PROCESS
Word and Image II Fall 2018 | Claire Warhover
classic rhymes
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Introduction
Inspiration
Brainstorming
Character Refinement
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Value Studies
Text Placement
Fabrication
Critique
introduction
Your Opportunity You will be working with a remodeling effort at a children’s library. Leadership has agreed to fund the development of a set of easily scalable illustrations to provide monumental poster to hang from the rafters in the library lobby as well as personal book-plates, to be sold in the library shop. These images must work at modest as well as very large scales.
What you will make You will make three images, each of which will include typography: the first line or phrase of the rhyme must be integrated into the design. You will have to plan for it. As a general matter, you are strongly urged to use machine type, and avoid the temptation to hand-letter the text
inspiration
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Near the beginning of the project, I was inspired heavily by cut paper illustrations. I knew that the illustrations had to be scalable, and I though that textured paper would be a good way to bring interest into the large scale illustrations while still keeping them simple to be able to scale them down to the smaller size. I was also inspired by fabric, both because of the child-like nature of stuffed animals and the tactile look feel of textured fabrics.
brainstorming
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Wee Willie Winkie
Cold and Raw the North Winds Blow
Sing a Song of Sixpence
For my nursery rhymes, I chose to do Wee Willie Wink, Cold and Raw the North Winds Blow, and Sing a Song of Sixpence. At the start of the brainstorming process, I created my thumbnails out of cut paper immediately. I wanted to see how cut paper would function as an illustration early in the process so that if I had any issues, I could catch them earlier rather than later. In these thumbnails I was experimenting with composition, deciding what parts of each nursery rhyme needed to be shown in order to convey that rhyme.
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In studio, we did an activity where we tried to draw each element of our nursery rhymes at least five different ways, as quickly as possible. In each of our thumbnails, we each defaulted to drawing certain objects the exact same way every time. For example, I personally drew the pie in “Sing a Song of Sixpence� the same way each time. Once we had created all of our sticky notes, it was much easier to bring these new ways of showing objects into the illustrations.
character refinement
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Cold and Raw the North Winds Blow
I decided after the brainstorming process that I wanted to make the illustrations out of fabric. Making them out of fabric supported the idea of characters as stuffed animals, so I designed the characters to look as though they could be plush. While the arms and body on the final snowman may not be true to an actual snowman, they were what I imagined a plush snowman would look like. Instead of twigs for arms and three separate snowballs for the body, the arms and body feel more connected making it feel like it could be stuffed.
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Sing a Song of Sixpence
For the king character, I knew that I wanted exaggerated costuming to make him expressive and intriguing. I decided to exaggerate the size of his furry collar and his hair, and contrast these with his small facial features and off-center crown. I also gave him a thick beard and a thin curly mustache to make his facial expression more amusing. I wanted people to look at this character (along with the others) and feel delighted by what they are looking at.
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Wee Willie Winkie
Wee Willie Winkie needed to feel consistent with the other characters while still remaining distinctly different in age and in costuming. He is more active in his nursery rhyme than the other characters I drew, and I struggled to get his nightgown to move naturally with his body. I drew him doing a variety of activities until I felt satisfied with the way that his clothes fell over his body and how they felt as a set.
value studies
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When I created my value studies, I knew that I wanted to use a patterned fabric as my middle value in my three value system, but I had not decided what pattern I wanted to use. Through my value studies, I decided that the pattern should go on the clothing for each character. I conducted these value studies before I had finalized my Wee Willie Winkie illustration, so they were done for a different composition, but they were still just as useful in deciding the value structure later.
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Specifically for the snowman value studies, I was struggling to keep the structure interesting while still preserving the sense of the white snow. I did not know at this point how I would differentiate the white snowman from the white landscape and background. However, once I brought the textured fabric into the making process, the solution became clear.
text placement
Wee Willie Winkie
Sing a Song of Sixpence
Sing
Cold and Raw the SingWinds a Song North Blow
of Sixpence
Cold and Raw
Sing a Song of Sixpence
C No
fabrication
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Using a furry white fabric as a white value in certain areas allowed me to differentiate between white elements that were on top of each other. The furry fabric furthered the plush feeling of the illustrations, and the thickness of it created shadows and dimensions on the paper. I chose a blue plaid fabric to act as the middle value, and to connect the unique items of clothing that characterized each figure. In terms of final presentation, I photographed the illustrations as opposed to scanning them to preserve the 3D effect.
critique
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Sing a Song of Sixpence
Wee Willie Winkie
Cold and Raw the North Winds Blow
Looking at my work at critique, I was glad that I chose to make my illustrations using a tactile medium because I felt that they stood out on the wall due to their 3-dimensional effect. If I could change something about the project, I would push the treatment of the typography further. Type becoming a secondary element to the illustrations is a running trend with my projects, and I wish I would have found a more interesting way to integrate the type as opposed to simply placing it in the available white space as a sort of label. My goal moving forward is to bring expressive type into my projects, even when the illustrations are strong on their own.
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Claire Warhover Classic Rhymes Process Book Word and Image II Fall 2018 Strada TF