Front Cover & Title Page

As I start coming to the end of my project I started to develop ideas for the front cover and the title page. These elements are not part of the characters in the story because I was afraid it would give the story away if I used the same characters I produced for inside the book.  

This is my final outcome for my front cover, I wanted to have the frog as the main character and also making sure that I don't giving to much of the story away.

Front Cover

Copy Right & Title Page

Final Page of Children's Book

These are some of my final pages from my book. I experimented with the size of the text and also the typeface itself, but overall I fell that the text works well with the shadows as well as the characters themselves. 

Page 10

Page 9

Page 19

3D Photograph of Sets

These are 3 examples of my sets that I photographed. Hopefully you can see the different qualities of shadow I wanted to make to create depth and impact to my children's book.
I am extremely happy with how my photographs have come out, with all that planning and preparation I think I've produced a very strong amount of images for my final piece.
What I will do next is take them back into PhotoShop and edit the lighting and also the wire that you can see in some of the images. After I have done this it will give me chance to work on placing the text and experimenting with scale and colour.

Page 1

Page 2

Page 6

Development of set's

These are a couple of pages from my children's book that I have been working on.

From these Photoshop images I plan to set at least 1 or 2 pieces to create depth of field and also creating a shadow. This has similar connections to my scary stories piece when I photographs them as 3D Sets.

These set will be researched into more depth, and building an appropriate frame to set my work. I am also looking at....

• How to make my set? Materials like cardboard box's or making the frames with wood.
• How to mount each element? What paper to us/ thinner than cardboard and stronger/ something to withstand being printed on, so it has to be thin.
• Making sure I pick the right paper to print my work onto/ Printing and colour quality.
• If their are complication printing onto paper, think of ideas to mount my work onto the paper.
• Equipment like cutting mat's and cutting equipment. 
• How to stand the images? Using stands or wire.
• What wire to us, fishing wire, something strong but cant see it in the final photograph. (Can be edited).

Talk to Graham about hiring the studio & camera for a day and a half

• Talk about the ideas I have.
• What I'm looking for?
•  What lighting will be best for these sets... how it can cast a shadow?.
• Make sure I have enough from on my hard drive for the photographs.
• Listen to Graham about how to set up with lighting and the camera sets.

Page 1 (Photoshop Page) ( 3x Sets) 

Page 6 (Photoshop Page) (4x Sets) (2x separate images to photograph)

Page 8 (Photoshop Page) (2x Sets) 

Page 10 ( Photoshop Page) (2x Sets)

Professional Practice Trip

Professional Practice: London Trip

The 2 days I spent in London was well worth all the travelling and expense, because the feedback I got and the clients and agents that I had a chance to meet were very interesting and insightful about the industry.

Daniel Morrey- Head of Print at DDB

• Keeping my website simple.
• Big Images & contact details that are clear.
• Not to many buttons or links to go though ( Agents are not interested in your personal life, they want to see your work and weather you fit with a style they are looking for).
• Competitions and researching briefs .

Day Job Collective

• Talking about the importance of working as a team if I was going to join a collective illustration group.
• Competition brief to keep myself motivated and inspired.
• Finding opportunities to find a job in children's book publishing or publishing in general to get a better idea of layout and more information about the industry.
• Studio spaces and joining up with students.

1x Portfolio Review

• Good feedback & idea's for improving my layout.
• Liked the introduction page with my logo and information.
• Research Competitions.

Illustration Ltd  

• Great insight into the industry and how it works.
• What each person in the agency does and how they work?
• How they find knew illustrators and how they decide what style best fits their briefs..
• It's not a risk taking industry they keep it safe and connect the right style with the right work.
• Advertising work and personalizing business cards and postcards.
• Keeping the website simple ( showed us example of a website with connact information and BIG images of their work on the website). 

2x Portfolio Reviews

• BIGGER IMAGES ( Landscape A1 Size)..
• Making sure the images are good equality .
• Good movement in style .
• They liked my handcrafted style (My lion was their favorite piece).
• Some images are stronger than others .
• Personalizing business cards and postcards are every effective.

My Website

My website is finally up and running, it will be updated with knew images and development information. 

Enjoy

Any feedback will be much appreciated 

kateemilybell.co.uk

Hopes, Fears & Opportunities

This year what can I say about it... they always said third year was the hardest and they were right but they also didn't mention how rewarding it is.

A lot has been happening in a very short space in time and personally I don't think I've ever been so driven and determined to make sure that I work my hardest, put the hours in and make sure my portfolio is as good as I know it can be. Because as Gary says the mark you get is the mark you deserve and I'm determined to get the best marks possible for my work because I know I'm putting in the work and hours to make sure I do, and that's the most rewarding part. 
It’s all about me and what (I) want to do after I graduate and its extremely exciting driving myself and not being driven by my tutor's. This year I feel I'm a lot more independent in my work and that my brief is driven by the kind of work I am interested in and excited about. 

This year has also shown me about how to find completion brief and also submitting my work for completions online is a great opportunity. I feel that my skills on Photoshop & InDesign have improved though out this year as it is the main aspect of getting my work online and onto my website.

Producing my website also was a great challenge for me, but seeing my work on a website format gave me a big boost in confidence knowing that this is what I want to do and this is how clients are going to see my work.

The plan for after I graduate is to continue my work, making sure I keep on top of my portfolio, and looking at completion briefs to keep me inspired and motivated. I plan to maybe get a little studio somewhere in Manchester hopefully a member of my class would like to share, but that idea’s for the future. I intend on planning many more tips to London and finding myself a job maybe in an agency or volunteer work, getting as much experience in the field of children’s book publishing and publishing in general, will give a great advantage. 

Character Progress

These are a couple of images from my sketchbook to show my development into how I am working on developing the face and the reactions in different scenes of the book, by making sure the Mr Frog stays the same though out the story and adding aspect of humor and suspense is something I am working on at the moment in my other images. 

Drawing the Figure

  

Working with animals is something I can connect to extremely well. But to become as good children's book illustrator I need to draw children. This was one of the most challenging aspect of working on my book, gathering reference and taking photo's and using my family as models to make sure that the figure is right and also making sure that I draw it properly and translate that into collage was a big challenge.
In some areas for example the Third image with Princess Catherine crossing her legs, was a massive challenge to make sure her body was correct and the dress moved with her body and didn't look too stiff. But after working and gathering lots of evidence I finally came up with the right amount of images that reflect my characters movements, character and personality in different ways.

FIG: AOI Portfolio Review 1x

Having the opportunity to meet with clients is important to my succession as a upcoming illustrator, but it is also important to get valuable feed back from clients or agents about my portfolio. So finding out we had the opportunity to meet FIG from the AOI Agency was a great boost to see what she could tell us about the industry and what to do after we graduate?

The meeting I felt was extremely interesting and I liked the fact that FIG told it as it was and didn't hold back, because that is important to really understand how hard illustration is and how much competition we have in the industry. It was a great reality check and a great boost of confidence when she looked at my portfolio. She gave me great website links for competitions and briefs that would fit around my style of working, also to work a bit more on my AGE UK buildings as she thought they would look great in editors and on wallpaper. 

Development of Characters

Sense of place is a massive part of how I create my characters, I us primary and secondary research to find different scales and face expressions to translate into my Frog character.....

My step by step action

• Research primary & secondary.
• Drawings and collages.
• Colour pallets.
• Looking at my rough book ( the scene and what the frogs action will be, body language and face reactions).
• Draw onto tray-sing paper and then transfer onto a hand made colour or texture suitable for this frog.
• This is where I cut and collage my shapes together, adding shadow and detail.

These are 2 of my outcomes I have produced so far and feel very happy with the colour outcome, and how the face looks similar, making sure the characters are the some though-out the story.

Holly Wales Illustrator

HELLO I’M AN ILLUSTRATOR!

Holly Wales is a UK based illustrator and educator. Holly explores subject matter through a body of playful images & hand-drawn felt tip marker pen colour illustration for all kinds of commissions including illustrated maps and hand drawn type

   http://hollywales.com/

I was so excited to find out Holly Wales was talking to us today, after researching into the type of work she produces it would be great to find out how important it is to find work and how she works with clients. Her talk was everything and more I was hoping for, the more she talked the more I found out that our working process is very similar, we both work a lot with connect and can illustrate sometimes from others idea of how they want this to look, or give her a lot of content to work on and research into which was very encouraging and also how she finalises her work by taking it into Photoshop and creating layers and not changing the rough textures and unfinished look she produces. I found a very strong connection to her working practice and how important it is to connect with your clients.

"LOVE HOW ILLUSTRATION IS CONTENT DRIVEN" Holly Wales

How do you find work after your graduated??? And she replied competition briefs are great to find work and also keep motivated to produce work after you graduate because of the quality of the briefs and the deadlines to meet.

Emma Reynolds

Emma Reynolds talk about 'Narrative Structure and Devices'. Her experience is broad and she is currently working for animation house studio Kilogramme doing character development and sense of place 'backgrounds' for them.
http://emmareynoldsillustration.com

This lecture was very important for me as I am working on a children's book for my FMP and also wish for a career choice, so understanding her methods of working and how she creates her characters was a key influence to how I produce my characters.

• Working with different angels of the face, front, back, side, up and down.
• Cropping to create interest.
• Don't illustrate every word, the adult can read it to the child. Text & Image play their own role.
• Text: The words will say one thing ( The pictures will do different things).
• Both enhance one another without repeating yourself .
• Proportion... Large head small body. Looking at different view points.
• Make the pages flow into each other.
• Attach elements of humour depending on your age group.
• Size, layout and colour ideas.
• Rough books, continuous line of a story board no page divides.
• Playfulness and enjoyment.
• Sense of place and the equality of research.

Henri Matisse The Figure

Bringing together a children's book is difficult and I easily connect with animals and casting humor and a personally onto an animal but figures have always been a challenged to me in my work, and especially working on children's books I have to be able to draw children. As I started working with different materials felt it wasn't working but speaking to my tutor's I decided to look at my first inspiration for using collage as a form of making my illustrations which was Henri Matisse Drawing with scissors.

So I started to forget about what a figure SHOULD look like and think more about abstracting the figure more and making it more creative and fun. The overall outcome I felt was very successful and will continue to work in this method until I find a technique that I am happy with.

The King & The Princess Catherine 

Sara Fanelli- The Figure

Sara Fanelli has always been an illustrator that Iv looked up to though out my studies, for this particular project I looked at Sarah use of figures, colours, and textures in her work. 

Holden & Son's

Peter Holden & Jack Macguire (Stockport College Motion Design alumnus) of Holden & Sons will be speaking. 
http://www.holdenandsons.com

"The story of Holden & Sons began in the sixties with a fresh faced art director called Peter Holden hitch hiking his way from Northwich to Manchester to start his first job in an advertising agency. Forty years on, welcome to Holden & Sons.

As Creative Director, Peter now works with his two sons Ted and Olly, and the rest of the team in our Northern Quarter studio. Working with big brand names (and smaller, up and coming ones) is second nature to Peter, but thereʼs something special about doing what you love within a family business. So what can we do for you? As an agile, integrated marketing communications agency we can connect and engage audiences with your product or service across all media. We can help build and strengthen your brand, realising your business objectives with strategic marketing and solid creative thinking. And we can create and implement everything from a fully integrated campaign to a one-off special project on time and on budget to help make your life easier – and your bottom line healthier.

Coming to these lectures are always very exciting because it is so important that this stage of my year to connect with as many different areas of art & design that I might one day want to work with in the future. I instantly recognized the Holden & Son's logo before in advertisment but couldn't remember where from, this tells me they are very popular and well known in the advertisement industry. What I took from the lecture was how important the family connection he was trying to give across, working with his son's and understanding the importance of teaching them the skills he has learnt which I found very refreshing in a industry which you don't see anymore.

Manchester University Visit

 Manchester Museum Visit:
Starting every knew project it is always important for me to develop a sense of place sketchbook, it allows me to research different elements of where I could place my story, where the location might be? the environment that person or creature might live in?
By travelling to Manchester Museum it allowed me to focus my attention on place, the figure and research into the environment my characters lives in. Also it allowed me to go back to my drawing skills and understanding the importance of drawing from the figure and real life and how it adds a more realistic effect which I constantly links with my work.

Kate Slater ( Children's Book Development)

Kate Slater ( Children Book Illustrator)
I started to look at her work for inspiration and insight into how she produce's her sets.

PDF Portfolio Feedback (Irina Kaygorodova)

It's always important to get as much feedback as possible about my portfolio, and how I can change and develop it for future clients? So receiving an email from Irina Kaygorodova in response to my PDF portfolio was a very uplifting moment. Irina was a great influence on me when I traveled to Prague last year. Reading her email was very interesting to find out what else I can do to improve my skills and how I can translate this into my children book process. 


Hi Kate,

first of all sorry for my late reply, last period here was extremely busy. And thank you very much for your words about workshop, i'm happy to hear you liked watercolor and you started to use it after visiting my studio. 

Your artworks look very interesting and I think you can also improve your technique using watercolor, for example for backgrounds, drawing sky or whatever. Also if talk about your book cover I'd suggest you to pay more attention now for typography. The Name of the book should be more visible and also you can try to do writing by your hands (even with watercolor using different size of brush), it always looks unique and cute especially for children's books. And I would do a bit more transparent background or not so good visible on every part of cover, trying to concentrate on the main personage and Header and also I would do wall as one "picture" without border in the middle of spread. Characters look so cute, so you need just to find a way how to put them together with background.

I like your portfolio logo! Will you do some typography as well? You could continue it like a ribbons on the hat.

I really would love to see your works with watercolor :) so feel free to send me just apologize in advance if I will reply slowly.

Also I wanted to ask if you don't mind I will take your words as a testimonial for my workshop video on my website? If you don't mind please send me your picture I will post it together with text.

Looking forward to hear from you,

Best regards,

Irina 

Andrew Wyth

Michael Palin in Wyeth's World (BBC Documentary)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ1NDuvskpY

Watching this documentary gave me great insight into Wyeth's methods of working, and why he produced this painting in this location. Wyth's came from a Swedish German family of famous painters, her father was a picture book illustrator who produced a book called Treasure Island.
He lived in a small rural town where he produced over 300 painting of the surrounding of Christian country house. He made two of the rooms his studios and waited for 2 months for the winds to change and produce his painting for example The Wind from the sea 1977 and it was also were he first noticed Christian pulling herself on the floor like a crab on the New England sure. In the painting of Christian he expressed a feeling of her being trapped or is she trying to get back home. In 1968 she passed away and changed his life and the way he produced and found work. The media he worked  with was Egg Tempera which is a more rural mix media and creates more classical colour pallets.

Assessment Tutorial Feedback

It is always very nervous waiting for your Assessment, you over think things that you could of done better? How it could effect your mark? Or weather the tutor's like your ideas for FMP?

Self Assessment is an important part of assessing our work and placing a percentage of were you think you are on the marking sheet. Anyone who is stupid enough to forget their assessment sheet is just digging themselves a massive hole (specially when its on Moodle)

Like Gary says 'You get what mark you deserve at the end of the day'

Anyways I didn't need to worry I got a mark that I am extremely proud of and I felt it reflected how hard I worked? and what I learn and accomplished from that project and how I can take it into my FMP?

We decided not to continue with the Macmillan Competition Children's Brief because with a short period to produce the rest of the book I think it would of taken too much time over my FMP to produce anything else. Talking to my tutor's I decided to find a similar piece of Folk-law stories to create a re-creation of an old classical story using similar method I created my Macmillan book but taking into a knew level of investigation by taking into set design and photography like my Scary Stories final outcome was created in, producing the narratives, printing them onto cardboard and setting them up, creating depth of field and creating elements of shadow and then photographing them into a children book format. 

That's the plan anyways

Continue to follow my work, for updates and development of my project