Charlie Harper artist

One of the lovely library ladies saw some of the other books I was taking out and suggested that I took a look inside this one. Well, I think I've found my new favourite thing. 

The shapes, colour, style, composition and basically everything else that matters is just amazing! He is one of those artists that can just adapt to any brief whilst still maintaining his own unique style.  

The main thing that stands out is the way he can create beautiful little designs and illustrations with a minimalistic feel that I predict I will try and re create in my own illustrations. It is this style that I feel Liberty and the Children I would be aiming my product at would love. 

I really love the brush strokes on his painted pieces, as they give just enough for you to understand the image but not to much so it becomes lost. As he has illustrated many books or children, I know for a fact that this style would appeal as it is colourful and bold. 

HE EVEN DID  A COWBOY

Another aspect of the book I really love is the way his minimalistic illustrations are presented in a minimalistic way. I think is maybe just for the purposes of the book, but it give it a nice order that is easy to understand. I feel that, reflecting back now on the idea of a heavily illustrated cover, maybe a more organised approach would be better if I want a lot of visual information on my product. Don't get me wrong, there will still be a lot going on but maybe in a more regimented way... 

..Similar to these pieces (which I adore by the way). 

Another really interesting thing to read through is his 'artists story' as it gives a lot of context as to why he draws the way he does ( he blames it on housewives!) and what methods he uses. 

https://www.charleyharperprints.com/charley-harper/his-story-in-his-own-words/ 

Reading up on Fashion Forecasting

Although the book I am looking at is mainly geared towards fashion, as I have found most things are, It still have some valuable information to take in. 

"Nothing happens until somebody brands something". 

I think I keep forgetting that alongside all of this illustrative work for the actual products I have to start to think how to brand myself and my products when they are done. Reading through this business driven book, I have also come to the realisation that I will need to begin making and branding as soon as possible as then I will need to conduct some kind of research into whether or not people will be interested in buying this product. 

It states in the book that colour is the first thing to be decided in a new season. So before I even start going too far with drawing I will be creating colour palettes alongside this process. Therefore, not only do I sort two themes out but I also complete twice the work. 

FINDINGS:

From looking at some of the trend websites in the book, although I couldn't really access them due to me not paying to be a member, I found two designers/ artists who I found really interesting and who I felt would fit in as colour and print research even though their work is not really related to Kids in anyway. 

 ERIN O'KEEFE

I thought the colours in all of her images were absolutely on point for what direction I want to go in for my products. The texture and everything just work together for an overall beautiful effect. 

I may even attempt to incorporate texture in some of the illustrations as it would look awesome and make my drawings more interesting to eye of a child and hopefully to the buyers at Liberty. 

http://www.erinokeefe.com/Collection

MASHA REVA X SNDCT

Although these jumpers are obviously printed digitally, the overall colour scheme and ideas behind them are lovely and vibrant. This is becoming a very popular method of printing in recent seasons so it's worth thinking about as it could really become the next big thing in terms of print. 

http://www.mashareva.com/main/index.php?/fashion/masha-reva-x-sndct/

Book: Fashion Forecasting, Kathryn Mckelvey and Janine Munslow

Mermaids, fairies, Butterflies and Woodland

Although a lot of this book is sculpture and very old interpretations of this mythical creature, there are some more up to date (when I say up to date I mean in the last few hundred years) illustrations that are absolutely beautiful. Some tweaks will need to be made so they will be a suitable resource for me to use as reference. I also really love the layout of the book, as it is filled with a lot of useful information about mermaids and has a few quotes from some famous writers and philosophers.
I need to handle this one carefully also and make sure the mermaids don't look too suggestive, which will be quite easy as I can just give them long flowing hair which will add to the illustrative quality as well.

I thought a similar style colouring would look quite interesting next to my idea of having washed out watercolour against neon. 

I also love the detail in the background in this image and will think about incorporating a similar style for my illustrations on the outside and inside covers. 

In terms of fairies, the thing that first popped into my head without any hesitation was a series of books I read when I was younger called the Spiderwick Chronicles. It was marketed as a field guide to spotting mythical creatures such as fairies, goblins, wood elves and such. I used to spend hours looking at the illustrations within them as they are just so gorgeous, and I feel if I employ a similar style it would make my product look even more at home in Liberty. 

My favourites were always the Faeries/Sprites and Elves.

I love the way the illustrator, Tony DiTerlizzi, uses washed out colours to create his 'anatomically correct' drawings of the wondrous world of Spiderwick.  

(still from movie) 

To help my research for butterflies, I have just started to collect imagery from books so I can begin to try out various shapes and styles and I find it best to work from actual photographs. I feel this one will be quite easy to work in with the faeries as the colours are just made for each other, and i'm quite excited by the prospect of this. 

I think brusho inks would work quite well when creating this imagery, as I need the vibrancy for the colours. 

I want to find a way to make this butterfly's wings work, as I think the transparency is beautiful. I could even had it on my little character for the page divider. 

For my final girl's concept, I have slightly deviated form the generic 'cute animals' option. And I'm broadening it to baby british wildlife, maybe just fauna. Obviously to appeal to little girls they'll still be 'cute' but in a more anatomically correct style now, instead of the more japanese kawaii bold shape and colour I was going to employ before I thought it through and realised I was being stupid as this would look horrific as I can't do it. 

The next set of images are from Fauna Britannica by Duff Heart Davis, I thought it would be valuable to research actual photographs before deciding on some artists to research as an influence later on. I also thought that these photos are really nice in that they show the funny personalities of some animals and I feel this is an important factor when creating a children's product. 

I was also thinking instead of stereotypical british animals I would go for ones that are often forgotten as these could potentially have the most mystery for children and would stimulate them more intellectually.... 

Dinosaur sidenote

Whist just looking at a book on british wildlife I came across a lovely illustration of dinosaurs by engraver George Scharf. 

He produced this piece of work to show the 'teaming life' in a jurassic sea. I love the colours he has used and the overall quality of the engraving, I mean minus the 'gore' it could fit perfectly in an illustrated children's dinosaur book. 

 His other work is gorgeous also:

I love this old victorian style of illustration and this is really going to be popular next year, I feel this kind of mark making mixed with modern twists will be awesome, I'm actually really excited to start experimenting. 

Art and Children's Emotional Development.

I have also been talking to my mum as she used to be a childminder and has a lot of information on this subject as she was a massive promoter of art and creativity in children. She sent me a link, and it basically said what I've been trying to say. 

Here are some of my favourite quotes from the article:

• "Creativity is the freest form of self expression" 
• "The ability to be creative, to create something from personal feelings and experiences, can reflect and nurture children's emotional health"
• Children need plenty of opportunities for creative play and creative thinking"
• "One of the strongest benefits of play is the way it enhances social development"
• "We must be careful not to dominate the play ourselves" 

All of these just put into words exactly what I want my products to be about. It's a very difficult business when creating a product that children will respond to, as it needs to bridge the divide between not giving enough information and giving too much for them to handle. I want the illustrations on the sketchbooks to inspire them but to also give them their ow ideas on what to draw, which is why I was considering putting small easy to read facts in-between my designs. 

All I want to do mainly is "pay attention to play" to "plan for it and encourage it".  

Which is also why I wanted to do the themes I have chosen for my illustrations, although some are real life things I still want them to seem magical and interesting. 

Ted Talks: 'How Schools Kill Creativity'

As this idea grows so does the concept behind it. I have been doing quite a bit of research into how play helps children to develop into actual well rounded human beings. This lecture from the Ted Talks youtube channel is one of the best things I have ever watched, the talk is by Sir Ken Robinson and the way he puts his argument across is just genius. 

There was many point which I found compelling for this overall case and some that really stood out for me in terms of this brief. He states at one point that "creativity is just as important as literacy". I couldn't agree with this more, as I have grown up I have always been encouraged to let my creativity out and through this I have developed a love for other things as I was allowed to have time to play. 

This point led onto another idea that kids aren't afraid of making mistakes until it's hammered into them in school that making a mistake is a terrible thing. "we are schooling the creativity out of children".  

He went onto make the point that "if you are not prepared to be wrong you'll never come up with anything original". Everything he said was just put so eloquently that I can't believe he hasn't been named the best lecturer in the world. 

He also made a point that Picasso stated that "All children are born artists", in todays society with the school system as it is we do not nurture the creativity in the kids. It is seem as terrible thing to want to be an artists or anything that involves the arts, I remember a teacher telling me that it isn't really 'a viable career choice' when I said I wanted to go into the arts. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

Beetles, Dinosaurs and Cowboys

Obviously to appeal to children there will be colour and I will adopt a new illustrative style that is both simple yet complex as I feel this kind of bold style will appeal to both Liberty buyers and to the children I am aiming them at. 

To start I took some books out of library as a referencing start point and came across some lovely styles that really appeal to me and will also suit the style I want to employ. 

The way Steve Jenkins' illustration are present in this book are properly charming. His use of shape and line is along the same lines as what I want my finished Illustrations to turn out like. The way he has mixed some education with them is also something worth thinking seriously about as it could give my products a certain edge over others. And it's something I really believe should be promoted more amongst the young, art and education. 

Following on from the previous point I also want to do something similar on the inside covers as well. I know from my own childhood, where my parents nurtured and allowed my creativity to grow through exciting educational books, for example the Horrible Histories series that were popular when I was younger. They both interested me visually and through that the facts they were giving seemed more important and interesting to me. 

I think the illustration below is lovely, through the use of illustration he gives you the academic side in a visually interesting way. 

The dinosaur idea kind of stemmed from a post I'd seen online a while back and screen shotted. I thought it would be funny to introduce a new idea of what dinosaurs could have looked like. 

Although the illustrations in this book are fairly classical, it is still a good reference point for the basic shapes I will need when it comes to producing my illustrations. 

http://cmkosemen.com

Although gun imagery with the cowboy theme is a big no no, I have looked through a massive toy directory from the library and thought the colours used on old toy guns were actually really nice and will look into a way of bring them in on my colour palette. 

The patterns on them are also really nice and I will probably try to include similar type things in my sketchbooks. Maybe even as small vignettes on my pages... hmm

I absolutely adore this image, I may even incorporate my own interpretation of it for this brief. It's fun and that's what I want these books to be about.