Short term plan of action for Garp

After todays garp meeting I've decided that I need to organise myself better in order to not get confused with what I'm researching so the new focal point and plan of action for the next week and a half is...

*Write my introduction as soon as possible in order to get a better understanding of how the essay will take shape and to keep me focused on what it is I want to find out.

*Start to consider the following, What made me want to be an illustrator?How did it start to interest me as a career?Why children's books?What are my influences/where do I draw my ideas from and what is it that I want to say with my work?Alot of illustrators use draw on childhood memories, do I?What children's books did I like as a child?All this is relevant to my research and should be included in my introduction.

*One of the main things I need to research into (that I feel will be important in order to judge the merit of Fanelli's and Child's work) is, what factors makes a good illustrator? e.g.developing style over ability to draw?Discovering a new way of working,taking risks,a vision/flare for playing out a narrative over a sequence of drawings etc.Create a mind map to collate the information I find on this topic.

*Write to publishers asking general questions,e.g what illustrators work excites them at the moment and why?What do they look for when taking on new illustrators?How important is drawing ability in children's book illustration?How much control do they have over the overall look of the book and the illustrations?

*Collect more information on publishing, editing and art direction in children's books.

*Continue to gather information for similarities and differences chart for Child and Fanelli.In particular start to look at what else influences them with particular focus on childhood memories and any other influences that isn't other artists work.

*Start to think of interview questions for Child and Fanelli incase I get to interview them.

*New idea to think about interviewing other children's book illustrators to get a better idea about what they think makes a good children's book illustrator and to gain more information about what influences them as illustrators, etc.

*start to do surveys on Child's and Fanelli's books and which children/students/adults like more and why?Which do I like more and why?

Initial research on the story of pinocchio

Pinocchio was written by an Italian writer, Carlo Collodi and was first published July 7th 1881 in lids magazine,"Giornale per bambini", under the title-"Story of a puppet".It was published in chapters one a week but had to be stopped at chapter 15 when Pinocchio was hung from a branch to die,subject matter thought not suitable for children.However at the time Collodi was writing the story it wasn't intended for children.In 1882 the story returned titled-"The Adventures of Pinocchio",after the charcter blue fairy was introduced to rescue Pinocchio and become a mothering figure in the story, eventually turning him into a real boy.

The story of Pinocchio isn't a typical fairy tala as it contains more serious facts of everyday life e.g. the need for food, shelter and education,making the story unique in it's time being the first to introduce more adult issues into a childrens story and in 19th centuary Italy childrens literacy in general was new making it modern in style and content.

I was suprised when I read "The Adventures of Pinocchio" to find how much of the story is ommited from the children picture book versions that I have read.The story is quite strange in many ways with Pinocchio finding himself in and out of jail and getting himself into many strange and risky situations like almost being mistaken for a fish and fried by a sea monster.So I guess the first thing that strikes me is how illustrators decide which parts of the story to omit.How much of it is their choice and how much is down to the publisher?

Another thing that strikes me about the orginal story is how much of the story is altered for childrens literature for example that Pinocchio actually kills the cricket in the orginal.So another thought is how much of the story could I keep the same without scaring or confusing people?

After reading Carlo Collodi's "Pinocchio" and from the examples of children's picture books that I've looked at so far,what I've found,considering the content of the story, is that the style of illustration is abit too cutsey,especially considering alot of the story is about Pinocchio getting himself in to trouble and dangerous situations.In particular the character of Pinocchio who is a disobidient, cheeky disrespectful rebel comes across too nice and innocent.These are all intial things that I would like to research more.

After doing the reseaqrch to find 10 examples I had the idea that I could maybe take the angle of hand executed illustration techiniques Vs computer aided illustration.In general I think I just need alot of guidence on what angel to research.

Oliver Jeffers uses alot of unusual surfaces to paint on in his work in a way he kind of combines painting and collage techiniques which I find interesting.On his website you can veiw the inside of one of his sketch books which gives you a real feel of how he works.He also creates alot of really beautiful type by hand.In general I just like his work as it embraces hand executed techiniques.

Two images by Kurt Schwitters -I've included these as I think Kurt Schwitters was one of the first artists to use collage heavily in his work.I also think his work is fantastic,I like how he uses found ephemera as collage material and his use of colour is beautiful.

I came accross Sabrina Ward Harrison's work when I was on foundation,what I like about her work is the autographic style of her work its very fluid personal and seemingly spontaneous.The scrap book style of her work is very interesting approach to collage that in my opinion is beautiful.I'd like to look at this way of working as I think its a very unhibited approach to collage that is done without worrying what the outcome may be,which I think is a breath of fresh air.

image from theheartagency.com by Jonny Hannah.I like how Jonny Hannahs work is very pattern based and involves varied mark making techniques aswell as encorperating hand drawn type.All of these techniques are areas I would like to look into.