting panels where images are not ‘boxed’ in.

 ‘Superman’, Chris Ware 

My visual experiment where the sequence consists the passing of time as you go from one panel to the other and it is up to the viewer whether time passes in each one is seconds, minutes or hours. Usually in some sequences in Ware’s work, you can visually tell how long time represents between each ‘key’ panel, such as age or evolution.

 Another experiment but this time exploring seasons of a location. 

Constructing his sequences are basic in terms of detail and colour-palette, as Ware’s work is often about the exploration of social isolation and emotional trauma, while avoiding as much visual detail, which would clash with the complexity of his sequential layouts. Ware’s work is already appealing as it is, where he plays around with shapes to create characters and using limited colours, his style is to keep things very simple yet at the same time making complex structures of narrative sequences  to make it visually eye boggling for the readers, as quoted from an interview (1) “One of the reasons I tried to make the books look at least as nice as I can, or I tried to do things that might possibly be considered in some places beautiful on the page, is to try to contradict what’s going on within the character’s minds.” This is where non-linear reading of visual narrative comes in, where Ware’s methodologies in manipulating the panels and the spatial area of his sequence can be seen in earlier works of classic producers such as Frank King, whose works are similar in terms of processes (colour and simplification). While they both do share similar narrative structures in their work (the passing of time/reality of life/non-linear reading) Frank often involves all the panels and illustrate one large image to visually communicate a story about a location where each panel represents a different time period and have a short story of its own. 

 ‘Gasoline Alley’ Comic Strip, Frank King Sequence

My take on combining both ideas of Ware’s and King’s work, where I incorporate the simplicity of colour and characters, visually showing the red character going through the reality of office work and reflecting the themes of Ware’s idea of social isolation etc., while combining King’s idea of using the entire panels and illustrate it as an office building as a whole, where the viewer would look into these panels as ‘windows’ of the office building, as the red character over time goes through problems as you read along from top to bottom. 

Another experiment but focusing on King’s idea of using the panels to create a large scene where a building is being built over time.

References

(1) Fear No ART, 2012

Bibliography

Fear No ART, 2012, Graphic Novelist, Chris Ware [Online] [Accessed: 17^th October 2015] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4MOYCvgEmw

Images

Gasoline Alley. Frank King. [Online] [Accessed: 17^th October 2015] Available from: http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2011/11/your-wednesday-sequence-32-frank-king/