Book pages 9-10

For my 9-10 pages i have chose a Tokay gecko as my animal of choice. On this page i have used more pencil and ink to show detail and colour on the animal. I have used two coloured inks but i have applied them to the page in week quantities to give the page a washed out look, it also makes the page look older. The Tokay Gecko has the ability to stick on almost any surface and at any angel.

A Tokay Gecko has tiny hairs on its sticky pads which help it cling to the surface of what its climbing onto, it also secrets an adhesive that leaves no trace.

Tokay Gecko's have fork tongues that they use to scenes what id around them, they lick everything to identify what is around them. The gecko's tail is a form of defence which will drop off if the gecko is grabbed or startled. 

Book pages 7-8

For my 7-8 pages i decided to include a page with multiple species of an animal, i chose Salamanders as my next impressive animal. I have used the same materials and the same medias to keep a consistent contrast through my book. In this page i have used less inks as the various types of salamanders are too many colours to put on the page (over-powering colour on the page)
The salamander is an unique animal which can regenerate body parts! Internal organs and external limbs!

This Ability is quite similar a gecko's regeneration of its tail, but as this animal can regenerate All parts of its body it is more of a  special ability, Scientists take a great interest in the way the salamander does this. They are still exploring the way it is able this.

As many salamanders have this ability i wanted to include and explore more than one species of the salamander. There are hundreds of species of Salamanders in the world.

Some of the species i have included are: The Northwestern Salamander, Flatwood Salamander, Axolotl (which is a type of salamander species) and many more.

Book page 5-6

My third book page is based on the Lyrebird and its incredible abilities. I have used the same medias and materials to create this page (pages). there are two A4 pages on this A3 sheet.

The Lyrebird has an incredible ability to copy any sound it heres, it does this to find a mate. The female will chose the mate who can sing the most complex song, even other animals often mistake it for other creature. Not only can it copy other birds songs but it can copy man made sounds such as cars, phones an other such items.

This is so impressive i feel it deserves to be in my book.

Book page 3-4

My second page is my Kiwi Page which i have sectioned into two A4 pages. I have sketched many poses of the kiwis and used ink to add colour, the tea stained theme still creates a good effect with the ink to 'Age' the look of the image. I wanted to focus on key features of the kiwis and what makes them so great (the abilities they have and the fascinating creatures they are).

A kiwi has no wings and is the only bird to have its nostrils at the end of its beak, they have a very strong sense of smell. The kiwi is endangered and will only lay one egg at a time, they have the biggest egg to body ratio.

The wiki bird's egg is 20% of the wikis body weight. There are 5 species of kiwi and all are native to New Zealand, i have focused on the Brown kiwi.






The kiwi bird is the size of a chicken and lays its egg in a burrow under the ground. The chick is incubated my the father for 80 days. Kiwi's are almost completely defenceless except for its huge and powerful feet.

All of these feature make the kiwi impressive and unique.

Book pages 1-2

I have finished my first few pages for my book of drawings, i have used such medias on my pages as fine liner, inks, pencil and tea stained pages. My book will be A4 and will have white pages but the colour will be on the actual images of the page.

Here is the first completed page of my book, The animal of choice for my first page was a Robin. Before the page is added to the book i will finish all of the pages to make sure the book has no empty pages. I have used ink to show the bright colours of the robin and a tea stained page to give the page a old rushthetic look.

The pages are in two sections as my book is A3 and i am taking sections of the images and adding them to the book pages.

I have chosen the Robin as an interesting animal as the robin give of a cute, friendly and kind perception to the human eye (in Britain). In actual fact the Robin is Brutal and a viscous bird to its own kind. A Robin is a territorial bird and its territory can stretch 1/7 of a football stadium! life expectancy is 1.5 years, this is not due to a short lifespans and death of a natural cause. Robins will fight to the death to protect and expand there territory and young males are often injured trying to overtake territories. Robins sing to proclaim territories. Over 20% of older robins die defending territory. Although viscous, Robin are extremely social around humans and you can often find them around Britain in gardens, woodland and in the winter months.

Robins can be found all over the world but i have focused on the European Robin. When food is scares robins will eat almost anything including meat.[1]

I feel robins should be in my book as they are fascinating and complicated creatures giving a look of cuteness and innocence but they hide there real nature of being tough and ruthless creatures. There ability to fight and proclaim territory makes them special in my opinion.


Reference: 
http://www.onekind.org/be_inspired/animals_a_z/robin_european/    [1]

Experimenting with book binding

I have began experimenting with ways to bind books, this is one of the ways i experimented with, by sowing the pages together this gives the book a neat bind. I can easily add a hard back to this by gluing it in place of a paper or hard back.

This book was my second attempt at sowing and is larger than the first with more pages.
Here is an example of inside the book and the layout of a page (rough sketch) i want to make the pages larger and the book may include more text on the pages around the drawings.

Here is another angle of the pages.

An Overview of my idea

After researching about books, creating a book and illustrator i finally have a solid idea of what i will base my book on and how i will create it.

My Idea
My idea is that i will base my book on Animals with extraordinary and impressive abilities. The book will be based on My studies of them and the information i have collected in some kind of scrap book. I will be choosing animals which i think have impressive talents and abilities and are worthy of entering my book. This book will include Drawings i have done and information and research into the animals and there talents.

Design of the book
The book will be a neat bounded book with images and information. I will create my images and cut them out into a photo shaped cut, i will then stick this neatly into a book with photo album corners. The images themselves will be messy and almost like photos from a scrap book. The reason i want the book to be like this is to make it almost like a documentary and incorporate photo like image to make it neater then a scrap book. Here is a quick plan of how the book will look:

You can see how i have planned out the page to be neater than a standard scrapbook, as it should look like I'm taking photographs of old pages. It will be a neater version of a scrap book. I also have sketched how the front of the book may look too:

I may include text with the images i draw instead of writing it in separate boxes or over the page. I could even write it behind the images so it overlaps with the images. I want to use the photo corners to bind the images in. I could make or buy these from a shop. 

Front and Back Cover

I want the front cover to be either stitched or hard back bound. I will experiment with book making and decide.

Experimenting and developing page layouts

My first few ideas of the books pages where to create was a messy sketchbook style. Layout of my images are very important and there are many ways i can lay out the pages.

I wanted to compare layout styles and see which one was better for the design of the book. 

layout 1 - This first layout is neat and will contain messy drawn images, Text will be provided in the book to explain the images and the images will be neatly glued into place.

Layout 2 - I have experimented with no text and only images that cover the hole page. I feel a title will be good to include to tell the reader someone about the image such as the name of the object the page is about.

Layout 3 - Here is a more messy approach to the page, images slanted and overlapping will give it a more scrap book look, i could write onto the pages making it look more like a proper personalised scrapbook.

Note: I like this design.

Layout 4 - i have combined messy and neat styles to create a personalised page. the photo binding corners make the page look perfect for personalisation. I will make notes per the images and on the pages.

Imran Qureshi - Artist research

Imran Qureshi works from small scales on paper to huge scales on buildings and courtyards. If you examine the illustration closely you will see this is not blood but foliage growing from the red pools of paint. In some of Imran Qureshib art you cam see deeper meaning in the illustration such as objects or splatters which show country life in the backgrounds of his work.

I love the deep detail in Imran Qureshi's work and also the deepness of the colour red he has used, the picture also overlaps onto another page which i really like but i feel this work doesn't have enough drawn to it, to the untrained eye it looks like a simple picture and doesn't stand out well.


Reference:
Azimi, N. (ed.) (2013) Vitamin D2: New Perspectives in Drawing. Oxford: Phaidon Press.

Dan Beudean - Artist research

Dan Beudean is an illustrator who focuses on animals and Humans. His work varies from tiny sizes to big scale illustrations, each illustration contains huge amounts of detail and depth.

Dan has a passion for nature and his work also reflects symbolism and faiths of the twenty-first century (this can be seen in such work as 'goodbye gasoline')

His meaning towards animal symbolism in this image to the left is that humanity is above nature and it shows order and control.

image[1]

I really like the detail and the amount that is going on in the image, i also love the shading and lines made by the medium (charcoal). Not only does this drawing look amazing it has a meaning behind the image.








Here is another illustration of his, usually he takes birds heads and adds them onto the body of a human. This looks rather effective especially with the dark charcoal and huge amount of detail.
image [2]









Reference:
Azimi, N. (ed.) (2013) Vitamin D2: New Perspectives in Drawing. Oxford: Phaidon Press.pg 48-49 image[1]
http://www.zorzinigallery.com/artist-54-Dan_Beudean.html [2]

Book Covers - Research

The way the front page is presented is very important for first impressions. The front book should tell the reader what the book is about and a little about the content of the book whiteout giving too much away. The Book cover should contain such things as:

• Title
• Decoration
• Who the book is by and who the book features (me)
• Some indication of what the book is about (either by the indication of the title or an image or quote of what the book is about).
• What the front and back page is made of (Also under book binding)

I have researched into some book covers and found similarities between a wide range of books. You can see the photo to the Left is an animation book, the Cover has a Title, Image and the creator of the book.

Here is a Dragon illustration book filled with Art of fantasy creatures. The Cover has a image on front page, title, a description of what the book contains and the name of the artist and publisher. Such things what i have mentioned are essential on a book cover.

The books i have given as examples are My Books from home and i often read them and know the structure of the books. As you can see the images used on the front cover have plain backgrounds but interesting and eye catching images which portray what the book is about. This is not always needed.

This is a book which shows that images are not needed to make a front cover, simple designs and one colour pages are just as effective. This book cover has small sketches of different lines and techniques on the front, this relates to the fact that it is an illustration book.

(Image) Azimi, N. (ed.) (2013) Vitamin D2: New Perspectives in Drawing. Oxford: Phaidon Press.










Materials for front covers
Front covers can be made of many different materials. Books are commonly made of paper as it is cheeper to produce, this is known as paper back books.  More Traditional books are created out leather, these books are expensive to create and not many books use leather to bind anymore (its more old fashioned and traditional). Another type of material to use for the book cover is fabrics, this is generally stitched to a hard back book, this is expensive but looks good, you can also purchase a wide range of materials to create the perfect looking book.

The Back of the book
The back of the book is also important as it may hold key information on the book, a blurb may be featured on the back or a design. non of these things have to be included but most books usually feature these.
This is an example of the back of a book which does not have a blurb. This book does have designs and colouring on the back.
You can also see the spine of the book which contains information about the book.

(Image) Azimi, N. (ed.) (2013) Vitamin D2: New Perspectives in Drawing. Oxford: Phaidon Press.

Page layouts - Research

General Page Layouts
Generally pages in books have certain qualities that apply to most books. Such things as Page numbers, chapter, sub headings and information of some sort. My book will have page numbers and i will possibly put sub headings or chapters within the books.

Some import an pages i the book are also an Index, introduction page and Bibliography, these are usually found in either the front or back of the page. Introductory page and index at the front and Bibliography at the back.

Page layouts
One very important detail about books is page layouts and the style of the book. There are many styles of books i have seen such as neat and tidy to messy scrapbook styles, I have looked through a few books in the library and and found a few different styles.

Here is a messy, sketchy page from 'Cartoon animation by Preston Blair' i love the sketch look and the lack of neatness this book needs as it sketchy like a scrapbook.

I would like to have this scrapbook like influence on my book like Da Vinci's books. Even though i want a messy scrap book style i would like a documentitive style almost like a Photo album.
I will research into photo albums.

Here is a page from a book called 'Animal Encyclopedia By David Burnie' You can see the use drawings and photography for documenting animals, It also contains information on each animal in the book.

I really like this use of documentation in this book and the use of photographs, but since my brief specifically states that the book i make is a book of drawings i could find another way to incorporate some sort of 'Photo' like element.

I also want to incorporate the use of Documentation into my book of drawings.







Enen though this is not a published book i like the style of documentation of someones life, I love the look of this old photo album and the way its set out. I feel these photos are placed messy but are personalised. I really like the way they are stuck in too.
image [1]








Scrap books & Hello Charlie 
I have also looked into scrapbooks including famous scrapbooks such as Jamie Oliver's 'Jamie at home' cook book. This book was illustrated by a company called Hello Charlie. 

You can see the messy style of the scrap book as it presents recipes, findings, mistakes and illustrations. It documents photos and recipes of meals while he is working to perfect them, it also contains samples of the ingredients (the chillies and herbs).
image[2]

The company who created the design of the book and the animation of the book is called 'Hello Charlie'. This is a successful design company who created a real notebook (Jamie's Notebook) filled with illustrations, Artwork, photos and recipes. Jamie also had a hand with making the book and writing the recipes himself.[2]

I feel the look of scrapbooks would be great for my book, It also ties in with my research of 'Da Vinci'. The messy and sketchy style suits the quick documenting of his experiments with food. I also like how he uses ingredients in his book too but as i want my book to look somewhat neat i won't be sticking large objects into my books.


Reference:
Animal Encyclopedia By David Burnie. pg 286
Cartoon animation by Preston Blai
http://www.windsorhistoricalsociety.org/preserving_family_photos_08.html [1]
http://www.hellocharlie.com/work/view/jamie-at-home    [2]

Book Binding - Research

I have researched up many ways to bind a book and i have also produced my own sketch books in the past. I want to experiment and explore further into book making and binding books professionally.

Stitching 
In the past i have used the method of sowing to bind books, by folding paper and sowing the spine of the book this will hold the book saucily together. I found this method very easy and a good way to sacure pages.

Side stitching 

I have also looked at other methods to bind a book by stitching, such as side stitching. I find this method more messy looking. To achieve this type of bind you myst line your paper up correctly and stitch into the side of the paper.








Plastic grips
Plastic grips are a cheep way to bind paper together, i don't like the idea of using this as it looks rather messy and unprofessional. You can buy paper grips from anywhere and it is useful for making quick books.

Spiral bound

Spiral bound books look really good for sketch books. To make a spiral bound book you must acquire either metal or plastic spirals and neatly attach you book together through cut holes along the edge of your book. I feel this technique would not suit my work as it is not suited for a published book,









Hard Back

His method is difficult but looks amazing and professional. by sewing segments of paper together you then can glue the spines onto a sheet cog card, once glues you must then create a hard back case (or buy one) and gel the card inside to keep the paper meet and together. the Hard back also protects the pages from damage.









Images:
http://www.designersinsights.com/designer-resources/choosing-the-right-binding-type

What to base my book on?

Drawing Content
There are many things i would like to base my book on but i only can pick One subject. After looking through my books and thinking what my favourite subject was i have decided to choose Animals for my book content. I want to look at such animals as birds, domestic animals and wild exotic animals in my book. I have a wide range of animals to choose from but want to include birds and dogs as at least one of my pages.

I have already decided to draw detailed images in my book over quick sketches. I want to use interesting creatures in my book such as my leopard geckos in this photo here.

Image [c] Me





I have looked at different types of animals i may focus on:

• Birds (such as British birds like Pheasants, Robins, magpies and crows, Kiwi)
• Dogs
• Lizards (Leopard Geckos, Bearded dragons, water dragons)
• Big cats (Tigers, Lynx, bobcats)
• Dik Dik

I wan to lay my images out as a series of detailed sketches and design the book to look like an illustrative scrapbook. 

Medias

I want to use my favourite medias in this book as i feel comfortable with them and i can produce the best quality of work. The medias i want to use are Pen, Pencil, Graphite and Fine liners. I feel these medias will work great in my book as they produce very sketch looks to them and i can also produce meet work when i need to.

Theme
The theme of my book is animal but i wanted the book to have a deeper message, I want to explore interesting animals and animals with abilities that make them stand apart from other animals. For example a dogs scene of smell is 10X more powerful as ours. The book of drawings will be educational.

I may explore other various themes before creating my book.

Leonardo Da Vinci - Artist Research

Artist is one of the worlds most famous artists and inventors, I have decided to choose him as one of my artists to inspire my work as he create world famous note books of his art and inventions.

Leonardo Da Vinci was born in 1452 to died 1519. As well as being a painter and inventor he was a scientist, mathematician, engineer and much more[1]. His art is work famous and he produced thousands of sketches and paintings, some of the most famous would be the 'Mona Lisa' and 'The Last Supper'. I favour his scientific sketches more than any of his other work, the detail and layout is stunning. Da Vinci also produced sketch of his inventions and the way they worked, these are amazing designs.

This is one example of his detailed studies of plants, I love the way the paper has aged and turned a brown almost coffee stained look.

Detail and shading have been put into his work creating a beautiful scientific sketch.

Image [2]












Leonardo Da Vinci conducted sketch of People, anatomy, plants and herbs, machinery, animals and portraits. His books also contained his findings and scientific writing. His books don't contained narratives or stories, just facts.
He used such medias as water colours, pencils and inks. The image on the Left shows some of the medias he used. If you look closely you can see the base sketch and the detail over the top.

Image [3]

The colours he uses are dull and faded (probably due to age) but i would like to use some colour in my book to add an eye catching effect and draw an audience too my book.









Reference:
http://www.leonardoda-vinci.org [1]
http://www.leonardoda-vinci.org/Flower-Studies.html (image[2])
http://www.leonardoda-vinci.org/Head-of-Christ.html  (image[3])

The book of drawings

Today (24th November 2014) i began a new brief called the book of drawings. I will be researching and studying into designs of books and artist influence and how they create there books .I must think about such things as:

• A Subject - e.g. Animals, Reportage, Digital. 
• Design - how i will design the cover and layout to be (front page & back page).
• Materials and medias i will be using to make my images
• Making of the book - content
• Book binding - research into different ways to bind a book.

Note: This is just some of the things i will be researching into.
I want to research into artists who create there own books, there styles and materials but i must also think about what medias i am interested in and how i will use this throughout my book. I also want to research scrap books and how they are designed.

Styles are really important in books and i want to create a consistent style which will make my work look professional but something that i would like too. 

I want to look into other artists books and scrap books to see how they lay out there art as well as the book. I really love the style of Da Vinci's work and how its similar to the style i like, i may look into further research of his books.

image: http://www.leonardoda-vinci.org/Drawings-Of-Water-Lifting-Devices.html