Final pages: something a bit different

As this book is aimed at a younger audience I decided that instead of having one more artist the last 3 pages could be for the reader to complete their own profile as if they themselves are an artist in the book. I thought this would be a good way to get the reader involved and excited about art.

I will include a little frame where the reader can draw a mini portrait of themselves, and a space for them to write their name. I will also include some sun headings below the name such as date of birth, where you live and hobbies that you have. Below the profile I will have a drawing of the gallery guide and a blank section for the reader to write a bit about themselves.  The next page will be for the reader to write some facts about themselves and draw some doodles to match the facts. The last page will be an activity page, this is going to be where the reader can create their own piece of art.

I think this idea will be successful amongst the target audience as it is a fun little activity for them to get involved in at the end. Its a bit like a little added surprise for them at the end of the book. I also feel like this might inspire the reader a bit more as they will feel like they are in the book alongside some of the most famous artists from history.

End Pages

For the end pages i wanted to use a repeat pattern as thats what most end pages have on them. I wanted to make my pattern look really contemporary to fit in with the rest of the book so i opted for a simplistic pattern using long horizontal shapes. Another thing that I wanted to do was keep the same yellow that was used on the page headers, to keep the book looking uniform and professional. I think this worked out well in the end as the pattern looks stylish and contemporary, and the colour choice really ties the end pages in with the rest of the book. 

Fact Pages

I decided to keep all of the fact pages black and white so the book looks like if follows the same format throughout.  I also decided to have a mixture of hand made and digital typography to keep the pages looking professional. 

Activity pages

I created activity pages that are related to all of the artists in the book. These pages will go in after the fact pages. 

Van Gogh's Starry Night Development

I wanted to include some of the artists work and to be able to do this I will have to create my own versions of the artists paintings. As I am including a fact about the Starry Night painting by Vincent Van Gogh I thought it would be fitting to start off with that. I started off by looking at his painting and mapping out where all of the main lines are. I did this in black to follow the format of all of the other drawings in the book. 

When I was happy with that I decided to add hints of colour underneath. I started off with yellow as that was one of the more predominant colours within his original painting. I chose a shade that I liked, I decided to choose a more contemporary mustard yellow to add to the modern feel of the book. 

I finally added some blue strokes to finish off the painting. I wanted to keep it very loose and modern to give it a bit of a twist and make it feel more fitting with the rest of the book. Again I chose a more subdued shade of blue to complement the yellow. I also added a little bit of dark blue to darken up some areas of the image. 

Overall I am happy with how this image turned out and I think it will go nicely with the rest of the images in the book. 

Pablo Picasso research

Pablo Picasso was a great artist from a very young age. I feel as though he will be good to include in the book because it will make children realise that they can achieve things at a young age. Picasso also had a very interesting life and there are lots of facts fun about him to include. I also included a photo of Picasso 

Born: October 25, 1881 in Málaga, Spain
Died: April 8, 1973 in Mougins, France
Movement: Surrealism, Cubism

• Picasso's had an incredibly long name, it was: Pablo Diego José Francisco De Paula Nepomuceno María De Los Remedious Cipriano De La Santisima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruiz Y Picasso.
• His first ever word was pencil. Well he was Spanish so technically his first word was 'Piz' which is short for 'Lápiz,' the Spanish word for pencil.
• Picasso completed his first proper painting at the age of 9. It was entitled 'Le Picacor' and it depicted a man riding a horse in a bull fight. 
• Pablo Picasso's farther trained him as a painter from the age of 7.
• He sometimes painted other famous artists paintings but in his own style.
• Some of Picasso's paintings are amongst the most expensive in the world. 
• Picasso did not only paint, he also created Ceramic and bronze sculptors, drawings, etchings and even poetry! 
• When Picasso first began to paint he had a very realistic style but his style evolved into a more abstract, surreal style. 
• Picasso created the Cubism style where the subject of the painting would be drawn using lots of different shapes. These paintings looked a bit like they had been cut up into different shapes and glued back together. 
• Picasso sometimes burnt his own paintings to keep his room warm. 

Book research: Lets Make Some Great Art

Whilst conducting some research I came across a book called Lets Make Some Great Art by Marion Deuchars, I think that this book works really well for getting younger children involved with art in a creative way. It has information and a lot of activity pages. The style that this book is very modern and on trend, I feel as though because of the way this book looks it would attract an older as well as a younger audience. The layout of this book is very relaxed and doesn't conform to usual children education books, I would like to follow a similar informal layout style as i feel as though it will be more visually interesting for a young person rather than using plain text in linear straight lines. 

This book is a similar style of book to the one that I would like to create. My book would be a lot more based on facts but the idea of including a few more creative pages for young people to take part in would be a good idea for my book. I feel as though this will inspire children more to get creative and feel more involved with the artists in the book. Here are a few images from inside the book. 

Frida Kahlo research

For my First female artist I decided to look into Frida Kahlo as she is one of the only female artists that most people will know. She has had a very interesting life so I thought that there would be lots of impressive information and facts about her that younger people would be inspired by. I watched a full length documentary to get a full timeline of her life and to make sure that the facts I had were correct. Here are some of the facts that I found interesting. I have also included a photograph of Kahlo and a self portrait that she created. 

Full Name: Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón
Born: July 6, 1907,  Coyoacán Mexico 
Died: July 13, 1954 (age 47)
Movement: Magic realism, Surrealism, Modern art

• At the age of 6 Frida got polio, resulting in one of her legs being thinner than the other.
• When she was young Frida wanted to break the stereotype of being a girl so she would dress like a boy and play boys sports such as wrestling and boxing.
• At 19 years old Kahlo was in a serious bus accident, the bus collided with a street car. As a result of this collision Kahlo was impaled by a metal hand rail, it went into one side of her hip all the way through and came out the other side. She also suffered many other injuries including fractures in her spine and a crushed foot.
• After the accident she spent a lot of time in a body cast and she was bed ridden. She would paint to occupy her time. 
• She has a trademark unibrow that gave her a very distinctive look. She painted it in all of her self portraits.
• When Kahlo grew up she wore lots of Jewellery covered in bright bold jewels, and big flamboyant flowers in her hair. She had a very individual look that made her very interesting to look at.
• The house she was born in was called the 'Blue house.'
• She married fellow artist Diego Rivera in 1940. They stayed together but had a vary turbulent relationship. He had an affair with her sister and other women, Kahlo also had a few affairs.
• When Kahlo was 37 her health started to deteriorate and her back became very weak she wore many plaster braces that she would paint and decorate with bright patterns and shapes. 
• At 47 Kahlo passed away as a result of her ill health in the 'Blue house' that she was born in.

Vincent Van Gogh Research

As the book I aim to create will have information and facts about artists I decided to find out some interesting things about Vincent Van Gogh. I started with finding out the basic information such as when he was born and died and his artistic movement. I then went into finding more interesting focused facts about him. Here is the information that I have found so far, I may add more facts or replace some if there aren't enough or I find better ones in the future. I also included a self portrait of Van Gogh

Born: 30 March 1853, in the Netherlands
Died: 29 July 1890, (aged 37)
Movement: Post-impressionism  

• Van Gogh wrote over 800 letters in his lifetime, most of these letters were written to his brother Theo, who was also his best friend.
• In his short life he created the astonishing amount of 2000 pieces, this is including drawings and sketches as well as paintings. 
• Van Gogh only became famous after his death because his brothers wife set out to get him the recognition that he deserved. 
• Within 10 years Van Gogh created approximately 900 paintings! some of which are known as the greatest works of art ever created.
• Van Gogh committed suicide by shooting himself and dying of blood loss two days later.  
• He suffered greatly from mental illness and spent part of his life in the Saint-Paul Asylum. This is where the famous painting 'starry night' was created, it is thought to be of the view from his room. 
• Part of Van Gogh's ear lobe was cut off, no one knows the real truth about how this event took place there are a few different stories as to how this happened. Many people think that he cut it off himself but there are other theories that his artist friend Paul Gauguin cut it off in a row.
• Van Gogh painted 30 self portraits between 1886 and 1889.

Self portrait of Vincent Van Gogh

Artists to consider for the book

As I wanted to include a collection of both male and female artists within this book I decided to compose a list of both male and female artists to consider including in the book. I found this quite difficult because there were a lot more male artists as in the past the artistic industry was very prejudice towards women and as a rule females were not artists, there are a few exceptions and women will have created art they just were not given the credit or recognition that they deserved. Despite this I have managed to find an equal amount of artists from both genders. After researching the artists separately I may revise the list and add or take away some of the people on it but this is what I have for now, as a starting point. I have done the lists as two separate ones so I know how many of each gender that I have. I aim to keep it as equal as possible (the lists are in no particular order, I just wrote them down in the order that I thought of them)

Males

• Salvador Dali
• Vincent Van Gogh
• Pablo Picasso
• Leonardo Da Vinci 
• Henri Matisse 
• Andy Warhol 
• Johannes Vermeer
• Michelangelo Buonarroti 

Females 

•  Frida Kahlo
• Georgia O' keeffe
• Artemisia Gentileschi
• Lavinia Fontana 
• Rosa Bonheur 
• Paula Rego 
• Giulia Lama 
• Hilma Af Klint 

Negotiated Module

Because the new project is negotiated, I can decide on whatever I want to do for this module. When I first thought about this brief it was pretty overwhelming as I could literally choose to create anything that I wanted as long as it could have some sort of commercial application. First of all I thought it would be good to create some sort of zine along with a few other illustrated products that could be sold online in a store such as Etsy, as lot of illustrators that I like do this and it seemed like a fun sort of project to do. I decided against this though because after a little chat with my tutor Amy I realised that I could use this opportunity to create something that could potentially lead to better opportunities for myself. She suggested creating a children's book because I love children's books and how beautiful that they can be. I agreed that this would be a good idea so I am planning on going down the route of creating some sort of book that would be suited to a younger audience.

As I like to come up with stories but am not too confident on wording a story correctly for a children's story/picture book I have decided to go down the route of creating factual, educational book about historical artists. I felt as though this was a good route to go down because I have been thinking about considering a career in education lately and this ties in with that as well. I think it will make the book really fun and quirky if I add strange and creepy facts about the artists, a bit like horrible history books. I have decided that this will appeal to children from the ages of about 10 all the way up to whatever age really, anyone who is interested in artists and interesting facts are  likely to be drawn to the book. I also plan to create the book using tasteful but interesting illustrations and colour palettes so that adults and children alike will be drawn to the book.

I will now start to research which artists I will include in the book, I want to attempt to have an equal amount of female to male artists although this may be challenging as in the past women weren't seen as equally as men within art and even if they did create something they often weren't credited for it. I also need to think of a title for the book but i feel like that will come with time and ill think of it whilst i am creating the images. I will also look at influences to help me decide on how I would like the book to look.