Final Major Project

We did some fun and interesting exercise about how we're going to write our proposal using a quil, type writer, small pen and a small box, and a caligraphy pen.

Proposal:

My final major project will be 3 or 4 picture books in various scales they won’t only be a regular rectangle shaped books but will also have various shapes based in the content within. The short stories will be base on my personal, memorable past experiences in Hong Kong and Wales, converting them into tales through the eyes of Mocha the cat and featuring other pets and characters from fairy tales to fit the scenes. Mocha is my dark brown tabby cat whom I’ve adopted in Hong Kong and brought with me to wales. Since he was a stray kitten he used to have 2 other siblings with him that I’ve taken care of and then my friends adopted them. Then I’ll be displaying them on individual stands for each book. Some portraits of the characters will be displayed on the wall and possibly need a projector to showcase the stop motion or animation. My target audience are children to tweens then adults enjoying the illustration and interactive. They’re my target audience because……

I will be researching paper engineering books, papercraft books and book art through books from the library and books I’ve purchased online. To get into more depth about how things work in folding the pieces into place and how they’ll pop up, watch YouTube tutorials demonstrating how to make basic pop-up and interactive pieces.

The artists I will be looking at will be those who base their work on experiences, aesthetics , and a drawing style that I radiated. Like Judith Kerr, who illustrated and wrote Mog the cat and The Tiger who came for tea, Richard Scarry who illustrated and wrote the book of Busy, busy world, Beatrix Potter of Peter Rabbit and Helen Craig who illustrated Angelina Ballerina with many details, and writers like Julia Donaldson who wrote the Gruffalo with rhymes and minimal text. Since the interest is a vast information base I’ll be using the search engine to start my research on these artist on how they got inspired, where they base their work from and how they were able to include short text to pair with illustrations.

The materials that I’ll use will be proper card paper that works through durability after being folded and manoeuvred multiple times. The books will consist of different mediums that are inks, watercolour, pencils, clay, embroidery, pop-up illustration.

I will be using an app called mental canvas to help me with my pop up layers as a part of my roughs to know how things will look before I stick everything together

Artist Statement

My work explores my daily life experiences through the eyes of Mocha the cat, illustrated in an imaginary pop-up book for children. I take bits of eventful moments into an imaginary story where animals wear coats , scarfs and hats in their world. This story was inspired by my little sister who had lost something important for a brief moment but was able to find it after retracing her steps.

With influences from my favourite childhood storybooks Judith Kerr’s Mog the cat, Helen Craig who illustrated Angelina Ballerina, Beatrice potter for Peter rabbit and Richard Scarry books.

I’ve always been fascinated with beautifully detailed illustrative and interactive books. They always bring extra life to the story leaving you wanting to explore more and even questioning the paper engineering behind it.

The Story

One day Mocha went out for a stroll..

But realised that he had lost his important thing.

Hmmm…

He looked everywhere, on logs, in bushes,

In the stream where the fishes swim

and under the rock where the ants walk.

A couple of curious magpies flew down and asked

“ What cha doing? ”

Mocha replied, “Have you seen my thing?”

“What does your thing look like?”

“My thing. I wear it all day and wear it all night. It’s velvet scarlet and shiny amber. It dingle dangles when I walk around. ”

“Hmm… your thing. Ok! we’ll help out!”

They flew high and low…

Branch to branch…

Roof to roof…

“Is this your thing?” (Clock) “No”

“Is this your thing?” (Keys) “No”

“Is this your thing?” (Cap)”No”

“ I’ll never find my thing…”

Then one of the Magpies came up to Mocha and asked..

“Is this the thing you were seeking?”

(Red colour with a gold bell)

“ YES! Yes, That’s my thing my very important thing”

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24/4/2022

• Explored on chinese/japanese book binding. watched a few videos on youtube.

29/4/2022

• Did some research on a few pieces and figuring out how to piece a few things together making things work smoothly.

• Thanks to the book ABC 3D that Miranda lent me I was able to find one of the pages that I would be able to use for one of mines.

• There was one slider that was so complicated it almost gave me a headache since I was struggling to make it slide smoothly and transition well

After making a small maquette of the book, I traced a few of the illustrations on my ipad to refine them and so that i can trace them on to the card paper in a larger scale.

Brochure

While I was lookig around other people's exhibition I stumble upon one of the fine arts brochure? flyer? with images of her work it was about lino cuts and it had her details , artist statement and education there it was made simple printed paper and stapler together. This was made using Canva App and I did the same thing and just included 3 of my sketches and details. Then i folded it and place them in the studio for people to take

Final Consitina Book