my kid's story

I need a bit of feedback on this manuscript I've written for the text in my childrens book.. it's not finished yet, in fact I'm not sure how to end it! Any comments will be gladly recieved :)
Bear in mind there will be images telling half of the narrative if it sounds a little basic!

Pages 1 and 2. There is a forest at the bottom of my garden. It is haunted. It is not haunted by ghosts – ghosts do not exist. It is haunted by real horrors. I know this because I have seen them.

3 and 4. I have the best view of the forest from my bedroom window. At night when everyone is sleeping I sit on the windowsill and wait. When the moon rises, the forest horrors begin to stir.

5 and 6. Come on, I'll show you. I'm not scared. Are you?

7 and 8. Down through the garden, over the lawn, past the beans and cabbages, past Dad's potting shed and the greenhouse, past my old broken toys lying in a sad heap in the moonlight, under the elderberry tree and over the crumbling wall...

9 and 10. ...into the forest.

11 and 12. Ready? Stamp the ground! Shake the branches! Wade through brambles! SHOUT OUT LOUD to disturb the slumbering beasts!

Nothing.

13 and 14. Maybe I can wake the weed witch in the pond.

Still nothing!

15 and 16. Maybe they'll see my torch through the trees and come running.

Nope!

17 and 18. Looks like we'll have to come back another day.

Wait a minute...what's that noise?

19 and 20. What's that snuffling and scuffling? What's that dragging and rustling? What's that growling and groaning?
What's that...

21 and 22. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!


That's it so far. Hope you're all a little scared, that's the idea!
Naomi

more AWARD

check this V&A site :http://www.vam.ac.uk/activ_events/events/illustration_awards/studentillustrator/2008-student/index.php

Children illustrators

This illustrator works with all sorts of media. And pretty good at them all!

http://www.juliafriese.com/english/books24.html

Exhibition

www.jibberingart.co.uk - Its a Street art illustrative based exhibition. Some of the characters are quite nice, but would be probably be a lot more impressive on a larger scale at the exhibition itself. Its on till the 26th so not long left.

la jetee

hmm not sure if anyones interested in this... Narrative is created through the use of still images. its a different way of telling a story as a film which i thought was pretty cool!! i find stuff like this inspirational, even though im not directly doing this for my project work, it's a different way of looking at things.... check it out..

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3RvmJan17q8

London

London was interesting, and hard work!

I love the Illustration cupboard, once I'd found it XD I think I walked past it three times before I found it.

The V&A was good as well, they had this exhibit of the old small oval portraits that reminded me of Debbie's work, and had a small video tutorial on how they were made which was interesting.

I also got chatting to somebody on the tube, he asked what I was doing in London and I told him about the Illustration cupboard and what it was, he then asked me if I'd been watching that BBC documentary and I replied I'd been watching them on iplayer, he then pulled out a notepad with all these notes about children's Illustrators....it was rather odd, and I wish I'd been able to stay on the tube longer to talk to him.

I'm definitely going to go back again soon, this time be more prepared and find some other places to visit as well, but for a first experience it was good :)

let's feed ourselves

yow dudes those who like to eat lines , check this www.micahlidberg.com and www.kaspuhl.com

and those who like black and white check this www.gregorisaavedra.com

childrens book people

i know jess mentioned about bbc4 doing a bit of a picture book thing, well i watch it, and i just saw an advert for this tomorrow at 9. looks very good. :)

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fm6vc (care of the magic link maker)

one of children book illustrator's paths

i found it interesting to read that she actually prepare certain subject drawings for her portfolio and other stuff too
check this link http://www.phylliscahill.com/articles/selfpromo.html

What to do in London?

I'm heading up to London on Thursday and was planning to hit the Illustration cupboard, was wondering what other places people visited when they went there, as I'm looking for more places to go.

Quentin Blake fans!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00fm5p3/Mark_Lawson_Talks_To_Quentin_Blake/

I'm guessing BBC four is doing some sort of picture book season at the moment. I've not watched this yet but I'm sure it'll be interesting, even if you aren't a big blake fan!

Johan

This ones just for you johan lol http://www.rspb.org.uk/ My dad introduced this one to me! It has images of every bird in england and is alphabetically catergorised-pretty good ay?

Helloooo....

I found a site that might be of interest to those who want to venture their illustrations onto different objects. It has surrealist street art images, which work with different compositions,but also some mixed media: e.g working on wood and raw materials etc.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elgatochimney/page4/

illustration career tips

Found a little bit on a blog, tips starting out as an illustrator. I know everyone's probably read loads of stuff like this before...but I guess some more won't hurt. Some of his insight is useful such as networking + marketing tips, and he also talks about ways to get inspiration when first tackling a brief, how to deal with clients etc.
Enjoy if ye will. LINK

naomi

Work Checks!

Workchecks!

Tuesday 18th
Wednesday 19th
Tuesday 25th

make sure you check your emails for Work check schedule!!

Note: These are not tutorials! These are workchecks! Bring everything as though it were an assessment! notebooks, journals, finished images, etc.. organize the work so it's not in a mess!

Tuesday18th - work checks will begin after Debbie's workshop (12:00)
p.s. don't forget to bring a pound for Debbie!!

The Museum Collection - anyone want to go again?

Hello,

Does anyone want to go to Museum Collection again? My boyfriend Alec is arranging to go with some of the animators but we need to get the group up to 10 people so that it is worth them opening up the building for us.  Maybe it won't rain and snow on us this time!  Julia from the Museum Collection will confirm a date with us when we know we have a big enough group.

Rose.

I was just reading some stuff about randomness, and beauty being in the eye of the beholder, meaning art is produced by the one who perceives it... Well any way I came across this video by Sameul Beckett, and thought it was pretty amazing... :O)

Thought I'd quickly post this link.

Its the second episode of the picture book series. Its amazing!! This episode is much better than the first. It actually explains a little bit about the media usage,lol.

Anyhow very interesting and very inspiring, watch it while painting that's what I did!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00fh49n/Picture_Book_Now_We_Are_Six/

Guy.

Hey there.

Just been scoping through illustration cupboards blog. Some of you may feel its worth a look.

http://illustrationcupboard.blogspot.com/

Cheers Guy.

Structuring E-mails

I found a good website here with tips on structuring professional emails.

Hope this helps

Rose

Contacting Employers?

Has anyone contacted any possible future employers? I'm starting today, but don't really know how to start of my emails.
I was just wondering what other people had put?

Professional Practice: self-promotion

Hey guys,

I've scanned in a few pages from "The Fundamentals of Illustration" and made a pdf booklet on the Marketing and Self-Promotion section.  It has really useful tips on how to get yourself noticed - specific to different areas of illustration - and some great examples of Illustrators' promotional pieces.  I definitely recommend buying or borrowing "The Fundamentals of Illustration" by Lawrence Zeegan, I think there's a new edition out too.

Enjoy ! :)

Rose

Manchester Creative Futures by NOISEfestival.com

This looks like a really good event to attend if you have 4-6 pieces of work you are proud of and have some questions to ask industry representatives.

CREATIVE FUTURES MANCHESTER
Meet leading Creative Industry professionals and companies

November 18 & 19
Manchester Town Hall
Albert Square

Portfolio reviews – ‘One to One’ sessions with NOISE curators – No nonsense career advice – Dream Job placements – Debates – Open acoustic stage – The Best of NOISE 2008 showcase – Live blogging – Media exposure

For details on who's going to be there and how to register click here.

Dr Sketchy's Burlesque life drawing evening

Hey Debbie, here's the info about that life drawing event.

4pm to 7pm on Saturday 15th November 2008

at Island Bar, Suffolk Street, Birmingham

costs £7

Here's the MySpace page.

Here's a blog post from the Animation Forum West Midlands about the event.

hi guys have a look at this site for fumetto competition

this is the link : http://www.fumetto.ch/07/international_e.cfm

check the competition exhibition link:

http://www.fumetto.ch/07/ausstellungen_e.cfm where you will find the 2007 winners

11/11/11

elevenbus.co.uk

I was planning on joining in with this on tuesday, i think it will help me to start drawing in circumstances where I don't usually draw/feel uncomfortable doing so or am not bothered about doing so.  It will also be interesting to see how others have recorded the same elements of the journey as myself, if they have seen different things, focused away from what i have focused on.

Picture Book Program

My mom caught this on BBC 4 and recommended it...Apparently its got lots of interviews with illustrators like Lauren Child and Posy Simmonds and such...I'm just about to watch it now so I'll let you know if its any use but you should watch it whilst its still on iplayer!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00fd164/Picture_Book_When_We_Were_Very_Young/

Another pieceish!

This is another piece I did a couple of days ago. I'm happy with the image overall, but I know what needs to be changed. For example I'm happy with the composition, it only really needs tweaking a little and I believe the the colour's work well. I know that the general drawing quality isn't that great for example the all of the balloons are a bit lame.
Although I was working a on a fairly big scale I think I need to go a little bigger, as too get detail on the character in the balloon proved difficult. Gonna start a new one today I think, I think about sliding some text in there.
Anyhow thought I'd put some work up as it's been pretty dead with peoples works for a while.

Guy.