Evaluation
Introduction:-
My pop up book is about 'Elves'. The reason I chose 'Elves' as my subject matter was because I was infatuated with these fantasy creatures as a kid. 'Elves' was just the perfect subject to create a pop up book.The way I drew the 'elves' was 'messy' and a bit smudgy. This was inspired by a certain Mr Quentin Blake. Mr Quentin Blake has illustrated many of books by Mr Roald Dahl.Mr Roald Dahl:-
British novelist, short story writer, fighter pilot and screenwriter.His parents were from Norway, but he was born in Wales, 1916. The family used to spend the summer holidays on a little Norwegian island, swimming, fishing and going by boat. When Roald was four years old, his father died, so his mother had to organise the trip alone for herself and her six children.
At school, he was always homesick. At St. Peter's Prep School, all the letters home were controlled by the headmaster, and afterwards at Repton Public School, he had to wear a horrible school uniform [with braces, waist coat, hat and lots of buttons, all black]. The younger boys were often punished by the headmaster and the older boys called prefects. Roald lays much emphasis on describing the school-beatups in his book. You could get beaten for small mistakes like leaving a football sock on the floor, for burning the prefect's toast at teatime or for forgetting to change into house-shoes at six o'clock. The most terrible beatings, however, were given by the headmaster himself, who was also a clergyman. He was so cruel, that he made a pause after each beat to smoke his pipe and talk about sins and wrongdoing, while the boy had to remain kneeling. After ten beats, the victim was told to wash away the blood first, before putting on the trousers. By the way, this headmaster became later the Archbishop of Canterbury. Roald Dahl kept telling himself, that if this was one of God's chosen men, there was something going very wrong about the whole business.
His collections of short stories have been translated into many languages and have been best-sellers all over the world. Among them are "Someone Like You ", "Sweet Mystery Of Life ", "Kiss Kiss " and "Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories ". He wrote TV series like "Tales of the Unexpected " and the novel "My Uncle Oswald ".
His books are mostly fantasy, and full of imagination. They are always a little cruel, but never without humour - a thrilling mixture of the grotesque and comic. A frequent motif is, that people are not, what they appear to be. Mary Maloney in "Lamb to the Slaughter ", for example, is not a friendly widow, but a clever murderess. In his stories, the background is perfectly worked out: details are very close to reality.
Roald Dahl didn't only write books for grown-ups, but also for children, such as "James and the Giant Peach ", "Fantastic Mr. Fox " and "The Gremlins ". About his children's stories he said once: "I make my points by exaggerating wildly. That's the only way to get through to children." Roald Dahl is perhaps the most popular and best-selling children's book author. However, these stories are so sarcastic and humorous, that also adults appreciate reading them.
Roald Dahl died in November 1990. The Times called him "one of the most widely read and influential writers of our generation"
Mr Quentin Blake:-
Quentin Blake was born in the suburbs of London in 1932 and has drawn ever since he can remember. He went to Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School before studying English at Downing College, Cambridge. After National Service he did a postgraduate teaching diploma at the University of London, followed by life-classes at Chelsea Art School.He has always made his living as an illustrator, as well as teaching for over twenty years at the Royal College of Art, where he was head of the Illustration department from 1978 to 1986. His first drawings were published in Punch while he was 16 and still at school. He continued to draw for Punch, The Spectator and other magazines over many years, while at the same time entering the world of children's books with A Drink of Water by John Yeoman in 1960.
He is known for his collaboration with writers such as Russell Hoban, Joan Aiken, Michael Rosen, John Yeoman and, most famously, Roald Dahl. He has also illustrated classic children's books, and created much-loved characters of his own, including Mister Magnolia and Mrs Armitage.
Since the 1990s Quentin Blake has had an additional career as exhibition curator, curating shows in, among other places, the National Gallery, the British Library and the Musée du Petit Palais in Paris. In the last few years he has begun to make larger-scale work for hospitals and healthcare settings in the UK and France where his work can be seen in wards and public spaces. Most recently he has completed a scheme for the whole of a new maternity hospital in Angers.
His books have won numerous prizes and awards, including the Whitbread Award, the Kate Greenaway Medal, the Emil/Kurt Maschler Award and the international Bologna Ragazzi Prize. He won the 2002 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, the highest international recognition given to creators of children's books. In 2004 Quentin Blake was awarded the 'Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres' by the French Government for services to literature and in 2007 he was made Officier in the same order. In 1999 he was appointed the first ever Children's Laureate, a post designed to raise the profile of children's literature. His book Laureate's Progress (2002) recorded many of his activities and the illustrations he produced during his two-year tenure. Quentin Blake was created CBE in 2005, is an RDI and has numerous honorary degrees from universities throughout the UK.
Reading the many books that Blake has illustrated throughout my childhood, encouraged me to investigate how he worked and techniques he used. This has influenced my work by encouraging me to not worry about having a neat technique - that it is the creativity that counts not "keeping in the lines".
Process Used For Fold Book
I had to cut the page which I was to be using as my base for the fold. Next, I had to get a different coloured piece of paper and measure the other page to get the sizing correct. After that, I drew out the fold onto the coloured piece of paper. I then used scissors and a craft knife to cut it out neatly. Using the pop-up guide book, I worked out how to glue my pop neatly without making too much mess. Finally, after the glue had dried I tested the pop-up book to make sure it worked.
Processes used within Photoshop
Resources and Skills
As we have Photoshop in our Graphics lessons, I took the advantage and improved my drawings by editing it in Photoshop. Over the last two years, my skills in using Photoshop have improved. For instance, in Elves, the end pages in which I used have reflected by ability to use Photoshop combining it with traditional skills such as drawing and painting.
Elves/Elf have many meanings:-
| Noun | 1. | elves - an acronym for emissions of light and very low frequency perturbations due to electromagnetic pulse sources; extremely bright extremely short (less than a msec) electrical flashes forming a huge ring (up to 400 km diameter) in the ionosphere
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elf - (folklore) fairies that are somewhat mischievous
I chose a leaf for the book so that I can always refer to the naturl habitat the elves live in
