Reflection on part four
Your visual approach the the theme. Would you change it now?
I don’t think I would change my visual approach I was happy with the photography and compositions I had generated and I used my imagination as much as I could to come up with a unique idea.
I could have gone back to the woods at dusk or when it was more moody to get a greater idea of atmosphere.
The research you under took, what did you learn?
I learnt a lot about what ideas I already had in the back of my mind and how to use these as treasures. I learnt a lot more about paint, watercolour paint, how the different makes can vary in texture, pigment and ease of use, also about effects and textures. I learnt a little bit more about silent books, what sized books sell the best and how book fairs are great to attend if you are starting out.
The creative and material processes, for example, if you made a group of paintings, what were their strengths and weaknesses?
From the four illustrations I completed I would say the spread was the most successful, I think it had the best composition, good colours and texture and embodied the atmosphere I was after.
The panorama had a good composition and paint, but the light showing through the tress was its weakness, it needs more work to capture that right.
The spot and cameo again were a good composition, the colours could have been worked on more and the character need more fitness and expression to connect with.
What would you have done differently?
I spent a lot of time on composition which I think paid off, but I think I needed to spend just as much time if not more on the character design of the fern creature. I need to get him to have a better expression and so the reader can connect to him better.
Was the scale of the work appropriate to the ideas?
The panorama, spot and cameo were the right size for the book, the spread was 1/2 the size it should have been, but in reality it would have been doubled in size digitally to fit across two pages like a whole spread. It would have been scanned into Photoshop at a high DPI to retain the detail.
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