ASS5 - Project 4 - Working for Children

Exercise - Working with Children

    For this exercise I have to look at different age groups within children illustration and compare how each range of books look different towards each other. Here below are my examples of what I found on the Internet and in catalogs

0 to 3 years old books:

  These books from birth to 3 years old are mainly child safe, which are created out of fabrics and other materials so the young child does not hurt themselves whilst looking at the illustrations and singular words. The illustrations are very simple and easy to understand what they are. The illustrations are cute resembling baby type animals and objects so that the young child can relate to these images. There is a somewhat soft approach towards these books indicating the care of the families who purchased them and also being safety awareness when a child of this young age is holding it and playing with it.

The books are brightly coloured in different contrasts and I like this to attract the attention of the young they also include various textures to interest the young child such as rustling, small bean bag type areas within the illustration and soft areas that they can stroke.

3 to 5-year-old books

    Now reaching the age of 3, children start to recognize themselves and are starting to explore people around them and the environment. The illustrations in these books are starting to learn children at an early age of simple things that they need to know which happen every day, such as the weather, 

routine, bedtime and other things in life. To help them understand the way that other people think and how things work the illustrations again are the same bright and still simple but with more action and more motion showing how things are done. There is more typography in the illustrations of the book covers and also starting to form more sentences within the books to help the child learn to read. It uses simple words and adjectives that they would use on a normal day.

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5 to 7-year-old books:

     As you can see above in my research 5 to 7-year-old books get a bit more complicated compared to zero to three-year-old books. The illustrations become what more detailed and the writing is no longer in simple sentences but in small paragraphs. The images on the books have now turned from simple to helping the children use their imagination whilst reading the stories. The stories contain simple messages dealing with everyday life such as making friends, dealing with bullies and learning what to eat to be healthy. Most of these books in this age group are about exploring the world around them and answering questions and giving the children facts to certain things that they want to know or new things to learn.

8 to 9 year old books (below):

    These books now have evolved from when the child was 0 reading a word and looking at simple illustrations to now reading a whole story in paragraphs and fewer illustrations. They are more so chapter books which either become a series of books that they can read and get into a world of their imagination. The front covers still have illustrations on them and they are much similar to the books age 5 to 7-year-olds. These books help the children of this age get used to certain ways of life and still exploring, learning about themselves, the world around them and other things such as history, nature, and space I think this is the time where children are starting to discover themselves and what they like to read and what they don't like to read helping them to find their interests in the world.

The task at hand

Now for this task I have been given a few words to choose from they are

• scary
• discover
• Festival 
• wild 
• growing
• journey 
• sad 
• family

      From these words, I have to choose two and put them in certain age groups from the research above and create an illustration suitable for that age group. I have decided that I want to use the word Discovery for 0 to 3 years old and I want to use the word Scary for 5 to7-year-olds.

Discovery 0 to 3-year-olds: word Discovery

I have done my spider diagrams in my sketchbook and have decided that I want to create a discovery of an animal. My animal is going to be a penguin which will be cute and simple for the child to look at it is a funny, cute animal. Penguins are great to look at and I feel this will keep the young child occupied with my illustration. As these books at this age are made out of material, I'm going to attempt to make the whole page myself using material and stitching the Penguin on to it but also giving it a 3D look by stuff in certain areas of the penguin.

       Here above you can see I've picked out certain materials and colours that I think will work well together to create my idea. I am now going to look at my rough sketch in my sketchbook of my penguin and start to make it onto my material that I will use for the page.

      As you can see above you can see my process of making my penguin using my needle work experience and forming a 3D illustration for a young child. I actually found this quite fun to do and my final illustration came out well considering I haven't done any needlework since I was about 14. I have used stuffing in the snow area on the ground and in the penguin to make him stick out. I have also left his wings loose so they can move same as the beak.

    I think this looks great for a 0 to 3 year olds Discovery book and is easy to understand what it is. There are lots of texture and depth to it which is great for babes.

Illustration 2: 5 to 7 year olds: word Scary

I thought I would choose the word scary as it it is a bit of a challenge as 5 to 7-year-olds are still young and to portray a scary illustration you need it to look scary but not too scary. For an example below, I wanted to just put in here an illustration from the Gruffalo story illustrated by Axel Scheffler to show how they have portrayed scary yet keeping it fun for children.

I have chosen the animal to be a lion who reminds me when I was younger when I read the children's book about the Lion and the mouse. I am going to start sketching some ideas out to see what I can come up with;

As you can see above I have sketched some ideas out and had a good think about what I wanted to do.

     I've decided that I want to create a angry pirate lion who has gotten hold of a hero mouse. I think my sketches of my pirate show him being scary towards the mouse more so then to the viewer which makes it easier on the eye to look at when you're a young child.

    I have now done a test of colours and the line drawing as above and I am happy with the colours which are bright and exciting. I think the colours remind you of the sea and pirates. What I'm going to do now is create the illustration 3D out of my paper Style.

   For my frame, I have actually used a painting canvas and scrunched up blue paper to look like water and glued that onto the canvas cutting out the Splash shape. This will then be used as the frame and glued under will be a strong piece of cardboard to help build up the layers behind it and my lion sticking out of the Splash frame.

Hear above is my background of the waves the sea and the beach behind the lion

   I have now been cutting various parts out of the lion's head and sticking them together to create a 3D effect. So far it's going really well and is still in proportion to the Splash frame that I have created I am now going to continue to do my illustration with paper and I am looking forward to the finished artwork.

I have finally finished the scary lion with the mouse artwork you are the images below:

      

       This is really my first go at actually making a cartoon image out of my paper style. I think it came out well and the depth is really good within the image. I wasn't sure about going around the different shapes using a black pen to create the cartoon Style but actually, it was worth doing as it is giving it more clarity to the illustration. One of the hardest parts of creating it was getting the hat right on his head but still keeping it overlapped on the Splash. I have also in the Splash area which was the crinkled paper, used oil pastels to add colours such as green and yellow and white to help bring out more of an ocean texture to the scene. I have then also cut out shapes of raindrops and stick them around the Splash but using a knife to curve them upwards to make them stick out also.

Overall I'm really happy with this image and it is a great illustration to put in a book for a 5 to 7 year old when they're reading a story of a hero mouse against a grumpy lion pirate.

Questions to answer from the exercise;

Are the age groups really clear cut as the exercise makes out to be?

   I think that age groups do differ but I feel that ages 5 to 7 years old and 7 to 9 years old are quite similar yet seven to nine year olds have got more chapter books in those age groups.

How did the function of text and images differ within each age group?

     The function of text and images differs within each group especially from the age of 0 to three years old, where it is mainly simple illustrations and singular letters or words. This compared to 9 year old books with paragraphs after paragraphs of words and no illustrations apart from on the cover and some black and white illustrations inside the book. However, this is based on only in the UK whereas other countries are still creating picture books at this age.

What is my response to that all children's illustrations are brightly coloured?

     Some of this question is true however only to the early age groups. As the child gets older they can read more dark and deep stories which can be scarier and be discovering such as Sherlock Holmes or learning about facts about dinosaurs these books tend to be a bit darker in the illustrations, due to nature and the topic and also the environment in which the stories take place. Books from the age of 0 to 5 are generally brighter in colours but this is to attract them to the illustrations to understand the stories or words.

Conclusion

   Doing this exercise has given me an eye opener how different ages require different needs regarding illustrations, typography, and content of each book. It is a vast improvement from 0 to 9 years old how much the books evolve with the children as they grow. I didn't realize that age 0 to 3 years old, the majority of the books are made from different materials which give the children sounds and textures to feel. I suppose this does actually make sense as they cannot read at this stage and touching, seeing and smelling are their main senses at this early stage in their lives. Overall I think I did a really good job on these two illustrations and it has helped me learn to think next time about the type of illustration based on age group of children I'm illustration is for.

Exercise - Educational Strip

    For this exercise, the brief is to create 5 educational strips about puberty for use in schools. It can be based on any topic under the puberty heading and also they would like to make it slightly humorous because of the topic, perhaps with a metaphor and a light heart and approach towards the subject as some children find this moment in their lives quite scary and unknown. The leaflet is called what's happening to my body it's all going mad!'

   As well as the five strips the client also wants an illustration of the character for the front cover of the leaflet.

     As it has been many years since I was at that stage in life, I am going to do some research of how other illustrators have portrayed this and also look on the Internet for leaflets to give me ideas of the topics that I want to choose. I have to also figure a way to make it a bit more light-hearted but still keep it serious for the children to understand what is going on. I am also going to create spider diagrams of certain topics and also character development to create my idea and build up from there.

Research

Here below is some of my research in ways that people have portrayed puberty:

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/GemmaMlees/puberty-in-girls/

Now I have looked at some ideas and ways people portray this subject to children I feel ready to get started.

   
What I'm going to do is brainstorm in sketch some ideas out to decide on what I want to do. I am going to think of ideas, character design and how I want to display the illustrations in the leaflet such as may be putting them in frames or on their own.

   Here above you can see I have researched and done a lot of work trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I decided that I wanted to keep it light and happy and thought it would be a good way to gently learn girls about puberty by adding in some humor using a girl with her pet rabbit.

I had a good think of the frames and where to put the context of the leaflet such as headings and the information needed for a girl to understand puberty.

I have done funny quick sketches and came up with a character. She is a young girl and I feel girls today can relate to her. I really liked some of my ideas, such as being my character being a ballerina and realizing that she has a hairy armpit and next to her the rabbit is also dancing as a ballerina. In another illustration, I have showed her with her body growing and the rabbits sleeping and dreaming of himself growing muscles.

    I think this way is a light-hearted way and a more subtle approach to showing girls what will happen to them as they grow.

     Now that I have my ideas and are happy with them and the way I want to portray this to a school I am going to draw out my line drawings of my six designs for the leaflet this includes the front illustration of the character.

Line Drawings

  Here above you can see my final line illustrations that I have drawn out. I'm really happy with the outcomes and feel that my characters look the same in each illustration, which creates a great Comic for children to read. I have been thinking about what I'm going to do now as to move forward to creating more of my kind of style. Recently I have got a new paper cutter machine that cuts out designs that you make. I have decided for this exercise to give it a go with my new machine.

     I'm going to scan each of these images in and get my cutting machine to cut out the frame and the illustrations out of brown recycled paper and then use light pastel colours of paper for the backgrounds. Also with the front cover illustration, I am going to turn the girl landscape so the pages of the leaflet all match going the same way and go together better.

    As you can see above here is what I have done. The printer works really well in cutting out my designs and my illustrations. 

My cutting machine also has a great feature where you can make it draw your designs on to coloured paper, a bit like a printer so I did this with each illustration.

     I decided to help my illustrations on the recycle paper, that looked a bit dark, I used a white posca pen to add subtle highlights in certain areas such as the girls bow on each illustration and the rabbit's hair. I also used it to highlight the frames around the illustrations. I have also chose my pastel colours and glued the cut-out illustrations and frames onto these coloured pieces of paper I have then used my guillotine to cut them down to fit around the frame.

     As far as my printing cutting machine goes it works really well however at one point I did have a few issues with the blade, where it was catching and kept messing up cutting out my shapes that I needed. Here below is an example of an error that occurred. I attempted to try out using my white posca pen to add highlights which I ended up being happy but this one below I used too much white on the bed and decided that I wanted to keep it more subtle.

    Now that I have got my six illustrations or prepared I'm now going to scan each one into my computer

I think the outcome of my the illustrations look fantastic and show I have really thought about this project.

I now need to look at various fonts that will work with my theme and also attaining information in which to put on each page of the leaflet to help young girls learn about puberty.

Font Examples

1 What’s happening to my Body?

Funhouse

2 What’s happening to my Body?

Kozuka Gothic Pr6N B

3 What’s happening to my Body?

Paper Cutout

4 What’s happening to my Body? Pointy Demo

5 What’s happening to my Body? Pointy Solid

6 What’s happening to my Body? Poplar Std

7 What’s happening to my Body? This Boring Party

8 What’s happening to my Body? Ravie

     Here above are a few fonts that I had a look at and tested and decided that 4th: Pointy Demo and 5th one: Pointy Solid were the best fonts to use. They have a childlike style to them, clear to read and I think they go well with my illustrations. I will use one for the headings and the other for the information of each page.

I have done research on various websites such as the NHS and child help website. I have now written a few paragraphs and I am going to add the text in Photoshop to my illustrations to create the final leaflet.

The final leaflet

Here below is my leaflet finished:

      I am so happy with my outcome it is better then I thought it was going to be. It is very charming and funny and light but also puts the important points across to a young girl, about their bodies. It also has a good amount of information and the text is clear and easy to read. The illustrations and the text work well together and the background colours make it more of a feminine theme. I think that a lot of girls would be interested in this leaflet and also parents would appreciate it. I have followed the brief well and gone through the whole process to create a strong outcome. It is humorous but keeping to the main point of the subject. I think I have succeeded well here and followed the exercise and created something using my own style. I'm now looking forward to starting the final assignment from using all my things I have learned along the exercises in this part of the course.

Christmas Paper Puppets

    As I said previously I was interesting creating paper puppets and you saw some of my Halloween ones. As it's drawing near to Christmas, I have created some Christmas puppets and have ended up putting them on Etsy here are some of them below.

       As you can see I've done some really cool ideas and experimented with foil gold leaf onto the card which has been interesting and fun to learn. I have also done a puppet for Scorpio, as I think the star signs are quite popular to do. People can use this also as a gift card to give to their November friends. The puppet idea is so far a good idea, which I still want to pursue and I have got a lot of ideas which I will be doing starting the new year now.

Paper Pawtraits

     Also, I have been very busy you will be glad to hear with orders from my Paper Pawtraits business where I am now creating 3D illustrations of people's pets here are some below:

   I am finding that doing these for people, is not only giving them joy but also helping me to learn to improve my papercraft work and experiment with ways that I want to test out. People really like my paper portraits and have become quite popular on Facebook. I have still got about 5 more to do before Christmas for gifts from people to their families, which is going really well. I am really enjoying the experience and I'm always looking for new things that I can do with paper to ope my horizons. 

Wolverhampton magazine article about me and my work

       The Wolverhampton magazine which is a posh magazine in the area got in touch with me and had seen my work and wanted to know if I would give them a story about how I came to doing my paper artwork and giving them an insight for readers to be able to get in touch with me for paper portraits here below is the article:

        I was really chuffed when they asked me and I think they have written a great piece on me and my work. I love the title and also my artwork looks fantastic and professional in here. This is great to also add on to my website so people can see how successful my work is becoming. I still have a long way to go and the OCA course is helping me so much. I have learned so much this year alone and I'm looking forward to starting the final assignment and also getting to the next level of my degree. I am hoping to become more fluid in my work and precise with cuttings out which I'm hoping my new cutting print out all will help me with.