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Post One
I read several children’s books over the last few weeks and picked my two favourites to deep dive into in order to learn as much as I can about why I liked them, what made them effective and what I can take from them to start creating my book.
Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak is an iconic children’s book for ages 3+. Sendak introduces us to a little boy, Max, and takes us through his journey to ‘Where the Wild Things Are’. Max has a fight with him mum for being unruly and wild and is sent to bed without dinner. He is angry and upset and escapes across an ocean to the world of wild things, where he can exert energy and play and be wild freely. Once he has worked through his energy, he realises he wants the comfort of home again and so he returns, across the ocean once more, and finds a peace offering from his mother; hot supper in his bedroom.
I loved this book as a whole; it has such a beautiful child-like simplicity that is nostalgic and magical to read as an adult. The themes felt thought out, fully realised and relatable, which included Love, forgiveness, childhood anger, independence, and imagination.
Love: Max leaves out of anger and forgets his home for a while; a home with a loving mother and a dog and a comfy bed, and he gets swept up in another world. Even when you are unconditionally loved, sometimes you need a break and to have space to miss it and realise how beautiful, safe, and important the people that love you are. He realises how necessary that is in being happy; he can survive on his own and have fun, go wild, do what he wants with no rules and regulations, but overall- Max chooses home.
His mother also offers a symbol of love to him, without even exchanging words; she leaves her son a hot homemade supper. This is such a great universally understood motif, that hits home for everyone – excuse the pun. In unconditional love, sometimes you don’t have to verbally say you’re sorry; the other person knows, because they know who you are and love you no matter what.
Overall, in the arch of the story, Max chooses his mum, and her love over everything else.
Independence: Max left home because he wanted to, he created a whole world by himself, he became king of the wild things, he tamed them; and then he realised that he didn’t want that, he wanted what he had all along. The fact that Max figured all of this out himself is so important to creating such a vivid character; he makes decisions and has character growth because of his exploration of independence.
Childhood anger: Sendak doesn’t ignore it, he portrays it in a natural and non-judgemental way. We don’t see max apologise for shouting at his mum, and instead he works through his anger by himself on his own terms. Sendak breaks the taboo of anger – it is a normal emotion for both kids and adults, and we need to learn to accept it in order to deal with it. Max literally tames his wild things.
Imagination: Sendak writes about Max’s imaginary world as if it is the obvious truth; he doesn’t say “and then Max imagined…” he says “That very night in Max’s room a forest grew” (Sendak, 1963, p.10)
“And grew -” (Sendak, 1963, p.12)
“And grew until his ceiling hung with vines
And the walls became the world all around” (Sendak, 1963, p.14) Sendak respects the concept of imagination as reality and in doing that creates a vivid and truthful world. Max’s imagination plays a crucial part in working out his anger; he is in a world with no boundaries, no rules, no parental guidance; he can do anything he want, and only with this power could he express his independence and feelings in order to work towards a healthy mental state in which he can happily return home.
Sendak uses a plethora of language techniques to make the book dynamic and beautiful. There is a real rhythm in the way the story is written; it starts off softy in the first two sentences, leads you in, and then amps up the drama suddenly on the third page, like the chorus of a song. Maurice uses similar amounts of words and structure in the sentences on the third page to make a lyrical and fast paced flow.
Language techniques
There is a real rhythm in the way the story is written; it starts off softy in the first two sentences, leads you in, and then amps up the drama suddenly on the third page, like the chorus of a song. Maurice uses similar amounts of words and structure in the sentences on the third page to make a lyrical and fast paced flow; when you lay it out on one page it looks and reads similar to poetry, great poetry; this is where the lyricality comes from. The similar sentence structure carry’s you through easily, and the repetition of “And” makes it sing-songy.
A few techniques that Sendak uses that I liked:
“His mother called him “WILD THING!”
And Max said “ILL EAT YOU UP!”” (Thompson, 1957, p.1)
I like that Maurice uses all capitals for the dialogue here, it puts such emphasis and excitement, and makes it more dynamic to look at. It also emphasises Max’s intense energy that obviously can be hard for his mum to deal with. It shadows a reality of angry fights between parents and children- something that almost everyone has experienced and can be extremely hard to work through; we can’t blame our parents for being stressed and affected by the intensity of raising children with so many other stresses in their life, and we can’t blame children for being unaware of the strain they are placing, or for expressing themselves.
“That very night in Max’s room a forest grew” (Thompson, 1957, p.10)
I really like the lack of punctuation; no full stop, no comma after room, it makes it feel very childlike and sure of itself. Maurice has written the story as fact; there’s no need for more context either.
Sendak uses alliteration with A sounds consistently, and uses other alliteration throughout, for example
G:
“… a forest grew” (Thompson, 1957, p.10)
“and grew” (Thompson, 1957, p.12)
“And grew until his ceiling hung with vines” (Thompson, 1957, p.14)
W:
“…a forest grew
And grew -
And grew until his ceiling hung with vines
And the walls became the world all around” (Thompson, 1957, p.14)
And then later:
“And in and out of weeks
And almost over a year
To where the wild things are” (Thompson, 1957, p.18)
There are many more examples through the book. He is a beautiful poet; a great skill for writing children’s books.
“They roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth” (Thompson, 1957, p.20)
“And rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws” (Thompson, 1957, p.21)
The repetition of terrible makes it fun and easy to read; children or tired parents aren’t getting lost in a sea of describing words (although there are plenty in the book, just not an overuse), we don’t need four words for terrible, its unnecessary; we get the picture through the other describing words of claws and teeth and eyes and roars. It’s not convoluted and still provokes an image, and when paired with the illustration, it’s a perfect team.
Then, Max smells dinner for far across the world and wants to go home.
“But the wild things cried, “Oh, please don’t go -
We’ll eat you up – we love you so!”
And Max said “No!”” (Thompson, 1957, p.34)
The rhyming of go, so, and no is so simple but so effective. It drives the cadence of the page.
“we’ll eat you up – we love you so!” (Thompson, 1957, p.34) is such a beautiful idea and comes from a letter Maurice got from a child’s mother saying that their child ate Maurices letter back to them because they loved it so much. It’s such a childlike notion, it’s incredibly charming and odd. I like that Sendak isn’t afraid to be weird.
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, ‘Dear Jim: I loved your card.’ Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, 'Jim loved your card so much he ate it.’ That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.” (Sendak, 2012)
“and it was still hot” (Thompson, 1957, p.40) Is the last sentence of the book, a sweet detail about Max’s dinner that his mother left him. This small but beautiful image; a hot meal, provokes many childhood images of my own, and is something that is a universal signal of home and love.
The things I want to take away from Where the Wild Things Are to incorporate into my book are Sendak’s confidence in writing about themes that aren’t common or are thought of as taboo; themes such as anger in children’s books, and the complexities of parent and child relationships, I also love the slightly abstract nature of Sendak’s writing and how he really explores imagination. I am very impressed with how active and assertive Max’s character is; I find that when I write, I can easily fall into having a passive protagonist, so this is something I will definitely work on and learn from.
I want to write my story as poetically as Sendak writes, I think it’s a great way to create a rhythm and enjoyable reading experience that doesn’t rely on an abundance of unnecessary words; I think this is an important difference in writing an adult or YA novel and children’s books; you need to get your point across concisely and vividly in a lot less words. In making my book poetic I will also use alliteration and make my sentences similar sizes. I also want to have a dynamic visual effect of the words in my book; Sendak uses capitals, and I will investigate other ways to do this too.
BOOK TWO:
Eloise in Paris by Kay Thompson
Eloise in Paris is a longer form book than where the wild things are and is for a slightly older market (aged 7 and up). This is clear from the more varied vocabulary and clear indication that the writer trusted the audience more with figuring out the context of what Eloise was saying and understanding the humour; “I always travel incognito” (Thompson, 1957, p.11) Eloise says with big celebrity sunglasses on.
Eloise in Paris is about a 6-year-old upper class girl who travels with her mother, nanny and dog to Paris. The book is an exploration of Eloise as a character; written in the 1950’s, Eloise is an unconventional female protagonist for the time; she is boisterous, confident, eccentric and unforgivingly herself.
I love this book for its incredible depth of character and playful writing techniques. It still feels contemporary and relevant 70 years from its creation, knocking down boundaries of how girls should behave and the idea of the four unit family (mother, father, and two kids) with its unconventional mother / daughter / nanny relationship.
Thompson initially wrote the first book in the franchise for an adult audience, which can explain its uncommon point of reference; the books don’t have an obvious lesson or message as most kids books do, we just watch in awe as Eloise moves through the world moulding it to her own wants and needs, having a hell of a time doing it.
Themes:
Growing up/wanting to be grown up:
Eloise has a strikingly individual point of view; and she seems to know a lot about everything, or at least is so confident that we believe that she can do anything. She mimics the grown-ups in her life, from language to behaviour, saying “And oh my lord” (Thompson, 1957, p.12) and pronouncing rather as “rawther” (Thompson, 1957, p.4). She says things like “well by all means send it up right away”; (Thompson, 1957, p.1) an unusually mature tone with a sense of adult urgency that is rare in children unless mimicking the dialect of adults.
Unconventional family dynamics:
We don’t hear from Eloises mother almost at all in the whole book, we see her in the illustrations; but Eloise is never actually with her mum, but instead at a different table with her nanny, or watching her with others from afar.
Independence:
Eloise does what she wants, when she wants. If she wants to cross the road at the Arc De Triomphe without a care in the world, she will, and if she wants to loudly explore the hotel by herself in the middle of the night, she will. She is perfectly autonomous, something that many kids don’t have and can only fantasise about. The book serves as a fantastic break from the rule abiding reality that many kids exist in.
Womens liberation:
Eloise was born in the 50’s; a time where women were expected to be pretty and quiet, cook clean and pop out babies. Eloise rebels from the notion of the silent woman; she is funny, clever (she learns french!), charming and self-assured, and she isn’t afraid of anything. She is a fantastic role model for children, especially young girls who are still being told to this day that their value is in being passive. I also like that that wasn’t even necessarily a thought over ‘lesson’ or point in the book, or it wasn’t spelled out; Thompson just let Eloise be whoever she wanted to be.
“Life magazine said Eloise was “the most controversial literary heroine of the year. She charms and terrifies like a snake." (Goodman, 2017)
Language techniques:
Thompson has so much fun playing with the language in this book, and there is an incredibly strong sense of character that we can hear from her careful techniques.
Onomatopoeia:
“zibbity zap clink clank” (Thompson, 1957, p.1)
“zambo sting sting stinger” (Thompson, 1957, p.7)
“clink clank pick up that phone” (Thompson, 1957, p.8)
“ne quittez pas and zuk zuk zuk zwhocky zuk zuk swgock zuk zucky zuk zuk zwock nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn” (Thompson, 1957, p.22)
These are just some examples of the onomatopoeia that Thompson uses in Eloise in Paris. This technique makes reading it so amusing and strange and puts you right into the silly and unembarrassed mind of a child.
Phonetic spelling:
“Nanny is rawther long-sighted” (Thompson, 1957, p. 4), and “I am rawther photogenic” (Thompson, 1957, p. 80) the use of phonetic spelling to signal accent; this book has a high chance of being read out as well, so this forces the reader to say rather the way Thompson imagines Eloise would say it, making for a more interesting and silly listening experience, also enriching the upper class character of Eloise.
Once Eloise is in Paris she starts saying “Nahnee”(Thompson, 1957, p.19) instead of nanny, which again conjures such a great image in the reader’s head of the slightly snobby and extremely flamboyant Eloise.
Listing:
Listing is a great technique to break up the structure of a text; and in Thompsons case it’s always funny:
“Here’s what you have to pack if you’re going to Paris France
Mary Jane button hook
Pliers
Consomme container
Hotel kit
Here’s what else you have to take
Everything” (Thompson, 1957, p. 9)
and a lovely little insight into the details of her world; Mary Jane button hook shoes matched with pliers and a soup container? It’s clear that Eloise has big plans, and a million thoughts running through her mind. The lists Eloise writes are though it was written by an eccentric rushing around causing chaos.
Repetition:
“Get out get out get out” (Thompson, 1957, p.11)
“Regardes which means look look look” (Thompson, 1957, p.14)
The repetition creates a fast paced reading experience, it rushes you through the sentence and throws you onto the next.
What I want to take from Eloise in Paris is the remarkable sense of character that we feel through the language that Thompson used, the silliness and the boundlessness of the capabilities of the character. I love the idea that a child can do anything they want without any real consequences; they should leave the reading journey feeling like they can be whoever they want to be, and achieve whatever they want to achieve.
I loved the engaging elements that make the book fun to read; from listing to onomatopoeia, these techniques are exciting for children to read and make sure that the book isn’t boring or one dimensional.
I also want to take inspiration from the craziness of the world around Eloise; yes she is a little girl, but she is not normal in any way. She is unique; just like everybody else. I love the flamboyance of the crazy hotel she lives in, and that she creates mayhem wherever she goes.
Bibliography
Sendak, M. (1963). Where The Wild Things Are,
Thompson, K. (1957). Eloise In Paris.
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Post Two
Maurice Sendak
Maurice Sendak wrote as well as illustrated Where the Wild Things Are, which is a beautiful concept as it gives Sendak full autonomy and creative licence over what the reader reads and sees; his world can truly come to life in his own vision, and not be intercepted and distorted by someone else. If you have the skill, I think this is a brilliant thing to be able to do.
Sendak has an interesting and slightly dark illustration style, and it can be very surreal; he places real objects alongside imaginary creatures. He also creates an interesting and surreal perspective in terms of the size and angle in which he illustrates; see Image One.
The room in this image is a very interesting and unique ratio. If you look at the bed, it is very tall and short, and when you look at Max’s feet, they are huge compared to his body. I really like the exaggerated perspective as it creates the feeling of something being a bit off; a bit different, a little bit unreal and dreamlike, which plays beautifully in children’s books for both the imagination of the child and the nostalgia of the parent; adults tend to look back to childhood with a dreamlike quality; since we were so small, everything seemed big, time seemed stretched out or squished up, and reality was completely different.
I also love the darkness throughout the illustrations in the book as it parallels Sendak’s darker that normal themes. It also feels very old or traditional which I personally love; it reminds me of lithographs in the 1700’s or Brothers Grimm illustrations with his use of shading and a muted pallet.
Kay Nielsen
Kay Nielsen is an iconic illustrator who was popular in the 20th century. He used aspects of Art Nouveau, realism, and surrealism, and reminds me of Klimt in the use of luminescent detail and delicate features in every aspect of the work.
The style is incredibly dark but whimsical and delicate. The level of detail astounds me and makes his illustrations feel like a deep world in themselves, worlds that you don’t even need words alongside; he captures a depth of emotion that speaks for itself. He does this by using a very delicate hand, the use of light and dark and, like Sendak, a muted colour pallet.
See: Image Two.
In this image, the woman instantly stands out; not because she is big or bold or colourful, but because she is the light in a dense darkness. Instead of adding a lot of different colours, Nielsen uses the negative space to create a moving effect. He also adds depth in the image by using various shades of the green blues in the forest instead of using a lot of black to convey darkness; Van Gogh uses a similar technique in Café Terrace at Night, where he used absolutely no black and instead used deep purples and blues to create a full and bursting darkness, instead of a flat black dark.
Quentin Blake
After looking through a large amount of illustrations in my old children’s books and online, I was drawn to Quentin Blake, who has a similar style to Neilsen and Sendak’s so I could really pick apart what I liked about this style and hone in on how it could influence my own style.
See: Image Three.
Blake has the same attention to detail and maximalism that Sendak and Neilsen have, but in a much more contemporary context; Blake is more liberal and unrestricted with his use of brush strokes; Neilson is very delicate and precise, Sendak makes his subject matter larger and takes up more room with his pencil, but Blake has a free feel to his illustrations; they are much sketchier and don’t promise to be perfect, which I really love. It creates a sense of movement and unstableness, a feeling that the world that he draws is real and constantly changing.
Blake uses a lot more colour than Neilsen and Sendak, although the colours aren’t incredibly bright or overwhelming, he chooses his pallet carefully as to not confuse the viewer. In this image he chooses the complimentary colours of red and green with accents of yellow and blue; they work together and lift each other up.
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Post Three
Things to explore and think about that I learnt from my research:
Listing- I found the listing in Eloise Goes To Paris so compelling and entertaining.
The poetry & rhythm of both books was beautiful and integral to the writer’s art.
Dialogue was a great part of both books as well; Eloise had such a strong voice that made you feel and love her, and Max’s character came through in his dialogue. The phonetic spelling and humour in Eloise Goes To Paris was a great was to make the character come to life, and the dynamic nature and visual aspect of Max’s dialogue in Where the Wild Things Are was captivating.
Maurice Sendak’s story doesn’t rely on an abundance of unnecessary words; he gets the point across concisely and vividly. Both stories also have an assertive protagonist which is something I need to work towards.
I adore aesthetically the abstract nature of Sendak’s writing; I think it lends well to the concept as a whole and getting children to explore their imagination in less rigid terms, and also makes the illustrations come to life and have creative licence to elevate the story.
Themes of childhood emotion, imagination and being boundless in what your protagonist can do was very inspiring to me as well.
I wrote drafts of a few different stories that were inspired by my research in order to find one that I could then edit, and use as my final story.
One:
What I am trying to explore:
Abstract concepts, interesting dialogue, themes of imagination and using repetition. Also themes of who you are and who you can be that I was interested in in my proposal.
Story:
“Hello, me!” said Sam to the mirror
“Hello, you!” said the mirror to Sam.
“I’m doing something different today.”
The mirror smiled back.
Sam liked their hair long,
Sam liked their hair short,
Sam liked that their hair had a life of its own.
Today Sam’s hair wanted to be long.
So they stepped through the time hole.
They were very very squished
And then, suddenly, hugely stretched out
And Sam popped out in one year.
They looked in the mirror
“HELLO, old friend!”
Sam was bewildered,
Their hair twirled all around.
Sam twirled with it.
Two:
What I am trying to explore:
Exploring listing & imagination. Thinking about poetry; alliteration, rhyme, cadence & repetition.
Story:
My Things
I have a million things.
They are all me,
And I am all them.
This one cost two whole dollars!
This one I found
In the middle of a tree!
This pile of things is very heavy
And very dusty
Because they stay very still
And I watch them intently.
These are my jewels.
I collect them on my walks.
I give them to friends
Who come in all sorts.
Sometimes I lose my things,
In fact I do it a lot…
Usually it’s those silly Grimbles
This is a Grimble hot spot.
Flowers are my favourites.
Its ok if they get dry,
I stick them between a book
Or just paint them with my dye.
This one I made
It hangs on my wall,
If I focus and point,
I can make it fall.
This one is expensive,
My mum got it for me.
I get under the covers,
And I go off to sleep.
Three:
Inspired maybe a little too heavily by Where the Wild Things Are; inspired by the narrative structure and themes. Also playing with the use of capitals like Sendak does.
A mean finger pointed in Lolas face
A big red mean finger attached to a big mean red ogre
That looked like he was about to SWALLOW Lola whole
Lola screamed and she ran and ran and ran and ran
And her face was wet with tears.
As her tears fell something strange happened
The tears became bigger and bigger
And more and more
Until they themselves grew larger than Lola
And they swallowed her up.
Lola tucked her knees to her chest
And locked her arms around them
She closed her eyes and sobbed some more.
Lola created a bubble around her
So that nobody from outside could enter her tears
And no creatures from her tears could enter her bubble.
She was all alone.
One hundred years passed
and the tears had dried up
And Lola was alone…
“YIPPEE” she said! “WOO HOO” she yelled!
She danced around the land!
She twirled all day! And skipped all night!
And yelled into the air
“I AM ALOOONNNEEEEEEEE!”
She looked around….
She danced around the land, again.
She twirled all day.
And skipped all night.
She whispered to herself
“I am all alone.”
So she walked across the land,
And back across the hundred years,
She found her tears
And swam.
She found the big red ogre
Who had shrunk back to his regular size,
With his shirt tucked in,
And his big round eyes.
He bent down to little Lola
To show her a smile.
He was no longer red.
And she was no longer scared.
Four:
Inspiration from the craziness of the world around Eloise- I love the flamboyance of the crazy hotel she lives in and the strangeness of the world around her.
Story:
Amelias house lent to the left
Unless there was a particularly strong wind
Or you told it off,
In which case it leant to the right.
Amelia didn’t like to tell the house off
But sometimes it got carried away
And squashed her cats
And once it almost squashed Amelia
When she was sleeping
(and she had to grab bricks from her dream and pile them up
So she didn’t get squashed)
(she made sure to return the bricks later)
After that incident she had to tell the house off
Really bad
And it lent to the right for a while after that
Which made the furniture look funny.
Amelia did what every normal child did;
She made sure to pay the monthly bills
She talked to important people on the phone
She worried about money
and made sure to find as much as she could on her walk to work.
Her work was petting strangers’ cats.
She loved it, don’t get me wrong, but boy was it stressful sometimes.
When she got home from work, she said to house
“UGH, will you let me put my bag down first!
Before you start harassing me for things!”
And then she poured herself a glass of something strong;
Tonight, it was lime cordial.
On the weekends she slept in
And said oh boy, I wish everyday was like this!
She made sure to read the news paper
For her news, on paper
And she shook the pages around
And flipped them back and forth as best she could
And made sure to fold it in a few different ways.
Sometimes she would grab a pen and say to house
“what’s a four-letter word for flabbergasted?”
And then do a big loud “Hmpfh”
And turn the page over.
Since all of this was really quite exhausting,
Amelia was lucky to have her parents’ house to escape to
If she needed it.
Five:
What I am trying to explore:
Themes of childhood emotion, actively trying to write an assertive protagonist. Using repetition & alliteration. Also trying to write so that when read out loud it will be amusing.
Story:
I put on my favorite dress,
My secret favorite dress, nobody knows
Its girly and pink and the sparkles go BOOM
And then I heard the voice,
He always comes
Whenever I put on the secret dress
The voice is slimy and dark and dank
And throws you into a deep dark hole
The hole is so deep and dark and deep
Sometimes I think I’ll never leave.
He says yuck, that dress is girly
So girly pink and yuck
You look silly, didn’t sally say?
When you wore that dress to school one day?
But there is one thing that I can do
When that slimy voice comes
I pull out my sword and say GO AWAY
And I cut the slimy thing to the bone
The funny thing is,
The thing behind the voice
The slimiest sluggiest slip slop yuck voice in the whole wide world
Is the smallest tiniest silliest thing,
It’s hard not to laugh at it.
Six:
What I am trying to explore:
Story:
There once was a little girl who never spoke.
Well, she had spoken once, as a baby. She said ‘baba’ which in baby talk meant “please get off my bed, big brother, I would like to be alone now”
But her brother laughed, and pointed a big red finger at her and called their parents in.
“What, what?” they said, “hurry up boy!”
“Look at Amelia trying to talk!”
They crowded her and staired at her with their big round eyes, waiting.
Amelia tried to say: “I’m not sure what the commotion is about… I know what I want to say, I’m just figuring out how to get it out. I’ll figure it out soon, mummy, daddy.”
But only a loud babble came out: “Mmm gaba.”
Her family scrunched up their faces and started laughing at her.
“Well, she’s not going to be the brightest of the bunch!”
And they left her all alone.
Amelia was so embarrassed from that day forward that she didn’t say a word again.
That was nine whole years ago.
Since Amelia’s family didn’t believe her to be bright, they never sent her to school.
But Amelia learnt in her own way.
She taught herself how to read and how to paint using things from around the house. Marmite was a great black, and if she cut out parts of magazines she could create great images of colour and people.
She sat in her garden and learned about the bugs and the trees, and about how the leaves on the trees fell when it was getting colder, and how flowers started popping up when warmer weather was on its way.
Amelia was lucky to have the kindest next door neighbour in the world; Miss Andrews.
Miss Andrews was as loud and chatty which made up for Amelia’s lack of words. She also played violin.
I also wrote an alternate path for this story, but wasn’t able to finish either due to lack of time.
Amelia walked to school by herself every day.
She crossed busy roads and walked down dark alleys.
She walked past bullies who pulled her pigtails and stole her lunch;
Not that they were very impressed with it, Amelia’s family weren’t big cooks
Usually, her lunch was packed with ice,
or sometimes a lemon found its way in.
Amelia never said anything to the bullies.
She was too scared to talk.
Amelia had a horrible teacher who picked on her in class.
She forced all the children to read their work out loud
And if they could she would yell “PAAASSSSS!”
But if they couldn’t she would yell “FAAIILLLLLL!”
And make them run 100 laps around the field,
rain or shine.
Luckily, Amelia had a friend.
Her name was Lola.
Lola ran laps around the field with Amelia,
Even when she didn’t have to.
Lola made fun of the bullies when they weren’t looking,
And Lola shared her lunch with Amelia, so she wouldn’t be hungry.
Amelia walked into class and took her seat next to Lola.
Seven:
Laura wasn’t good at anything.
She didn’t know how to be good.
She tried drawing but she did it wrong
And her parents told her off.
She tried reading but she didn’t know the words,
She tried writing but it came out all wrong,
The words were lopsided and fell off the page.
She tried cooking but she made a mess
She tried tidying but somehow… made it even messier.
She hid from her mum after that,
But she wasn’t good at hiding.
Laura felt silly and strange so she sat in her garden
And she closed her eyes for a very long time.
When she woke up, she got quite a shock.
Her garden had grown into a tall dark forest,
With flowers and vines and big dense bushes.
Laura looked around. She was lost, and cold. A howl echoed far away.
But then – she heard a smaller howl. A tiny one. She turned to see a little wolf.
The wolf looked at her and growled – he was scared too.
Laura crawled slowly to him and held out her hand.
“Come here, little wolf. Its ok, I won’t hurt you.”
The wolf whimpered and cautiously sniffed her hand.
She pet him on the head and he came into her lap.
“Where do you live, little wolf?” asked Laura, and they heard another loud howl in the distance.
The little wolf tried to howl back but was so quiet Laura barely heard it herself.
“I see.” she whispered. “I’ll get you back home.”
So Laura and the wolf took off looking for home.
I ended up choosing my three favourite stories and working on them to find what my final story would be.
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Post Four
I wrote the story / poem ‘Things’ and I liked it, although at the time I felt it lacked narrative; after reading Sendak and Thompson I was wrapped up in the idea of having a strong narrative in a small book; something that is very hard to do and takes a lot of time. But, after reading The Bed Book by Sylvia Plath, illustrated by Quentin Blake, I realised that the poem did have narrative, was interesting and still created a vivid world that was worth exploring. I also wrote the poem with a strong sense of the visual elements that could enhance it as a children’s book that I am excited to explore.
I think that because it is short and snappy, it has a quick reading and fast paced rhythm that I believe children would enjoy and be able to learn to read from. I also think that I was successful in acquiring a voice that is relatable to a child and included themes that are universally relatable as well. I as a child and now as a grown up am obsessed with my little things and they hold great importance to be; it has always been crucial to my identity, especially growing up in a home that couldn’t afford fancy things or all the new and exciting toys that I wanted; I gathered my own little objects that were important to me by myself, and I gained the awareness that having the things that everybody else had didn’t actually enhance my life – picking up things that I found beautiful, no matter what anybody else though, was much more exciting and better at expressing who I was and who I wanted to be.
I also made sure to explore a sense of imagination and magic in the story; kids believe they can do anything! And this is such a fun thing to include. I believed that there was a part of me that I could unlock at any moment that would make me able to fly or breathe underwater or move things with my mind, and that hope was so fun and is an important thing to remember as an adult; there are so many strengths inside of you that you can pick out and experience – its important not to put yourself into a box.
I tried to include a good rhythm and lyricality in the story to make it sing-songy and have a good flow for easy reading, and easy reading out loud. I made an effort to rhyme; “Sometimes I lose my things,
In fact I do it a lot…
Usually it’s those silly Grimbles
This is a Grimble hot spot.”
which adds to the entertainment and poetic element, and I tried to use repetition like Thompson does so well; “This pile of things is very heavy
And very dusty
Because they stay very still
And I watch them intently.”
I also wanted to include the theme of diversity and inclusivity that originally inspired me to do this project; “These are my jewels.
I collect them on my walks.
I give them to friends
Who come in all sorts.”
For this verse, I imagine illustrating friends who come from diverse backgrounds, as well as things I used to consider to be my friends when I felt lonely as a child; teddy bears and pets.
I knew I wanted an ending to tie the poem up nicely and liked the idea of a parent reading it to their child before they go to sleep. This is why I ended the story with the child going to sleep; it felt like a nice way to make a child feel comfortable with going to sleep; to be excited by their cosy bed made for them by their family.
Although I do think I’m on the right track with this story, I am still not sure if it needs more narrative to make it more of a journey that could have a lasting effect on the reader. I’m not looking to write the next Harry Potter – I’m not even looking to make a story that is publishable, as obviously this would take months to years with an editor, but I do want to make something that I am proud of and that I believe is the most effective story that I can form at this time.
My insecurities with this story are that its point isn’t strong enough; I want children to be excited about having or collecting things that express who they are and find value in things that are unique and not expensive, or don’t cost anything at all, but I’m unsure if this story hits the spot because I have used a less traditional narrative structure. I think to gain more perspective and get some good critical feedback I will ask some trusted people to read ‘Things’ and give me constructive criticism that I can use to better the story.
Revisions:
I added more rhymes to the second stanza because I wanted to add a little more humour and more imagination in the form of listing even more places that you can find your special things, and also to add a little mini narrative of the child finding the things in odd places so the reader can see the collection being acted out.
I also wondered if the first stanza was a little unclear or confusing, but then realised that the abstract nature of the first stanza was exactly what I liked about Where The Wild Things Are; the sense of not having to over explain, trusting the reader to understand what is being said.
In my third draft I swapped some sentences around as I was illustrating, because some made more sense as whole page illustrations, while others looked better grouped together.
Things Version Three:
I have a million things.
They are all me,
And I am all them.
This one I found
In the middle of a tree!
This one cost two whole dollars!
This one came from a beach,
This one came from a bench,
This one is French,
This one was DRENCHED.
These are my jewels.
I collect them on my walks.
I give them to friends
Who come in all sorts.
Sometimes I lose my things,
In fact I do it a lot…
Usually it’s those silly Grimbles
This is a Grimble hot spot.
Flowers are my favourites.
Its ok if they get dry,
I stick them between a book
Or paint them with my dye.
This one I made
It hangs on my wall,
If I focus and point,
I can make it fall.
This one is expensive,
My mum got it for me.
I get under the covers,
And I go off to sleep.
Things Version Two:
I have a million things.
They are all me,
And I am all them.
This one cost two whole dollars!
This one I found
In the middle of a tree!
This one came from a beach,
This one came from a bench,
This one was DRENCHED,
This one is French.
This pile of things is very heavy
And very dusty
Because they stay very still
And I watch them intently.
These are my jewels.
I collect them on my walks.
I give them to friends
Who come in all sorts.
Sometimes I lose my things,
In fact I do it a lot…
Usually it’s those silly Grimbles
This is a Grimble hot spot.
Flowers are my favourites.
Its ok if they get dry,
I stick them between a book
Or paint them with my dye.
This one I made
It hangs on my wall,
If I focus and point,
I can make it fall.
This one is expensive,
My mum got it for me.
I get under the covers,
And I go off to sleep.
Things Version One
I have a million things.
They are all me,
And I am all of them.
This one cost two whole dollars!
This one I found
In the middle of a tree!
This pile of things is very heavy
And very dusty
Because they stay very still
And I watch them intently.
These are my jewels.
I collect them on my walks.
I give them to my friends
Who come in all sorts.
Sometimes I lose my things,
In fact I do it a lot…
Usually it’s those silly Grimbles
This is a Grimble hot spot.
Flowers are my favourites.
Its ok if they get dry,
I stick them between a book
Or just paint them with my dye.
This one I made
It hangs on my wall,
If I focus and point,
I can make it fall.
This one is expensive,
My mum got it for me.
I get under the covers,
And I go off to sleep.
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Post Five, Part Two
I emulated a few of my favorite Quentin Blake illustrations. Blakes style is much more forgiving and time effective, while still being a fantastic example of creating mood, tone, and emotive imagery. I love the childish nature that his illustrations provoke and found it fun and expressive to recreate some of his works, especially as a lifelong fan of his work. I played around with mediums of pen and pencil first to grasp the shapes and details of his works (see image 1), and wasn’t surprised that although they look like messy or easily done drawings, they still take a lot of time and precision. I liked the black and white images that I did and made sure to include not only people, but Blakes famous animals as well. I struggled mostly with proportions of the characters bodies; it was easy to make them too short, but after assessing this I was able to readjust my perspective and make sure I was elongating the limbs like Blake does, unless the image called for a shorter frame.
Another illustration that I struggled with was the dog (see image 1); I found it very difficult to sketch him in the right amount of exaggerated realism, but after many uses of my rubber, I was able to get the drawing to a point I was happy with and that evoked Blakes style.
I then freestyled with shape and color, (see image 2) starting with the character in the middle which is more of Blakes style, and finishing with a more abstract face of a man upsidedown in the top left corner. I found working with watercolor pencil very effective and the simple nature of it meant that I saved a great deal of time while still recreating many images and being able to explore the medium myself. I found it enjoyable and relatively easy to shade using the pencils as well, which is a great way of creating depth and background in the drawings.
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Post Five, Part One
This week I looked back on my research and explored techniques through emulating Kay Neilsen and Quentin Blake.
I knew that emulating Kay Neilsen’s ‘In The Midst of the Gloomy Thick Wood’ (Neilsen, K. 1914) would be challenging but I underestimated the time it would take me to even attempt to capture the general idea of the work. This painting took me over 30 hours to make and I am not even close to the essence of the original work. That being said, I think I learnt a huge amount in the process. (see image 1)
I started with a simple outline of the work in which I would fill in with watercolour, Nielsens favourite medium. Neilsen also used ink which I couldn’t get at the time which is one of the things that went wrong; Nielsen used water colour for the general colour but detailed the illustration with fine use of ink; but since I didn’t have ink to use, I tried to troubleshoot by using watercolour pencil for the details but the pencils were too thick and not pigmented enough so didn’t come through effectively. (see image 2)
I then decided to change my medium to oil paint and a thin brush; this way I could attempt to include much more effective detail. I’m glad that I went with paint, but this posed its own problems; I couldn’t get quite the same texture in the trees as I was able to with watercolor as the paint was very thick, so layers were hard to achieve and easily looked clumsy. My first try to texturize and include the different shades in the trunks of the trees was in the middle light green trunk in image 3, which ended up looking too clunky, especially compared to Nielsen’s delicate hand. I decided to try and find a way to do this technique without building up too much paint, and tried actually mixing the colors on the page – I put a darker green in places and a lighter green opposite and then blended on the page (see the light green trunk on the far right). This worked well but still didn’t seem to come close to Nielsens effect. I then tried to use much less paint and used the brush to thin it out and feather it to the right to create shading which worked much better, as you can see in the darker trunk on the left of the clumsy light green one. This I realized was ok but still wasn’t in the same tone as Nielsens, and when I looked even closer at the original, I realized that a lot of the shading was done by adding tiny light and dark dots to the trunks, so I decided to try a technique of painting a block base color (which was good as it didn’t ruin my brush as much as the feathering technique, and was easier to get straight lines)(see the second trunk in from the left) and then adding dark and light dots to shade. I used this technique for the rest of the trunks that weren’t filled in already.
My next challenge was dotting in a way that was effective; Nielsen’s dots were incredibly tiny, and this was hard to emulate in a time sensitive manor. The large dots in image 4 were made by the watercolour pencils and as I said before, were much too large.
I then, quickly running out of time at this point, tried a more time savvy technique of painting small but physically tall dots (getting as much paint in the small dot as possible) and then used these as a basis to paint more dots with instead of having to go back to my pallet for every dot. I then fanned my brush out slightly so the individual hairs could be used to paint individual dots. This turned out much too messy and not defined enough. (see the middle left trunk in image 5)
I realized at this stage that I was growing frustrated and anxious about how much time I was spending on this painting and how behind it was making me. I decided that I needed a break for the rest of the day and would come back to it tomorrow. This made an integral difference in clearing my mind and making me be able to assess what I needed to do and how to do it effectively. I studied the original painting, was much more careful with the brush, and was able to create tiny patterns of dots which was my most successful attempt so far. I finished the rest of the trees with this method. (see image 6, 7 & 8.) As I was now a week behind, I made the sacrifice of only doing black dots instead of different shades of dots. This was upsetting but was what had to happen so I could move on with my project.
The detailing in the branch and leaves were another thing I had to figure out. For the larger bushy part (see image 9), I tried shading in the background with the feathering technique and the other technique I used in the trunks of blending paint on the page itself. I then added small branch details on top to create definition; my problem here was that I was well out of time and couldn’t perfect the details as I would have liked to, so it came out a bit clumsy.
On the smaller branches (see image 10) I changed my technique accordingly and was finer with my hand and created a more convincing effect by creating a gradient of dark green to light green, and using minimum amounts of paint in order to leave tiny white parts of the paper visible to create more texture and detail with minimum amount of time. I was also very careful with the brush to create tiny branches and leaf details that I think worked as well as I could have done. This was much more effective that the bigger bushy part in the previous image which I used too much paint in and left the branch and leaf details too undefined.
Painting the woman in the illustration (see image 11) took the least time and was the easiest, but still definitely lacks detail. The woman in the original is lankier which was an error in my original drawing, and in Nielsens she seems dirtier, expressing more of a feeling and mood of lostness. I got the skin tone wrong – she is much paler in Nielsens version, and the hair had more texture than in mine. At this point I knew it was time to move on and that I wouldn’t be able to re-do the character, but overall I still think she looks ok and I’m happy that I got the general shape wrong and didn’t waste time repainting.
Overall, I am extremely proud of my dedication and for trying my absolute hardest in re-creating this illustration. I learnt a huge amount about technique and am proud that I was committed to changing my techniques if they weren’t working, and I wasn’t afraid to experiment. It took so many hours and overall was not particularly successful in capturing Nielsens skills, but it was worthwhile as an exercise in dedication and resourcefulness. This type of illustration is incredibly beautiful but doesn’t make sense for the timeframe of my children’s book, however if I choose to work with paint I will have a lot of techniques that I practiced in this work that may be helpful in finding my own style.
Bibliography
Neilsen, k. (1914). In The Midst of the Gloomy Thick Wood
https://www.wikiart.org/en/kay-nielsen/in-the-midst-of-the-gloomy-thick-wood
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Post Six, Part Two
After weeks of planning and executing the illustrations that I thought I would use, I realized that I had lost myself in the process.
I was so obsessed with using what I had learned and writing for such a particular audience that I lost my own voice and style.
Maurice Sendak said himself that he never wrote for children; he wrote, and people told him that it was for children. (Sendak, 2012)
This is where I realized that I had been so worried about my target audience that I ignored that I had a unique viewpoint of my own, that I had been practicing for years. So, I went back to what I knew. After practicing other people’s style, I figured out that I was better at my own, and I appreciated it more; the weirdness, the uncertainty, the darkness; these were the things that I loved most in the illustrators that I studied, and what had sunk into my own style now.
My style had evolved after emulating and studying, but it was still very much me; it was weird, with strange shading and proportions, and colorful as well. These are my final illustrations.
In my proposal, I wanted to create a finished book. I realised that this was much too big of a job for the time that I had, considering that I had to illustrate it as well. I knew that I wanted to see it as a polished product, so luckily, with the help of my graphic design student boyfriend, we were able to lay it out and see what it would have looked like as a book. This was incredibly satisfying to see and brought the whole project together.
Please click on the link to see the finished project:
https://aa50e541-0005-4809-8af4-e7f2ac0cc812.usrfiles.com/ugd/aa50e5_b78e7a2dbced43d39d02aebb6bc19c3f.pdf
Bibliography
(Sendak, M. (2012). The Colbert Report, Grim Tales with Maurice Sendak
https://www.cc.com/video/2uwi0i/the-colbert-report-grim-colberty-tales-with-maurice-sendak-pt-2
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Post Six, Part One
For the first page, I played around with the idea of what my protagonist might look like and what their room would look like. I though setting up a portion of their room would be a great way to introduce the character and the story as this is their special place where they keep their collected items. I started off with a sketch of a part of my own childhood bedroom, as this is where I drew inspiration for the story. I knew I wanted to exaggerate this image and my belongings of the time though; I had more books than in the drawing, but not all of them were on the floor in my room, instead I had a collection of my favourites and the next to be read on my drawers, and the rest in the garage/ I put the pile of books on the floor because I thought it would add nice symmetry to the illustration; I liked the idea of the protagonist in the middle of the world of their things welcoming the reader, and being excited to share with the reader the things that were special to them. this is also why I drew the protagonist with their arms out wide as if in such excitement that they have to spread their arms out to express all the glory of their world.
My first sketch was me trying to just get the idea out of my head and have a starting point; once I was done I knew that I had relied too heavily on Quentin Blakes technique for the kid. I decided on the blob character, let’s call them Cass, because this is something I have doodled for years. I thought it would be a nice idea for Cass to be someone I was already familiar with; I’ve drawn them for years and have always enjoyed their flexibility to be whatever I needed or wanted them to be. This was always a release for me, something that never had to be perfect, and that is what I want the kid to stand for; they are fluid, they make their own rules.
I played with the idea of them having hair but it felt unnatural and a little creepy. I also played with different expressions.
I also made sure that I was exploring different routes and going out of my comfort zone, I wanted to play more with the idea of “They are all me & I am all them”, so I decided to take that literally; what if the protagonist was actually made out of one of their favourite things?
So, I started with the outline of Cass and then drew them so they were made out of books, as you can see in the top left-hand corner of the first image. I did like this effect but it felt a little forced and on the nose, I also wanted to make sure that the reader could still identify in some way with Cass, and didn’t want to make them too far from human form.
Instead, I created a mini Cass as a secret easter egg on their shelf in the first image.
In the next image, I explored another protagonist. I wanted a relatable girl character; I think selfishly because this is what could have helped me a little as a kid. I am definitely lucky to grow up in a world where my light skin color was portrayed as the more ‘beautiful’ in media, but all of the cool girls that I wanted to be like had straight blonde hair, and I was ashamed to have curly hair – obviously this is very shallow and such a small thing to be upset about, but all the same with my narrow world view, I was. So I wanted to create a cool girl that readers might want to be that had curly hair, and I love this character, but I liked Cass better; they portray an empty canvas, and aren’t something a kid would get upset about not looking like.
For the second page, I explored ideas of what each item on the list might look like. I started with the idea for the first sentence with Cass holding a huge $2 coin, as a visual representation of the epicness and importance of something as small as a $2 coin to a child. I rubbed this out as it felt that it didn’t fit the book; it was a little too comic book-y and out of place as it wasn’t fully in my style, but also wasn’t fully in comic book style. I then decided it could be interesting to have the comic book element but do it my way, so I created a vintage comic book to include in the book as a representation of the $2 element. I also liked the idea of a simple drawing with a big jar full of coins and a hand reaching in.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted the “In the middle of a tree” illustration to look like so I played around with a few ideas. The first idea was the one I had imagined when writing the story; Cass wrestling something from a squirrel’s mouth in the top of a tree. I thought this had an element of silliness that I was keen to include, but after drawing the scene, I thought it would be worthwhile to explore other routes as well. I remembered how much I loved the unreal reality that Sendak created in Where The Wild Things Are, and wanted to make something magical, so came up with the idea of Cass being privy to a secret door in the middle of trees where they could explore a whole new world, and come back with gifts. So I drew a doorway leading to this other dimension in a huge old tree.
I also imagined that another way I could portray this is in the middle on a cut down tree trunk; I thought this could be a good way to keep the drawing small so that I could have multiple drawings on the page as the verse I wrote lists multiple things I so could almost have a montage of Cass’s expeditions. I liked the drawing but felt that having a cut down tree was too much of a cynical metaphor; although it could be a metaphor for finding beauty out of destruction, the truth is that the tree is still cut down; it felt like an ending, instead of the beginning of the endless world that the doorway creates.
I thought I could include my idea from the first page “They are all me, and I am all them” and the object expressing that that’s on Cass’s drawers of a mini Cass, and illustrate Cass finding this version of themself as what they find on the bench. I mulled over the idea of them finding a good stick, or someone’s lost pocket watch, but I found the mini Cass linking to the first page to have the most meaning, and I liked the slight awkwardness and comfortable uncertainty that the drawing had between Cass and mini Cass.
For “This one was drenched” I took a toy car of mine and placed it in the rain. I was nervous that it was unclear that the car was tiny, so I added the curbside with grass to hopefully make sure that the viewer gages the proportions.
For “This one is French”, I tried to think of different classic French things that weren’t cliché or a negative / one dimensional stereotype. One of my favorite books ever is the children’s book Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and an iconic illustration from the book is the boa constructor that swallowed an elephant; the meaning behind it is that there is always more than meets the eye, and the beauty of the world is in the eye of those with an imagination. This has stayed with me since I first read it, and wanted to reference it.
I looked around my house for inspiration for this page and realized that one pile of my already read books was sitting quietly on my dresser collecting dust. Sometimes I lend one out to someone, but generally they don’t move, so this is what I drew for that stanza.
I was experimenting with different points of view for Cass to be looking at them from, but then as I looked at the page as a whole, I realized that it looked really fun as a little montage; it had movement to it and came alive a little bit.
It made sense to follow the abstract cartoonish style of Cass and draw their friends in that style as well. It also gave me freedom to create different, unique characters that didn’t have to look like anything in particular.
I also made sure to investigate different routes. So I drew a less abstract and more detailed version, but it didn’t have the same energy, and didn’t feel as cohesive.
I thought the jewels for “These are my jewels, I collect them on my walks” could be colorful autumn leaves, so drew a mockup and colored it with watercolor pencil.
The floral pages are some of my favorite planning pages, I especially like the one for “flowers are my favourites...”. The concept was easy to imagine because I could envision it when I was writing the story. I definitely took inspiration from Quentin Blakes style of watercolor and the style of the flowers, but I don’t think it was too derivative because my protagonist is quite different from his style, and the flowers were done without reference.
I wanted to make sure that I explored a few different routes and ideas with this, so I tried ideas that I didn’t necessarily think would work; some did, for example the top right drawing, and some didn’t, for example the bottom left drawing of the ink bottle and spotted flower.
The images for “This one I made, it hangs on my wall...” felt relatively obvious to me; I knew what I wanted, and it was relatively easy to execute. I wanted it to be understated that Cass could move objects with their mind; I didn’t want it to be a big scene, or dramatic, I wanted it to seem cool and underplayed, because that felt more realistic; as a child, you feel like maybe you can do these supernatural things, so you try alone in your room. You don’t expect a huge freak accident to happen, you kind of expect just a slight shudder that you notice. This is what I wanted to convey in the drawing; a sense of normality that the readers could relate to, but the undertone of magic about to happen.
“Sometimes I lose my things, in fact I do a lot... It’s usually those silly Grimbles. This is a Grimble hotspot.” I found this stanza hard to imagine, and in turn hard to illustrate. It felt like there had to be a lot of information conveyed in the image; the creature itself, the action of stealing something, and the room. I wanted the room to have a sleepy kind of atmosphere and I think I did that well through the use of color.
I was very lost on how to illustrate the Grimble; I wanted it to be strange but not intimidating, and not scary for the reader. I explored different ideas of what it might look like at the bottom of the page.
I wanted this bed to be the most comfy bed in the world; I loved the idea of someone remembering this book years after reading it and having a nostalgic love for the warmth and coziness of bed because of it.
This meant that I had to make the bed look fluffy and soft, and make Cass look relaxed. I made sure to round out the edges of the drawing for a soft feel, and to have Cass tucked in nicely, with a big fluffy pillow.
I didn’t want it to be extravagant because that seemed unattainable to a lot of children; I wanted it to be the bed that everybody has; underrated but warm, small but soft, fluffy and cozy.
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Responses
I love Maggie Clauzel’s project on scrapbooking, I read her first post that looked at historical scrapbooking and how it is used today. I found it more fascinating than I was expecting; it has a rich and long history dating back to the 15th century. I think Clauzel had a wonderful eye for detail in recounting the historical aspects; she is well researched and was able to pick out the important and interesting aspects, I also think she went above and beyond doing the visual timeline that highlighted different eras of scrapbooking.
I liked that she connected it to the modern day through Instagram; this was a good way of showing its cultural significance. I would love to be able to ask her what she thought scrapbooking would look like in the future; she did such a good job at showing us all of the details of each era, so I think it would be very interesting to see what kind of trends she see’s coming up, and whether she thinks scrapbooking will last in further into the internet era.
Clauzel, M. (2021). Post One, The Journal Journey.
https://shj6484.wixsite.com/maggiec2021/post/post-one-the-journal-journey
Blairs post about meatless burger patties was informative and interesting. She did well to combine facts and practice; it was interesting to see what was being talked about then be tested in their own life. I was surprised to learn about how old substitute mean was; it never crossed my mind that so many years before us there would have been a need for it, but obviously there was; as far back as 535 B.C.E.
Another thing I thought was interesting was Blair’s question about it being controversial. You would think that something so old would be normalized by now, but it isn’t, and it confuses a lot of people. I have seen this is my own life; I’ve been a vegetarian for ten years and I personally love faux meat, but I constantly get asked or teased about it, and people always have the same question; “if you don’t want to eat meat, why would you want to eat faux meat?”. These people are obviously very confused; most people's reasons for not eating meat are because it’s destroying the planet and is cruel and inhumane to animals. Faux meat does these things to a much lesser extent, and most of the companies making the products are committed to being sustainable and against animal cruelty.
Johnson, B. (2021) Week 6: Burgers
https://blairsireflectblog.wordpress.com/2021/06/05/week-6-burgers/
London Jenson’s Dungeons and Dragons week five project post absolutely took me by surprise. Her commitment to her role was incredible to watch in her five-hour long YouTube video; I watched about 20 minutes of it in total, and it was really interesting to watch and learn how to play a game of DnD – something I’ve always wanted to play but have also been very confused by. It was cool to see how outgoing and determined Jenson was to be a good dungeon master; her research seemed comprehensive, and she had been thoughtful and well organised in her execution.
It was great to see a project that had so much outside interaction; getting feedback from her friends seemed to be super helpful and was the perfect was to grow her skills as a dungeon master. I’d love to know the details of how she set the games up, so will read her other blog posts and hopefully get more infomation.
Jenson, L. (2021). DnD - Week Five
https://greaterexpectationss.wordpress.com/2021/06/04/dnd-week-five/
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Reflection
I thoroughly enjoyed brief two. I found it very challenging, considering the huge project that I set out to achieve, but so rewarding. Seeing my finished book, I am proud of what I was able to achieve after so much hard work.
One weaknesses of my portfolio was the immensity of the project; I expected to be able to achieve an extreme amount of work in a short number of weeks. I think that I did well in readjusting so that I had an achievable goal and working hard to do as much as I possibly could; I decided not to plan to print and bind the book, but instead set it out on the computer. This saved me time to instead work on my illustrations and post writing.
Another weakness was my time management. I found it hard to move on from one aspect if it wasn’t finished. I spent far too long on my emulation of Kay Neilsen’s ‘In The Midst Of The Gloomy Thick Wood’, I didn’t have the right materials and expected myself to be able to perfectly emulate the work of an iconic and extremely talented illustrator in a couple of days. Of course, this took a lot more than half a week, and in my quest to try and perfect it, I pushed back the rest of my work, leaving less time for the illustrations that I was actually going to use in the final product. This part of the project forced me to learn about the process of creation and the losses you have to accept along the way; it wasn’t worth wasting time emulating, I could have used that time to readjust my posts on my blog, which leads me to another weakness.
My blog posts are in a very confusing order, they’re back to front and the images are not placed well. I chose to use Tumblr because this is the only blog site I’ve ever used, so I thought it would give me an advantage because I knew the interface already. However, you can only add 10 images per post, so for my visual heavy project, this wasn’t a great choice. I did spend a few hours re-adjusting the posts on the blog so it is less confusing as my original blog, but if I had been able to redistribute the time I over spent on emulating, I might have been able to choose another website and see if that was better.
Although there are many weaknesses and things I would like to change, I think it has many strengths as well. I think that my ambitiousness was a great thing and pushed me to work hard and be thoughtful. I had spent so much time on it that I really wanted to make it worth it, so I spent as many hours as I possibly could hand crafting the illustrations and re-doing it until it felt right.
I am glad that I chose such a creative project and played into my strengths; I also thing that researching so many children’s books was great and positively affected and sunk into my writing style. I think I did a good job at writing for children; I think its poetic and engaging, I used poetic attributes and fun techniques that I learned from Sendak and Thompson like rhyming and listing, and indulged in the themes of imagination and self-expression.
I also think that one of my major strengths was being able to follow my gut, and not be swept up by what I had emulated or read before. I wrote stories that were too much like Maurice Sendak, and drew illustrations that were too much like Quentin Blake, but I was able to identify that, learn from it, but then anchor what I was doing in my own style. In following what others were doing, I was able to fall back on my process and point of view that had actually been strengthened by the process. If something was too derivative or wasn’t working in my illustration plans, I was able to notice, and was determined to louden my own voice.
I enjoyed the class time, I think it was great having a space in which I could have one on one time with the instructor, but also be left to my own devices and work on my project. It was also great having the flexibility of being able to leave class and work at home if I needed, because of the nature of my project I needed to have a large workspace and use tools such as watercolour paint and pastels which I wouldn’t have been able to do in class.
I know that I will apply the knowledge I gained in this process to many things in the future; learning the process of illustration, of book writing and writing for a specific audience, and learning how to effectively research and learn from others work is priceless. I learned to tighten up my time management skills, and skills in letting things go; even though I was disappointed with my Kay Nielsen emulation, it still taught me that if somethings not working, that its ok; it’s better to move on and work on something else than stay on a sinking ship. Even though it wasn’t great, I still learned a lot from the painting process of that image; I learned techniques in blending and colour theory, how to be still, efficient, and precise with my paintbrush, and the importance of an accurate pencil outline.
In particular, I would love to write and illustrate more children’s books in the future, so that has been a fantastic process to grow from. I would like to have a physical copy of both this book and the next ones that I make, so that will be the next learning journey.
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