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. 

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. 

Salvador Dahli research

Salvador Dali lived a very obscure life, he was very eccentric  and had a lot of quirks. I thought he would be very interesting to include in my book as young children will find him very fun to learn about. Here are some facts that I have found so far. I have also included a photograph of him.

Full Name: Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dali I Doménech
Born: May 11, 1904 in Figueres Spain
Died: January 23, 1989 (age 84)
Movement: Surrealism, Cubism, modern art, dada

• Dali thought that he was the re incarnation of his dead sibling who was also called Salvador Dali. His parents even encouraged him into believing this.
• He produced more than 15000 paintings in his lifetime. He also created books, short films and illustrations. 
• Dali would do anything for a bit of extra money, you wouldn't think it from looking at his paintings but he even created the Chupa Chups logo.
• He has an intense fear of grass hoppers.   
• To ward off evil spirits Dali would carry around a piece of lucky driftwood.
•  Dali was fascinated by the shape of cauliflowers, he even once once drove around in a limo full of then and handed them out to the people of Paris. (They got very confused.)
• He liked strange pets and even had an Anteater and an Ocelot.
• Dali had a very unique moustache that he would style in all sorts of wacky ways. 
• He once sold a strand of hair from of his famous moustache for $10,000 but instead of sending the hair, Dali sent a dried out piece of grass. He was worried that the person buying his moustache would use it for which craft.  
• When Dali went out to a restraint for dinner he would invite a large group of his friends. He would pay for everyone but to avoid the large bill the Dali would draw on the back of his checks, the restaurant would never cash the checks because they had an original sketch by Dali which would probably be worth more than the bill itself.   
• Dali painted very surreal images that depicted things such as melting clocks, elephants, eggs and other very peculiar objects. 

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

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.