Building stories
A quick note: I started this assignment before the government rules about social distancing were put in place. Most of my sketchbook work leading to my final narrative was completed inside, in my home. I made use of reference material from previous activities, internet searches, videos and observations of other people in my home. Obviously, it would have been ideal to visit a dance studio to record my observations, but I tried to gather as many observations as I could within the confines of my home and from my previous experiences.
The assignment brief asked me to create a narrative on a minimum of six pages in a ‘foldy’ zine style sketchbook, possibly based on the structure explored in Research 4.3. I needed to redraft and refine images to ensure the narrative was clear and, if using text, justify its purpose and how this added to the narrative.
To begin with, I had three main story ideas, taken from this part of the course.
One was the runner, based on the letter I wrote for Exercise 4.3 (Conversations with pictures – interpretation). I also remembered a video I had watched when training for a marathon which showed 8 stages of a marathon (www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ltnxJLAOeY – accessed 10/03/20) and wondered if this could help structure the narrative.
The second was the baby, based on the baby in the pushchair for whom I had created dialogue in Exercise 4.3. Each day, I enjoy Nathan W. Pyle’s Strange Planet comics, and the dialogue for the baby reminded me of this. I thought it could be amusing to have a commentary on life from the perspective of a baby who only has limited ways to express their mood.
Finally, my third option was the tree dancer, taken from the palm tree to dancer transformation I had developed in Exercise 4.4 (Using basic narrative structure). This was the option I settled on, because, after creating a story based on the 8-stage structure and thumbnailing ideas, I had a stronger narrative for this character and felt I was better equipped to take this story further. I have dance experience and lots of photographs and videos of dancers – myself, and friends and instructors, dancing – so I knew this would be a good starting point. Also, looking back in my sketchbooks, I noticed I had multiple observations of trees that might be useful.
Basic structure for ‘Tree Dancer’:
STASIS: People are walking by the coast, amongst the palm trees.
TRIGGER: A child is dancing and the crown starts to wobble.
QUEST: The child drops the crown by a palm tree.
SURPRISE: The palm tree transforms into a dancer.
CRITICAL CHOICE/REACTION: The dancer picks up the crown and travels with it.
CLIMAX: The dancer approaches the child and hands over the crown.
REVERSAL: The child looks at the crown and decides to place it on the dancer’s head.
RESOLUTION: The child and the dancer hold hands and dance together.
The tree was something I wanted to be visually interesting, so I experimented with various ways of creating the palm tree. I liked the energetic, spiky quality it had from my transformation drawings, and did not want this to be completely lost. As I was experimenting, I noticed the blotches on the piece of kitchen roll created a pleasing pattern and texture. I cut out a trunk shape and leaves from this paper, then split this into two collages (the kitchen roll had two layers, so one is more pigmented than the other). The texture is rough and bumpy, appropriate for the subject, and the leaves and colours are exciting and eye-catching. I decided to come back to this once I had explored the dancer further (as I knew the transition between the dancer and the tree was vital).
There was a moment when I wanted to trial backgrounds and settings, especially for the opening image to set the scene. Here were a few experiments, that I returned to later.
In my sketchbook, I drew lots of dancing poses, choosing a mixture of ‘moving’ poses and still, stationary, presenting poses (I knew I would need some for when the dancer is transporting the crown to the little girl and some for when the dancer is handing the crown over or presenting herself). I also returned to the transformation to ponder this further. I knew I wanted to make this as smooth and believable as possible (even though it is a fantasy sequence) and the use of colours and various media would need to play into this.
The crown was something I considered for a while, but, as I moved through the development process, I realised that a simple, geometric shape was the best way to tell the story; it did not need to be elaborately detailed, as I had initially thought. A basic spiky shape did the trick.
The child was probably the most challenging element of the story. From the beginning of this process, it was important to me to create a character that every child could relate to, so I did not want a pink, fluffy, stereotypically ‘girly’ toddler. I found some images of children dancing wearing loose shirts and shorts, which worked well.
I looked very closely at the expressions of the child. By this point, I had realised text and speech was unnecessary to tell my story, so facial expressions and movement were vital. I drew out the storyboard again to clarify each expression and mood that I needed to convey.
As an opening image, I liked the idea of a beach with silhouettes of trees and passers-by. I created one with watercolours and pencil crayon, but this seemed too soft and layered for my story; it was not consistent with the style I wanted. I knew I wanted images with energy and movement and texture. I had begun to play with tissue paper to create blocks of colour and texture on the page and, through the process of developing and refining my characters, I had enjoyed using biro to build tone and texture. With this in mind, I tried a few options for opening images, using a mixture of the soft pencil crayon for sky and shadows, tissue paper for blocks of colour and texture, and biro to define trees and people, bringing detail and movement and life.
It was at this point that I had a breakthrough! I used a photograph of the tree I had created earlier to collage the dress of the dancer and adored the result! It then seemed logical to have the tissue paper tree morph into the dress of the dancer, with the limbs emerging using biro. The contrast of the textured, colourful dress with the black and white character was pleasing and reminded me of previous projects where I had discovered a balance between my detailed style and a more bold, graphic style.
The tissue paper crown was established next, and I also tried using the piece of tissue paper with the crown shape cut out to place on the child’s head, using the negative space to imply that a crown was sitting there. This gave me an idea about the end of the story; the child gives the dancer the crown, but when they are both dancing, the child could have the negative space crown over their head, indicating that they feel empowered and positive because they gave the crown to the dancer. The feeling of wearing the crown is there, with or without the object.
There is a little text on page three, but only to bring sound into the story. I played with onomatopoeia to add to the narrative of the crown ‘clunking’ or ‘clonking’ onto the floor in front of the tree. I was pleased with the colours here, and the accidental appearance of the letters on the page, as if they had been dropped there and magically formed a word.
The page that caused me the most difficulty was probably the dancer travelling with the crown. I began by using portrait pages for everything, but decided after some experimentation that a landscape orientation would portray movement and travel much more effectively. I had to come back to this during my mock ups, because the transformation and the travelling dancer shared a double page spread, and I did not want the reader to have to turn the mini zine to see the image; I wanted the story to flow effortlessly over the pages and to be effortless to read. In the end, I split the double page horizontally and had the transformation images along the top half and the travelling images along the bottom half, which was much more readable. I also added in an image of the dancer kneeling to pick up the crown, which clarified and strengthened the narrative.
It took me a while to decide on the arrangement of the images on pages six and seven as well. I think there was a lot I wanted to portray in the story, so it was a case of deciding which images were necessary to the narrative and how to arrange them on the pages to make them readable. The eyes of the reader needed to follow the images in a logical order. I especially wanted to get across the thoughtful nature of the child when looking at the crown and the surprised expression of the dancer when the child hands the crown over.
The close ups of the hands on the final page were, I felt, important to the story. This symbolises the friendship between the characters and the fact they are now a team, dancing together. The final pose rounds off the story nicely, with both characters happy, doing what they love, and both feeling like they are wearing crowns.
I created three A4 mock ups towards the end of this process to iron out any issues with arrangement and ensure I was happy with the expressions and poses. I also wanted to see the story in my hands, to check the reader could follow the story and that the pages worked well together (a great example being the changes I made to the transformation and travelling double page spread).
For my final mini zine, I will use A2 paper to create my 8-page booklet (each page therefore should be A5). A4 was perfect for testing layout and checking that the images worked together to tell the story, but to achieve the detail I want, I will need bigger pages. I am going to use white paper, because there is a lot of colour and collage going onto the pages.
Building the final ‘foldy’ zine style sketchbook
Luckily, I already had some A2 cartridge paper in the house. Because the paper was thick (200gsm), I used a knife and ruler to score along the measurements and carefully fold and cut the paper to create the booklet. However, I soon realised that, due to the thickness of the paper, the booklet did not fold quite as well.
I decided to cut out one of the eight rectangles, which still gave me an 8-page booklet, but allowed the structure to fall into place better. Once I have finished each illustration, I will sew the spine to strengthen the booklet.
The final booklet – ‘The Lost Crown’
I did not want to rush the process of creating my final illustrations. I began by sketching out everything in pencil, then putting in all of the biro details (for the dancer and child). Next, I painted pieces of kitchen roll ready to use for the palm tree and dancer. While these were drying, I added all of the tissue paper details (the crowns and background pieces). The fiddly task of cutting and sticking the palm tree/dancer’s dress details took a while – especially when cutting and sticking the leaves. Then came the task of stamping the limited number of words and symbols onto the appropriate pages. Finally, I used blue and yellow/orange pencil crayons to add gradient details.
Below are some images of the booklet before I sewed it together.
The impact of the images is as I had hoped. The limited colour palette keeps the focus on the narrative, drawing the reader towards certain aspects of the image first. I am pleased that I settled on a simple crown; the image is consistent through the story, bright, eye-catching and clear. I also like the warmth of the colours; it engages the reader and feels appropriately matched to the content.
My next task was to bind the booklet together, as I had cut out a panel to ensure the pages sat comfortably. I used methods I had explored before, but first, I created a prototype. I did not want to mess up my final booklet at this stage!
Using a folded A4 sheet of paper, with one panel cut out, and some thread and a needle, I bound the pages together, one folded section at a time. Here is how the prototype turned out:
I was pleased with the secure binding and the way the pages still laid flat. The colour I had chosen to bind with was a warm, tropical shade of green, which seemed to fit well with the colours in the booklet. With a successful prototype complete, I set to work binding my finished 8-page booklet. Of course, with the larger A5-size pages, I had to pierce more holes down each fold, but this was the only difference. Below are images of the finished booklet, and one next to the prototype to show the comparison in size.
The binding was secure and still allowed the booklet to open and lay flat on a surface, which I was delighted with. Below are images of the final pages, in the order of the story.
I am truly thrilled with the final product! It has taken time, but I have enjoyed the process, and it has felt purposeful and focused. As soon as I had the story idea, the exploration of how I could achieve this felt natural and motivated; I rarely got tired of redrafting and trialling different media. It has been a pleasure to create this piece.
There are a few elements I would still trial and potentially change. I did not have any pale blue tissue paper, and could not get any due to current circumstances, but I did wonder how this would have looked instead of, or in addition to, the blue pencil crayon details.
Some of the faces were so small that it was difficult to achieve the level of detail I wanted with the biro. I think most turned out okay, but I was not entirely happy with all of them, and the importance of consistency through the narrative was on my mind.
In terms of the narrative, I think it is clear. I showed the physical copy of the booklet to three people in my household, and they could all read the story and describe what was happening. I also sent photographs to others and they came back with an accurate description of the story. The page that was most confusing was the 6 & 7 spread, which shows the dancer appearing to the child with the crown and the child deciding to place the crown on the dancer’s head. I think this is potentially the most confusing because a lot happens at once, and the order of the images may have been unclear after reading the previous double page spread from left to right. However, most people understood it; there were only a couple who struggled. Perhaps this would be a page to return to and consider the order of the images.
I was happy with the media and colours I used, and people commented on these choices positively. The minimal colour palette keeps the focus on the characters and the story, and the mixture of detailed biro characters and blocky, graphic objects made for an eye-catching style. Also, the warmth and friendliness of the story came across too.
Finally, my choice of minimal text was perhaps an easy way out (?) but I think the story still reads well, as I could see from showing it to others. To get across the emotions and actions and expressions with just imagery was appropriate to the story in my eyes; I did not want a cartoon talking tree. The stamps seem accidental and fit with the fun and playful storyline.
In my Reflection for Part 4, I will discuss this assignment further.
Jade's OCA Learning Log 