Evaluation for 'Illustrating an African Folktale.'

For my second project within this unit, I decided to work on an extension of unit BA7. This was because I really enjoyed the project and had some unresolved imagery that I wanted to return to.

My first step was to look back at my previous final outcomes. These four images were my response to an African Folktale, ‘The Story of a Hunter and his Antelope Wife.’ I started to establish using pattern and line to portray the narrative and this is what I wanted to return to focus on. I initially proposed that I would submit a collection of 4 to 6 illustrations responding to one African Folktale. This changed as the project developed creating different body of work that I feel is stronger and more successful than if I kept to the original brief.

Establishing my love for lino cutting in Project 1, I decided to see how I could push my practice further within this medium to express the narrative. One of the main driving points in the project was when I used the second image from my final outcomes from BA7 and translated this image through printmaking. It showed me how I could work through different materials to describe a story and even though it needed a bit of work, it established my practice to follow on from this point.

I mainly used observational drawings of African sculptures from my visits to the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Sainsbury Centre to create figurative characters, and books also helped to create a good base foundation of imagery to work from. I work strongly with ink and gouache; I used these materials as well as coloured pencil and watercolour to produce imagery that I could then transfer through printmaking. At one point in the project, I found it particularly difficult to pick up the work-flow from the end of the first project and also because I did not really know what I was going to do with the illustrations I was producing. They were not directly related to the African Folktales I had been looking at and I felt a bit lost.

My original brief changed in the sense that my final outcomes were different to what I initially proposed. This was because as the project developed further, there were other ways that worked well. I was worried that by sticking to the proposal I could end up restricting myself and produce illustrations that were not fully resolved again like BA7, which had not moved forwards. Instead, as the project developed I wanted a way that I could both include my figurative illustrations as well as interpreting individual short tales through Pattern. I thought that this would create a strong contrast between them as illustrating particular characters can interpret the narrative literally whereas the patterns are abstract interpretations. I still explored the elements of colour, line and shape that I proposed, but I just fulfilled this through alternate means to just four illustrations responding to one tale. I have become increasingly interested in pattern since the end of BA7, so this determined some of the subject and nature of my illustrations into narrative pattern design.

Following feedback from tutors and peers during the earlier part of the project, they liked my original drawings with ink and felt that the lino prints did not portray the same strength in line work as using a tool keeps a consistency with the thickness of line. I then started to print as I would draw and this worked a lot better. One of the biggest turning points within this project was printing my work at a larger scale – A1. This made me realise how else my imagery could be displayed in different contexts and made me start to think what about wallpapers and surface design. My first printed piece large format portrayed heads of characters blown up from their original scale. I liked the size of the print but the heads at a larger ratio did not work as well as when they were small. From this point, I started to experiment and develop a surface design pattern using a collection of figurative imagery that was in response to many different African folktales as well as observational drawings, working with their original scale or smaller.

Working with text and image determined my other final outcomes for the project. To go alongside the surface design I created, I wanted to produce some illustrations that respond to individual folktales that I had been looking at. Creating washes of colour with gouache for the background then lino printing on top, I produced patterns to interpret the tales. I worked from three tales: The White Man and the Snake, Why has Jackal a Long Black Stripe on his Back? Tortoises Hunting Ostriches. I sourced these three tales online from a book of ‘South-African Folk-Tales by James A Honey’ that was originally published in 1910 and now out of copyright. The three I chose were very short and simple. Illustrating this through pattern I then started to see how I could combine them with the prose. I did not want to create a traditional book spread – image on one page and text one the other – I wanted to create something eye-catching a different! With much exploring, editing and tweaking I ended up with three small fold-out books using the text within the patterns, with strong attention to composition.

I have decided to use all my final outcomes for this project in the degree show. This is because I feel confident that these pieces establish and portray my illustrative voice, and show how my work can be used in different contexts. Either as a small image in a book or over a large space through surface design. I have not always been confident about my work, but this project has really helped me to have more confidence in my work, showing how I pushed forwards from BA7 and consolidating my illustrative voice. Overall, I am pleased with the outcomes of this project. I could have possibly explored the narratives more in depth and looked at other mediums, but I feel the project has developed significantly since BA7, and portray the strengths of my line work, attention to placement and colour.