Hello!

This is the blog I have kept during my studies on the course "Illustration 1"
with the O.C.A.

I have also made another blog especially for assessment which you can go to with the following link.


 http://mpgovernale2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/learning-log.html


Marie-Pierre Governale.

Sketchbook

Here are sample pages from my sketchbook:

 At Easter, I spent some time in the Heard Museum in Prescott,  USA. I used to be a potter and studied pottery in many museums, but this is the best collection of American Native Art that I have ever seen. I mostly took photos, but for some details the sketchbook is the best.

A sample of women's heads sketched for 'the unlikely gardener'. To get a face from different angles, I chose a character from TV that looked like her, recorded it and stopped the film.

Trying to keep sketching often -  these were done on a plane

Working on an idea for a frog who looks a bit like a man (working for children)

Practicing with different pens

My tutor advised me to pay attention to the letters that are part of an image, so I did some work about this

Here I noticed that the woman's face was covering a bit of the text, I have used this in my illustrations for packaging (Dino biscuits)  

I picked up some interesting books' covers from the library, studied the letters with the images, and traced some.

This is an example of larger size sketches/drawings that I made earlier in the course. I wanted to use charcoal for atmosphere and showing light and shade, so I tried working on brown paper on the floor.

Here are examples of what a page in my sketchbook looks like these days:

This page is full of drawings, a tracing stuck on (swing), some text printed, photocopied, cut and stuck. All of these relate to the 'seven days' project that I had been working on. It also shows ways that I've found to go round my problems with technology (computer software like paint and pixlr that I haven't mastered enough, printer, camera, phone camera, etc. at war with each other like The Housewives of Orange County, ...)

 This page if full of tiny examples of frogs on bikes found on the internet. I print them, cut them and glue them. It seems very long-winded, but it works for me, and I'm happy doing it!

I have the same sort of thing in another book for images I like, and that I can go back to, but have nothing to do with current projects or ideas.

 Here apart from a sketch of a frog (I was interested by its face), I found two images in the ZSL magazine that I found interesting. Drawing and painting them is a way to understand better what I was interested in, in particular. I wanted to see how people had stylised a tiger on two objects. The paper finger puppet has less details (number of small details) and a smiley face - for children. The other one was painted on a maracas, with other things painted around it. It's probably a jaguar, more fierce with teeth and claws. Maybe a venerated ritual kind of image that has found its way on an object for tourists. Here it is decorative. So two objects with same colours, stylised, with different audiences. 

Someone who saw me painting in the orange from my watercolour box was amazed at how small I like to paint these (A5 Sketchbook). It's mainly for quickness really.

 

 

Working for children

I was working on a brief "working for children". I had to pick two animals and make images for two different age groups. 

I started with a wolf. Sketches first, then I made a self-portrait in acrylics with a composition that was meant to be about the grown up little red riding hood, and could be a book cover for a teenage audience.

some wolves in my sketchbook

I made lots of sketches of frogs towards 'working for children'.  Here is a selection

This is in my 6th A5 Sketchbook, I recently was inspired by the blog of the Illustrator: Kristi Anne Wakelin and started working on a A3 sketchbook, I feel grown up now!

a page from my A3 sketchbook

Here is my image based on my sketches, for a wrestling frog. This is in a style aimed at small children still learning to read. For that reason, I chose a large square format and lots of little things going on around the main character.

I had started with another idea for a frog: a frog on a bike, but I thought that to do the bike to a decent standard it would take me more time than I wanted to spend. Also, when I started researching frogs, my favourite was the mountain chicken frogs. It is BIG and I quite like the idea of a frog different from Kermit or others with tiny arms and legs, a muscular frog!

Goodbye frog on a bike!

At the same time, I was working in my sketchbook on another image. This is an interesting mish mash of my trying to carry on looking for images I like including letters, my sad little bear character who appeared in a previous project, and trying to progress with my pen and ink technique. I'm sure my technique can still improve but in my opinion this has been successful. 

Assignment five: Seven days

First ideas were based on the days of the weeks in songs on you tube, but didn't find them very inspiring. Another idea was to make small illustrations for a magazine, about the days of the week on the 5:2 diet. I started sketching ideas with a pig character.

 Reflecting on this, I thought I preferred making illustrations for children.

The Brief: the title is Seven days.
I chose to design illustrations that would be used online or in a brochure to schools, as a teaching aid.  The illustrations would be about the days of the week, and show nursery rhymes associated with the first sound of the day of the week.  For instance the sound "m" of 'Monday' would be associated with 'Mary had a little lamb', or 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary'.
The illustrations could be used for printing in a book, after consulting with a sample of schools.  I also thought of making it possible for the designs to be used for making cross stitch, but since I have started working on this assignment, I haven't had the possibility to consult friends who do cross stitch and check if this is at all possible.
Here are my roughs:

Sunday

Saturday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday.  The raindrops added in pencil, haven't scanned!

Friday 

Monday

The images I worked on were square. After uploading my pictures I have noticed that the quality has gone down and that they have been slightly changed, this is due to my scanner. There is also a large white margin around each picture.

This is an example of the design for Monday, 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary', painted in colours (gouache).

I was inspired by the children books of  Antoon Krings with their bright colorful illustrations and painterly style.

Antoon Krings

Sketchbook:

Exercise: Working for children

Collect examples of imagery for children for different age groups:
     I followed the age-guide as it was on websites (some have cross-overs, like "the very hungry caterpillar"). From my experience as a mother and as a teacher trainee, I know that these are far from clear-cut and rather individual.

     I have found some books and toys are clearly targeted with sex discrimination - from the age of 6 (i.e. fairies and pirates). This reflects on the colours used in all merchandise available for kids, and remains except for toys which can be sold to girls and boys. Roald Dahl books are a notable exception in my view.
     In books, the look of covers becomes more and more like those for adults as the targeted market ages. Similarly, the names of illustrators are clearly displayed for younger readers and seem to disappear towards young adults.

Pre-reader books

black and white imagery is supposed to help babies

Pre school (3-5)

Early reader (5-7)

Established readers (7-9) 

Older age groups:

Exercise: Packaging

Technical problems of the day: today my computer won't accept to load pictures, and the scanner which is still not talking much to the computer, has changed some of the colours of my Dinosaur biscuits packagaging quite a lot. Nevertheless I tried to give an idea of what they would look like with the name of the flavour added by computer, as I had planned.

Packaging I like