Project Proposal.

Picture Book title or theme
Frank or World War 2
Idea: What is your picture book about? 
1.-Young frank growing up, slightly older riding his bike, Joining the RAF, flying bombing the town and as an old man sad about what he has done.
2-Consitina- same story but I think shows the progression over time better.
3- A story about a young refugee and his dog who arrive at a big old house owned by and evil women who throws them down into a cellar.

Intent: What are you trying to achieve with the tone and atmosphere of the artwork? 

I want there to be some kind of shock factor with in the stories, like when frank bombs the town or when the refugee is trapped in the cellar. It could be potentially quite dark scary book, making the artwork non-realistic, really abstract faces, dark sharp textures. Blues, blacks greys and whites, maybe some purples. But I think texture would be the key for getting some of the mood across.


Structure: How might this book function in terms of format, layout and sequence

The most popular structure from the feedback is the concertina, because the way it flowed and told the story was clear and it showed the progression well.  However a saddle stitch book could still be an option because the viewer when looking through can discover the story for themselves, which could influence a shock factor.



These ideas are based on my research into…
These ideas are heavily based around the trip to the imperial war museum and the chat with Frank Tolley and a quote from a presentation about refugees through the ages.



In order to develop these ideas, my research over Christmas will be….
I am going to try and go to a few more museum  reasuch more about war/wars but I think that this first trip has supplied me with loads of research that I can go away do lots of secondary research and hopefully find out much more information.





Self-Evaluation
What have you discovered about research over the last 2 weeks? Which approaches to research did you struggle with? And why?

• That talking to people can really be a great gateway to discoing amazing stories.
• 
  
• Going out to somewhere you haven’t been before can also give you different ideas. 
• 
  
• Taking the time to learn and understand ideas and stories you end up with strong ideas.
• 
  
• It was finding it hard to speak to people at first but quickly gained confidence and actually enjoyed it and was well worth it because it has given me some of the best ideas so far. 

Which approaches to research did you find beneficial? And Why?  
What could you have done differently during your research period?


Talking again was so beneficial but also going to a museum and being in that environment with loads of information to be able to collect and use was good as well.


I could have spoken longer with frank but also drawn some more observations of the object in the museums they could have given me more ideas.




What kind of media, skills, tools and processes are you going to explore?

 I really want to try and explore inks, nice ink drawings could suite the stories I am trying to tell well. Shape based work may work well however it may be too basic if I am going to try and tell a complex story. But for a more detailed approach I could also try paper cutting, but I would need to experiment more with this and see where I end up because I not sure how it will work. Using different thicknesses of paper may also be really nice.

Feed back of roughs and project overview.

Feed back from group:

• They liked all of the stories and thought that they all communicated well.
• The different medium experiments where good.
• They seemed to prefer the frank story more but also like the refugee one. However the passage of time made it more up to date and how it is from a point of view that is rarely herd of. 
•  Saddle stitch had more impact when looking though the book because you turn the page and see for yourself what happens, compared to a consitina which is lade out in front of the viewer. I think that there is more interaction between the viewer and the book with a saddle stitch book. 
• From seeing others work I think that I need to be much more experimental with imagery for a story like Franks I think it could add a really nice twist, perhaps don't be so literal with my images.

The mood I am trying to convey in these story is sad, but with a shock factor, because both story I told in my roughs had a surprising element to them , due to war and I think that this is the key theme to my books, but over the holidays I could use with going on more trip out to try and get more stories, speak to more people and this may spark more ideas.

Roughs for picture book.

•  These first two roughs are about frank and key points that I picked up about his life , showing the progression from when he was young till now. 
• By doing these really brief sketches and workings out of the stories really helped me get an idea how it would work as a 16 page picture book.  
•  I have used a mixture of  mediums in all of the roughs. I have begun to use charcoal which is fun and adds good texture and tone to the images, but in a way which doesn't overpower the image. 
• These are really quick roughs nearly all the images in each rough I will change because I don't think that there is nearly enough features in the images and they can be so much more interesting , taking a different angle when illustrating the image would be really nice rather then just drawing the scene.       

• Consitina- could look good show the progression of time well. However a saddle stitch book allow the reader to flick though and discover the story themselves.  

• This final rough is a story about a refugee and his dog who move into this big old house and the mean old women who house they have been sent to throughs them into the cellar. This really happened and was inspired by a quote I heard during a presentation in the exhibition space in the museum and it shock me. So I thought I will make it into a story to see how it works. I am happy with it , I think it could be better then frank, I could make it very dark story , creepy and scary which is something I have never tried before , could be good?

Shape and Texture.

Final outcome for shape and texture task.
Not so happy with this piece, I could have been far more experimental with shape. Made feature big ,smaller , play with scale more. Have more experimental textures, I could have built them up , add different layers. I should have thought more outside the box , rather then trying to create something more accurate and structured I should have taken more risks and made the shapes bolder.


Shape and textures can be very powerful techniques and methods to use when illustrating. Shape is a very basic thing which can communicate successfully and make it very obvious to the viewer what the work is saying.  Texture adds tone and feeling to the shape. For example a paper cut out of a apple , if you then apply  correct texture to it you get a sense of the shape more through the tone, but also the feel of the apple rough , smooth e.c.t.  I could really use with think about applying texture more to my own work in general.

Observations and Ideas from field trip.

Frank was a volunteer at the museum and he told us about his war experiences and how he bombed people. He seem very happy when talking to him but I not so sure that he was, his wife died a few years ago and now he is getting bad memories of the bombing. This is why I have drawn an observation of him sad. I used ink again and I think that it really helps emphasis the age of frank , the tones help to show the lines and adds a nice sad, melancholy mood to the images.  

Observations and Ideas from field trip.

These observations are of a bike with a seat and of a instillation of a stack of suite cases that wet around the walls of the exhibition at the museum.

• Medium used coloured pencil and gouache.   

•  This were a few ideas that I had when listening to some quotes that where being shown and spoken during a presentation about refugees, I drew them in pencil while I was there and went over them in ink after. There seems to be a slight narrative between these two image which could expand into a story? ink works well , really like the texture ad the tones it can create.  

Artist- Shape-Geoff Mcfetridge.

Geoff Mcfetridge in his work used very basic shapes to construct forms. Even thought they are far from realistic we can clearly see what they are due to our realtionship with recognising shapes and symbols.  This image below is a good example of this. We can see they are people however , when you take the image apart you can clearly see that they are made up of very basic shapes such as circles. Mcfetrigde also uses simple toned down colours, I think that he does this as to not over power the shape or distract from what it is trying to represent. His way of composting and putting these images together is both clever and instant. You immediately get what the image is of or represents and it is a powerful piece of graphic illustration.

Reasurch:Conversation with Frank Tolley.

Frank was a volunteer at the exhibition in the museum and he was a Lancaster bomber during the WW2 and he began telling us his story.

• In 1940 he was 19 years old and this was when he became a Lancaster bomber.
• I asked him if he remembered his first flight, and he did ad he remembers dropping the bombs., he said that he remembered looking out of the window and see all the houses and that when he dropped the bomb , his crew asked him to close the doors of the as there was a chill coming though. He also said that as he was bombing he was scared of breaking the 6th commandment in the bible- "thou shall not kill."
• He didn't really think about who he was killing when he was dropping the bomb, he didn't want it to haunt him. 
• Before he became a bomber , when he was very young he walked dogs for 2p and when he was slightly older 14 very bright , top of his class, He became a errand boy for a grousers 50p . But he was so embarrassed about his friends finding out that he used to hide behind bushes form them on his rounds.
• he is now around 94 years old and has just zip wired over the canal between the Imperial war museum and media city in Manchester and volunteers at the museum.
• he quotes on the war"Very hard, very tough, some of the raids were a bit scary , you weren't afraid but you just had to do it."  

Research: Interview with Dermot Turing (2nd December), the nephew of Alan Turing(code breaker ww2).

We were lucky enough to get a 20 minute chat with Dermot Turing  at the signing of his biography about his uncle.
Questions I asked him and the response he gave:
What were you told about your uncle as a child:

• Not much really , because it was all kept secret. 
• Found out in the 1970's when the information was realise. 
• He was told that his uncle was eccentric.
• They don't talk too much about the end of Alan Turing's ( Sadly committed suicide 7th June 1954.) 

How did you find out about your uncle's work? 

• He had to go though the Bletchley Park records.( All information concerning the secret service was kept secret and wasn't realised until well after the war.)   
• He wasn't told that much about because his family knew anything.

What is your opinion on the film?

• Charles Dances character (Commander Denniston) was very sympathetic toward Alan Turing and never wore his uniform always casual cloths.(never really emphasised his rank.)
• He said that it was hard not to get drawn into that fictional world- misleading. also the time lines were different for cracking enigma, they spent longer on paper and built the machine much later.  
• Cumberbatch dose a great characterisation.  
• Film is great though.

Is there any part of Christopher (the Enigma Code Breaking Machine) remaining?

• Christopher is a myth, the machine was never called Christopher. 
• He was not obsessed with Christopher (his school friend) ,like the film portrayed, but he kept in touch with Christopher's mother for 10 yrs.
•  "The Bomb" when the machine was built, the government never knew what they where signing checks for the secret service wouldn't let them know. They just had to "Sign the bloody check".
• There is still a fully functioning model of the bomb in Bletchley Park. 

What is it like being the nephew of Alan Turing?

• "It is horrendous, but it is great". "Get asked a lot of weird questioned." 

Imitation Game observations.

I drew some observation whilst watching the Imitation Game to try and get some very initial ideas about what my story could be about. It also gave some background into alan turing which will be really helpful when speaking to Dermot Turing.

Shape 3rd A4 image.

I really wanted to try used simple shapes instead of creating a complex piece. I think that this guy is a successful experiment in this. Every shape is simple and small details have been added, e.g. on the jumper I have cut shapes into it, and the face , the nose is slit down the edge and is folded so it sticks up out of the stuck down image. Not sure about the colour, might have been better to swap the colours over , so the character has a blue face and black jumper?
The boldness of simple shape come through well to, and the image has a clean finish, shape is a neat and precise way of creating images.

Shape 2nd A4 finished piece.

Like this second paper cut but not as much as the first one. Having multiple eye on the monster looks really once, has a slightly creepy effect when looking at it. Also by the monster having no pupils I think adds to this effect.
The black around the edge looks to make the whiter detail clearer  , outlines the monster well and gives it a slight shape.
The jumper/jacket on the monster looks slightly out of place, but this could be because it is not a detailed , however it is clear that the mister is wearing a piece of clothing.

 This is the colour version. Colour applied in the same way as the last paper cut piece, digitally. I really don't like the colour , it takes way the detail, the black and white aesthetically pleasing I think. Applying the colour a different way may look better, if I was to screen print the whole image and experiment more with the colours , could that look better?