Final Product

As I have completed my front cover design and finished my page layouts I decided to make some mock ups of how the final book would look if it was professionally printed. Here are my mock ups I used photoshop to apply my images to some blank templates. I am very happy with how they look and seeing how they would look if they were printed properly has made me realise that my book would not look out of place on a book shop shelf. My goal for this year has been to progress with my professional finish and i think by looking at these finished products that I have became much closer to achieving that goal.  

Layout Research

I wanted to get some inspiration for what my book should look like and how to lay it out well. I headed down to the library and picked out some books that looked really nice and fit in with the style that I wanted my book to be like.  The first book that I picked out is called 'My even more wonderful world of fashion.' It fit in perfectly with the style of my book and it really helped get ideas for my layouts. The bold black lines and use of space worked really well. I also really liked the style of typography and the different fonts that are used together. Here are a few pages that helped me out a lot. 

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.

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.