Book Review: Chimidyue - A Folktale of the Amazon Rainforest

Reflections

• I immediately love the vivid colours, simple shapes and forms and use of light and dark to show
whether Chimidyue is in the rainforest or outside it. A simple but effective visual device!

• The book has a hand-made, crafted, papercut aesthetic though it has been illustrated digitally.
• The line patterns give the illustrations a certain charm and texture - almost alluding to hand-sewn
felt elements again showing craft and a feeling of family, something made and handed down just like this folktale story itself.

• Repeated motifs of butterflies, flowers, leaves, trees and branches on each page encompasses a sense of continuity,
flow and togetherness of the book as a whole.

• Each page is a surprise with its viewpoints and composition. Makes turning the page fun!
• Each page spread has been used to it's full potential, but without feeling cluttered.
• The text is either placed above or below the illustrations to make it easy to read and so as not to interrupt the visual storytelling.
• The chosen font is large, rounded and bold for readability.
• Pronunciations (Chim-ID-yoo-a) as well as other terms relevant to the story are explained at the back giving an educational angle.
• This is a charming story with a cultural aspect that is entertaining and interesting; important in today's political landscape. Our differences should be accepted, embraced and celebrated and I'm glad that an obscure fairytale from a different country is featured in a children's book to help children learn about other traditions and folklore as well as their own.

How is this relevant to my work?
I have started to play more with simple shapes and colours in my own practice as seen in my Visual Skills, Visual Narratives and Visual Language work. I have really experimented with and adopted this mode of image making as it is something I respond positively to and enjoy the aesthetics of. Simplify to amplify! Having just completed my own picture book, titled The Pearly Kings and Queens, and learning more about composition in Visual Language, I now look at children's books in a different way - is the composition and framing interesting? Is it fun to turn each page and expect something different? Is there a sense of depth and viewpoint? I can start to pick these apart and use them in my practice.

Book Review: Cartoon Modern

Cartoon Modern has been intrinsic in helping me to develop my character design for the first brief of the Visual Communication module. The range and breadth of images and illustrative styles have allowed me to think beyond what I believe I know about character design (which isn't a lot, and is mostly informed by my favourite children's books!). It has helped me to realise a different approach to my initial sketches and incorporate the modernist Cubist style - which coincidentally links wonderfully with the aesthetic of jazz music that I can hopefully portray in my character. Perhaps? Perhaps not? But it's a starting point!

There were lots of lovely quotes throughout the book that really got the cogs and gears in my head turning... "Use the language of animation to convey contemporary ideas and themes." "New mature brand of animated film." "Bold visual styles derived from modern arts, adapting principals of Cubism, Surrealism and Expressionism expanding and redefining the art form." "Walt Disney believes that character design should be 'live, individual personalities - not just animated drawings." and so on. Here are some of my favourite illustrations from the book:

Petroushka (1956) and The Old Man and the Flower (1962)

Saul Bass: IBM Commercial and Sun Detergent Commercialand John Hubley: unidentified commercial directed and designed by Hubley

The Hope that Jack Built (1957) and Walt Disney: Model sheet for Mickey Mouse and Trix Cereal Commercial 

Book Review: Soppy

Rice, P. (2015) Soppy. Great Britain: Square Peg, imprint of Penguin Random House

I recently visited the college library and, in the Illustration section, came across this rather charming book; Soppy by Philippa Rice. I took it out immediately (after browsing some other books, that I will review in due course) and flicked through it during my lunch break. What I really like about this book, described as a graphic novel, is the very limited colour palette of red, black and white as well as the adorably illustrated main characters - a boy and girl, based on the author and her boyfriend (both illustrators themselves), who fall in love at a print fair and eventually move in together.

The illustrations highlight the ups and downs of adjusting to a new life when living with a new person and discovering how to balance alone-time and togetherness to make it work. Rice uses a mixture of black india ink, Letraset Promarkers, Sharpies and brush pens to create her highly-saturated blocks of contrasting colour. The illustrations themselves use basic shapes and forms to convey characters and environments, but it is the mark-making and patterns that are really special to me. Dots, dashes, squiggles, cross-hatches and circles work harmoniously with the flat expanses to create beautifully simplistic pages of varying visual language and detail - portraying movement, environment and emotion.

The page layouts are similarly of interest, with no two-page spread being the same. Rice plays with both borderless and bordered illustrations comprising of 2, 4, 8 and 16 pictures to a page. It is this variation that also makes turning each page a delight. While I do like the smaller illustrations, I much prefer when Rice takes advantage of a two-page spread to illustrate one image. With my visual impairment, it is much easier for me to see - and Rice really shines when adding more landscape detailing.