Yesterday I had a tutorial with Derek where we discussed my ideas and he gave me advice for writing my proposal and timetable. He approved of the ideas that I mentioned in my last post, and gave me a few helpful suggestions as well. So I will be going ahead with the idea:
Illustrate a small selection of the Grimms' fairytales, adapting the characters to be animals that reflect their personalities, with the goal of producing a book that combines the fairytales into one story.
One of his main suggestions was to try and draw the animals form life wherever possible as this will help me to capture a bit of character and personality in them. One artist that he referred to several times was Beatrix Potter and the way she successfully used anthropomorphism in her illustrations, mainly because she spent so long with the animals themselves and knew their characters well. Obviously I am unable to do exactly that, but I have timetabled to visit a Zoo at least once, as well as any other wildlife parks nearby, in order to draw as many animals from life as possible. the first of these trips will be on sunday to London Zoo where I plan on drawing and taking photos for later reference.
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| Beatrix Potter: Anthropomorphism |
Until then I will be researching the fairytales themselves, looking at characters, symbolism, different versions and any other elements I may find useful. I will be breaking each story down into a few bullet points to help me when it comes to producing the illustrations, and also deciding on which animals to use for each character.
Throughout this project I am also keeping a Pinterest board of any images I find that are inspiring me, particularly relating to fairytales. Every couple of weeks I will share a round-up of whats been inspiring me and looking to see how that has influenced my work.
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| Fairytale Inspirations |