It’s March already! Hasn’t the year flown past!
As the saying says, “Time flies when you’re having fun.”
And I’ve been a busy bee!
I’m still working on my children’s book (loyal readers will remember sneak peeks of Erik the Viking from before!) – I am now almost done with planning the spreads, I’m hoping to get a black and white dummy book finished within the next two weeks.
Here are some tasters from planning one of my favourite spreads, just after Erik’s arrival in the modern world: (as some might remember, this is a suggestion from page one of his character- he’s a little clumsy and not particularly clever in many cases, ending up in completely the wrong place: perhaps his VikingNav wasn’t working!) when he grows hungry and devastates a local buffet restaurant:
A little about my process for making these spreads:
Firstly I split the story into ‘scenes’, label them ‘spread 1, spread 2’ etc down the side of the page. For each spread, or scene, I have lots of development sheets, with the spread number and also where the text begins and ends, e.g. “Spread 2”- “The rabbit… carrots.” I first try and think of the essence of the scene: what’s happening, what’s the focus etc, then think of as many different spreads as I can in very rough fitting to these ideas- i.e. here, Erik walks into the buffet restaurant, eats everything, and cannot pay, so the staff make a futile attempt to escort him. I then develop key elements in the scene that might need reference: for example here, the posture of the staff pushing a very fat and heavy Viking (requires some study of people lifting or pushing heavy objects) and Erik’s face when eating and when stuffed (see bottom picture.)
In support of this project, I’ve been attempting some more 3D techniques too: being inspired by artefacts from museums, I made a miniature Viking ship, and assorted other items that Erik might have on his travels: a drinking horn, brooches, arrowheads (see earlier posts!)
Yesterday I started something rather exciting in conjunction with this ‘ancient world’ work, borrowing my mum’s felting machine:
Here’s a rather ambiguous sneak peek- if you want to see what’s going to happen, you’re going to have to come back for my next post!
Finally- all this work is for my final year degree show. We have a tumblr site to drum up excitement for this (well, we’re excited, you should be too!) with some sneak peeks and artist profiles on some of my classmates’ work (and myself!) which can be found at: http://riseexhibition.tumblr.com/
The final show will be held in May, dates to be confirmed in my next post- in the Swansea Grand Theatre.
You should definitely be there.
I hope you’re all having a good beginning of spring, and enjoying the daffodils!
Again, thankyou for reading, I’ve hit over 500 observers of my blog now and I couldn’t do it without you!
-The Autumnhobbit
© Carina Roberts and AutumnHobbit, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Carina Roberts and AutumnHobbit with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.