Evaluation

When given this project I wanted to make a book that gave a true insight into my personality. I planned to create a hard cover book filled with watercolour paper on which I could create my art. I wanted to show my style and how I plan to integrate my art with children's literature. I also wanted to show my love of painting, this became problematic as most of my paintings are done on canvas. I decided to create a set of paintings to accompany my book, several of which I planned to include in the book itself as photographs of the original artwork.

Amanda Gilbert ©

Amanda Gilbert ©

Amanda Gilbert © 

The book is designed to showcase my talents and show the potential my work has for children's book illustration. I used a wide range of research encompassing my favourite artist who work within similar themes of fantasy and mystery drawing upon elements of the natural world. These artists include Josephine Wall, whom I was lucky enough to meet, and John Howe, one of my favourite illustrators.

I wanted to create a small narrative to link my images and began by researching a central character. I used little red riding hood initially but also explored the snow queen concept which became the basis for my story. I used my research to inform my work, exploring ideas and experimenting with techniques to refine my ideas. 

I invented several characters; a fox called foxy, a collection of rabbits and my main character Crystal; the snow queen's daughter who cannot live with her due to her having a warm heart and the snow queen living in perpetual winter. I wanted my story to encompass each of these characters and developed a narrative to accommodate this.

Amanda Gilbert ©

Amanda Gilbert ©

Amanda Gilbert ©

Amanda Gilbert ©

I used thick water colour paper and painted each page of the book independently before fixing them together. This was to overcome the problem of painting into a book that was too difficult and impractical. 

I created the hard cover from thick card based on the book making workshop given by Mel and some additional online research.

I wanted the cover to be special and interesting and combine several textures. I experimented with screen printing and using flock and foil techniques to create an interesting simplistic cover design. The inside cover both front and back I created using various different inks.

Amanda Gilbert ©

I wanted the book to appear special and bespoke, more interesting than standard books. I also wanted to appeal to my target audience of children. I included small envelopes as part of the narrative to make the book more interactive.

I wanted to create a lock and key to make the book more enigmatic and appeal to a younger audience; to connote the essence of a secrecy and wonderment. This was very difficult and I struggled in creating a clasp on the cover itself. To overcome this I designed a wooden box to house the book which would be lockable through a clasp. I asked my boyfriends grandfather to help me with the making of the box based on my original design.

Overall I am pleased with the final outcomes of this project. I would like to develop the story further as it is quite short and could flow better given more time.