Context/Content
I am focusing on the children’s book ‘The Highway Rat’, written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated and designed by Axel Scheffler. The book is a story about a rat, as the title suggests, who goes around stealing food from others, when he is eventually led astray to somewhere where he has to work and the animals who he’s stealing from can live in peace. The story is inspired by the poem ‘The Highwayman’ by Alfred Noyes. As the book is for children the poem has been adapted and animals have replaced humans, which is more entertaining for a younger audience and animals seem to be a common theme in children’s books. The overarching theme of the book is about theft, and perhaps used to teach children that this is not something they should do as in the end the thief is the one who ends up worse. This may suggest the book is acting as a morality tale. Similar works to this include all of the Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler books, as they all have a distinctive design to them and the stories are often quite similar in their structure. This structure is one of a traditional narrative, however the story is completely written in rhyme. This is entertaining for the young children who read the book and might make them internalise the story more.
Form
There are lots of complimentary colours used in the book, in particular varieties of greens and reds, with some cool colours such as blues used also. As the story is set outside the dominating colours are the natural ones, such as the blues and greens. However the horse and rat are in nearly every page in the book, so browns and greys from them are particularly dominating too. Texture has been created in the book with techniques such as different sized brush strokes, the use of cross hatching, and lines with varying thickness. The decorative colours used help to keep the book appealing or the audience, who are young children. Traditional perspective is displayed in the book to keep it easy to focus on for the reader. There is very little white space in the book and the pages are very busy, but not to a messy or unorganised extent. The work is consistent and there are no bastard elements to pull the work down. The medium the artist works in could be used to maintain a traditional style and not to rely too heavily on modern technology and programmes such as Photoshop and Illustrator. The composition of the book is quite simple, with a lot of double page spreads of full illustration. Some pages stray away from this convention, with panels being used to break up the pages somewhat. There is lots of evidence of the artists hands within the work, particularly if you look closely as you can see all sorts, such as brush strokes and where certain bits of paint have been added and so on. The serif typeface continues with the traditional style of the book as it is seen as more formal than a sans-serif, however it is still easy for children to read and isn’t too decorative.
Process
From looking at the work it is most likely to be the case that the artist has first drawn out the illustrations in a pencil base, creating the shapes and making sure they’re correct. He will have then used acrylic paint on these drawings in a realistic way, with highlights and shadows being utilised. These images will have then been scanned on to the computer and sent to the author to make sure she is happy with them. The artist needs to have very hands on skills, including the ability to use acrylics, have good drawings skills and have a good eye for composition, shadows and highlights. You can see the evidence of the processes by looking closely and seeing the cross hatching and various brush strokes that the artist used.
Personal Response
No comments:
Post a Comment