I recently went to the House of Illustration where I saw Quentin Blake’s exhibition on ‘The Tale of Kitty-In-Boots’. I was stunned and inspired by Blake’s use of watercolour and sketchy ink drawings. His drawings are scribbly and quick but his control is fantastic, he creates lovely characters and uses soft watercolour to make his drawings come to life. It was a real treat to see this original pieces first hand and get a chance to look close up to the watercolour pieces.
The exhibition of Quentin Blake’s original illustrations for The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots, were created for the recently re-discovered Beatrix Potter manuscript, published in September.
The book about ‘a well-behaved prime black Kitty cat, who leads rather a double life’, features classic Potter characters including Mrs Tiggy-Winkle and Mr Tod re-drawn by Blake.
The exhibition features Blake’s 50 illustrations for the book, a sketchbook and reference material. It also contains the original Beatrix Potter manuscript and one of Potter’s only two illustrations for the book, on loan from the V&A.
Below is the edited illustration which I created after my final tutorial feedback. I got rid of the door and the side room perspective as it didn’t add anything to the image and in fact just made it seem weaker.
I added in rain into the window background, a plant in the foreground, records and a record player on the floor, changed the rug, a different wooden floor and a framed picture. I also made the phone bigger so the viewer could see the tinder details more and added in motion detail to convey that Little red was swiping right on the wolf.
I’m much happier with this image, before it just wasn’t working for me and I couldn’t figure out why but with lots of Photoshop experimentation and playing I have come to a final illustration I am happy to present in the final crit.
Details:
Trying to gain insight into what medium I want to final use I did quick mock ups on Photoshop and played around with colour and composition. I think a very limited colour palette would work well for the final illustrations and depict a similar feel to old fairytale illustrations.
Below are some of the attempts I made:
Coloured background with black and white elements and Little Red in colour – all done in inks, wax crayon, watercolour and fine liner.
Similar to the previous attempt but with the elements coloured.
The elements in this one are created using wax crayon.
Fine liner black and white elements.
Fine liner elements coloured using block Photoshop colour.
Black and white blackground with only Little Red depicted in colour. This version is my favourite and I think it is the most successful. I want to have a fluid medium and style throughout the different fairytales so it is important I use a similar technique. I think I would like to take this image the stage further by bringing in textures and light.
Photoshop and colour attempt.
Black and white attempt using ink elements – too busy in my opinion.
To begin my project I decided to try my hardest to finalise the style and medium I was going to use for all my illustrations. Taking the first fairytale, Little Red, I started drawing up compositions, mock ups, testing with colour and drawing the different elements I wanted to use with different mediums.
To begin I quickly sketched different scenarios and perspectives to get an idea of what I was trying to achieve visually and see how it would work.
Little Red is iconically in a forest in the fairytale but as I’m making it modern and relating to Tinder, should it be somewhere else? Could I convey the idea of a forest in a different format? A bar or Little Red’s home perhaps with a forest wallpaper?
I then started character building with the wolf and Little Red, I didn’t want my characters to be too cartoony and I actually found I preferred them without a face. I played with different mediums like pencil, paint, ink and wax crayon to see what worked and I found my wax crayon wolves were the most successful and stylised.
I wanted the perspective of Little Red to be over her shoulder so the iPhone screen was visible to the viewer.
I tried different faces, styles of hair and a range of mediums to figure out which one my Little Red character would be.
Next I experimented with the idea of a forest – from using watercolours and creating a loose and abstract scene to drawing with detailed trees with pencil, I played with different effects and found inks, pencil and fine liner to be my favourite. I especially liked the black and white ones and thought maybe my illustrations would look good if they were all black and white except the main feature (Little Red).
Thinking of Little Red in her house (which is the place I found most fitting as people are most likely to be on Tinder at their homes when bored in the evening, maybe watching tv with a glass of wine etc). Therefore, I started to visualise the elements which would go into the house using inks and fine liner. I wasn’t sure what style I wanted to use yet so I tried multiple which I want to experiment with on Photoshop to see what works and what doesn’t once its put together.
I also illustrated a range of alcohol bottles and glasses with the idea I might create a bar scene. I really like these little illustrations and hope I can incorporate them in some way.
Finally, I created more forest trees with the idea I would bring them into Photoshop and play around with layering, sizing and colour. I want to create a forest wallpaper with these trees to represent the meaning of a forest but in a modern day setting.
I redrew the elements which would go into Little Red’s flat using inks and felt tip in colour so I have the ability to play around more with the use of colour on Photoshop, I might do my pieces mainly black and white but I am still unsure and plan on doing colour tests on all of my pieces to solve this query.
I also draw a new rug, plants to go in the foreground and a fireplace to test in the final illustration. I want the background to have lots of detail to entertain the eye and give the reader an insight into Little Red’s casual friday night.
I also drew fairylights, records, a record player, a painting in a frame, a new window and a wooden floor.
To finish, I drew two different chairs, a cabinet full of Little red’s belongings like DVD’s, books etc and I rew a liquor cabinet too. I didn’t use all these things in my final image but I tested them all out to see what did/didn’t work.
Johnny Broadley’s old fashioned illustrations depict pies, factories, ale, top hats and football matches, all from an era in Great Britain full of strange twists and turns. His funny-looking characters that range from Dickensian men to Bash Street Kids go about their daily business in reams of pretty hilarious comic strips.
His limited colour palette, quirky characters, way of incooperating text within illustrations and use of pattern is all of major interest to me for my project. So far on my project I have been trying to create a visual style and focusing on Little Red’s illustrations mainly with the idea that once I am happy with which style and medium I am going to do then I will move onto the other stories. However, I am worried there isn’t much time within this project at all so I need to hurry my work along and move onto the next fairytale if I’m going to succeed in doing six fairytales. I’ll start onto another fairytale today whilst experimenting with the style for Little Red as well.
So far I have painted all the elements I wanted to use in her story in inks and also done then in fine liners, I want to take all these elements into Photoshop and play around with colour and composition. However, now I’m thinking maybe the best way to pull these illustrations off is to create them all by hand and play with collage and different mediums more physically.
Looking into different imagery for inspiration, I was particularly interested in these Indian scarf designs. These traditional illustrations tell a narrative whilst having an interesting composition of blank space and intricate detail to create balanced and visually appealing pieces. This balance of pattern and space is something I must take into account within my own imagery, as well as finding a colour palette which works without containing too much colours or being too busy.
Carson Ellis is an amazing illustrator I have always admired, the way she uses watercolours, her colours and her naive characters are what I like the most about her work. Watercolour is a difficult medium to work with and control, her intricate detail and use of spacing shows just how great her abilities are in this medium. Carson Ellis has illustrated multiple books also an occasional maker of editorial illustration, having worked for The New York Times, Poetry Magazine, and The New Yorker, among others, and an even more occasional fine artist represented by Nationale in Portland.
The animation belong is a previous stop motion animation I have done on Little Red Riding Hood using handmade textile puppets and painted set designs. It highlights the problems of victim blaming and tells the story of what Little Red went through from her perspective.
The animation below is a role reversal of Little Red Riding Hood with Little Red as an empowered woman taking control of her own destiny and stalking the wolf in order to kill him before he harms anyone else. The animation was created using paper cut-out models and a screen printed, layered forest background.
A large, ugly, wet toad: In fairy tales, the toad is usually a malevolent creature, or a symbol of another character’s evil. These ideas exist outside the fairy tale genre as well.
In the fairy tale world, the concepts of beauty and ugliness generally reflect the good or evil natures of people. Thumbelina is beautiful, kind, and good, while the ugly toad has no qualms about kidnapping her.
The idea of Thumbelina as a siren and enchantress of males is here reinforced – she attracts the butterfly and then ensnares him for her own purposes, to facilitate her escape. The butterfly is drawn to her by her beauty, and in the end, as she realises, he may well die as a result of his attraction.
Thumbelina questions her own beauty. Given that a fairy tale woman is represented primarily or uniquely through her beauty, she is in effect questioning her very existence. She needs others to accept her beauty and so to be part of a society – otherwise she is desolate.
Thumbelina’s quest is ultimately to find a family, a society, and she is willing, at least initially, to consider all beings that she encounters.
Beauty and ugliness in fairy tales are often synonymous with the ideas of good and evil. Good characters, in particular the heroines and heroes, are beautiful. Beauty may also signify innate nobility, deserving of an elevated social position in the fairytale world. Thus unparalleled beauty sets the hero and heroine apart from the common man and woman. If a central character is ugly, it is usually either a temporary state of affairs, or a symbol of their evil nature.
The prince is clearly Thumbelina’s match because she finds him beautiful. The two mirror one another, in height and beauty, and are so destined to be together. As she looks into him, she looks into a mirror (arguably literally, for he is after all “transparent as if he had been made of crystal”) and sees a reflection of her own beauty. It is a very different moment from that in which she expresses despair at her own ugliness, having been rejected by the cockchafer. Her other potential husbands have been ugly in her eyes, and she could never have loved them.
The Little Mermaid is a princess in her own domain – feels very comfortable, has a family to back her up, she is equipped for that way of life (tail). She longs for a prince and the life of humans, their immortal souls. (Which both can be interpreted as wanting more, having idealistic picture of life someplace else, not necessarily another country, but another surroundings, occupation, set of circumstances: the restlessness that occupy most of us at certain age or stage in life. It is a trait of a curious mind, the one that needs to expand. That explains why would she leave a world she was so perfectly happy in).
To enter that other world, we have to pay the price, and we have to endure changes. Losing the tail signifies losing that ability to be functional in your surroundings – suddenly, all the things you knew are irrelevant (and it’s very much so in a life of an immigrant – you do feel out of your element, unable to maneuver through these new circumstances) . Every step is a pain you must endure if you wish to go anywhere. It is very much so with entering any other area in life that is new – adolescence, retirement, disability, new job, etc – any other expansion of your comfort zone into the unknown.
The prince is that element we feel we need to feel stronger. It can be a relationship, but it can also be occupation, money, status, children, special interest – any dream OUTSIDE of yourself. We need it to feel better about ourselves as we don’t believe we can make it without it.
The voice is a significant factor. When changing our circumstances, we don’t have the ability to communicate with those we meet in new surroundings. Not necessarily is this just a language barrier (immigrant issue, again), it is the difference in the mind frame and lack of ability to relate to new surroundings. Our frame of reference is different than the one of those we encounter in new circumstances. An adolescent has difficulties expressing herself in the world of adults she wants to be in. Newly disabled person needs a period of adjustment to be able to relate to the world in a productive way. Losing the voice emphasized the isolation in the new world – no one understands how we feel and we don’t know how to tell them.
So, atop everything else, the prince loves someone else (and that he thinks she saved him instead of LM just emphasizes her isolation and helplessness)! LM is losing that one dream that brought her into this new world, the one reason she endured all the suffering. Aside from the fact that happens more often than not, what is more significant is the way we deal with it. There is no going back – we have changed and living as we used to is not an option. We have to let go of the dream if we are to grow. So, finally, “death” (travel to a higher, happier state) means shedding the doubts, fears and desires of earlier stage and re-birth of a new person, one who does not need a dream somewhere outside herself. If we can see death as a transformation, not an end, we’d have the moral of the story.
The exhibition of Quentin Blake’s original illustrations for The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots, were created for the recently re-discovered Beatrix Potter manuscript, published in September.