View the original picture book HERE

Planning Documents:

pages of my visual diary which I used for character design and storyboarding:

Rationale:

My creative response from the genre study of children’s literature is titled ‘Found’ (Allen, 2021). The 32-page story follows a character named Bug who is lost in a fantasy-like landscape illustrated with watercolour paint. The story revolves around the theme of lost and found which plays into the title with positive connotations. In the process of creating Bug and the world he is lost in, I took inspiration from multiple works by author Shaun Tan including The Red Tree (2001), Cicada (2018), and The Arrival (2006). I was also inspired by the artwork style of the videogame Hollow Knight (Team Cherry, 2017). I employed written techniques such as short sentencesing, deliberate vocabulary and sentences broken across multiple pages, alongside visual techniques including colour and shape language, visual symbolism, and framing to create a unique story within the genre of children’s literature.

Found is written for an audience of roughly seven to twelve years of age. It is designed to be read independently; for this reason the audience must have a level of literacy to comprehend the story. Independent reading of Found allows for greater time absorbing information presented in illustrations alongside written words. The detailed illustrations aid in holding the attention of the reader for a longer time, allowing for deeper communication of themes and ideas. The deliberate vocabulary is designed to be comprehensible yet challenging for younger readers, with short sentences being easy to understand, and some more complex vocabulary such as the word ‘vibrant’ included on page 22 and ‘wondrouswonderous’ on page 27.

The story of Found is constructed so that the words and illustrations must be viewed together to develop a full understanding. The story cannot be understood with just one of these aspects. Children’s literature often uses illustrations to add meaning to stories rather than to repeat what is written, and I wanted Found to replicate this convention. For example, pages 6 and 7 of Found show a zoomed-out view of the landscape, and within this double-page illustration multiple locations from the rest of the book can be found eg. the purple egg-shapes on page, with the sentence “It’s new” on page 7 (Allen, 2021). This is an example of illustrations adding to the story and the understanding of the text.

Shaun Tan’s picture books The Red Tree (2001), Cicada (2018), and The Arrival (2006) provided much of the inspiration for Found. The visual symbolism Tan uses in his work is stunning, especially the way he uses colours and shapes to convey different meanings and emotions. This understanding of colour and shape language is something I included in the images of Found. Bug is one of the only colourless parts of Found. It is only his coat that has colour, and his coat is oversized with sleeves dragging on the ground. Both of these visual choices were deliberate. Bug is colourless because he is lost, a recurring theme throughout the story. He is not only unsure of his location, but unsure of himself. This is why his coat is far too big with empty pockets, and why Bug himself is colourless. It symbolises room for growth. Bug must find himself. Throughout the course of Found, Bug fills his pockets with lots of items, none of which fully fit into the pockets. In the end, Bug cannot carry all of these items across the water and only brings the most “treasured things” with him; Bug brings only his new friend, the Snail. Shaun Tan’s Cicada demonstrates an emotional journey in a similar fashion, where, in the end, Cicada flies away into a new, colourful landscape (Tan, 2018). In Found, Bug’s story continues across the water in the reader’s imagination. His coat remains too large and Bug remains colourless, yet he has a friend with him, and being lost has become a positive experience. The lack of full resolution keeps the story within the minds of the audience long after reading, which is important when writing for a younger and often less attentive audience.

Colour and shape play a major role in Found. Bug was designed to express emotion only through the eyes, and his shape could be considered squishy and moveable. It is difficult to determine whether Bug is solid mass, or ghost-like, or both, and this fluidity in shape makes Bug a more inviting character. In Team Cherry’s 2017 videogame Hollow Knight, the character design focuses heavily on shape language. Evil characters often have pointy features, eg. the boss creature Hornet, whilst the more pleasant characters feature rounder, more fluid shapes, eg. the Knight. Shaun Tan’s 2006 picture book The Arrival communicates purely through images, and I observed techniques to use in Found. Colours are important in setting the tone of an image, and I used lots of greyedo greyed blues and greens to set a moodier tone, adding yellows in later pages to slowly create a happier mood. I employed framing techniques similar to those of The Arrival, such as the framed images on page 13 of Found. Short sentences and sentences broken across multiple pages is another literary device conventional to children’s literature and is employed in Tan’s The Red Tree (2001). An example of this in Found is pages 8 to 11, with the sentence beginning “Bug walks” on page 8, and then finishing with “and walks” on page 11, across two double-page illustrations (Allen, 2021, 8-11).

I used many literary and visual techniques conventional to the genre of children’s literature to create my own picture book. These techniques include shape and colour language and visual repetition, along with short sentences and deliberate vocabulary choices to communicate meaning. In the creation of Found I drew inspiration from multiple works by Shaun Tan, along with the game Hollow Knight by Team Cherry. Found is a story about being lost and coming to terms with situations, spinning a positive of a generally negative situation and making friends on the way.

References

Allen, C. (2021). Found. [Unpublished picture book]. Lake Tuggeranong College.

Gibson, A., Pellen, W. (2017). Hollow Knight [Steam]. Team Cherry.

Tan, S. (2001). The red tree. Hachette Livre.

Tan, S. (2006). The arrival. Hodder & Stoughton.

Tan, S. (2018). Cicada. Hachette Australia.