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I will endeavour in this personal, reflective piece not to repeat things that I have already written much about before.  'Rise Up', Vincent Cavanagh © 2024 LISBON World Youth Day Week started on a Tuesday, 1 August 2023, which makes keeping track of events personally in one’s mind rather difficult. Later on, at times one could be forgiven for the honest mistake of losing, or even gaining, a day on your internal calendar.
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Illustrated 26 July 2024  Vincent Cavanagh © 2024 It has been a long while since I lasted did a picture for myself or “published” one on this website. Hopefully this may be the end of the illustrative drought, pax. PEACE: Summer daisies, Bubbles, Snow-capped mountains, Gliding swans, and Bountiful clouds. Vincent Cavanagh 27 July 2024 Sorry, the new characters are still sketchbook bound. But as you may have guessed from the title, I have been reading a bit of G.K.Chesterton recently, 'What's Wrong With The World', to be precise, and enjoying some of his quotes that circulate through social media. In that interesting book Chesterton writes about the completely different relationship that ordinary people have with their homes, compared to wealthy people. For ordinary people, anarchy is only possible at home, and that is a blessed thing. Because at home, if you want to, you can have pea-green walls with pink spots, carpet on the ceiling, slate tiles on the floor, a picnic on the floor if you feel like it, and the glorious comfort of getting around in dressing gown and slippers.  Then on Twitter, @GKCdaily posted this quotation: 'Perhaps the real meaning of St George and the dragon is that an evil has to be about as big and ugly as a dragon before an Englishman even knows it is there.' Has anything of that truth changed since Chesterton's day?  Maybe next time I will regale you with submarines, frisbee-playing elephants and stir-frys. We'll see.
Continuing the fifth set of artworks for assessment to the London Art College's correspondence course D6 Illustrating Children's Books: Of the set, the second part is a much bigger project, which was also exercise in black and white work, to be inspired by the text of a creepy poem. The brief went something like this: The image should be suitable for 5-7 year olds. Make it portrait orientation. The given poem should be in the centre, with the illustration forming a border around it. Give it a white border, no bleed, and use 18cm wide and 25cm tall, with the poem to sit in an area of 8cm wide and 14cm tall. Balancing the black and white is important, as is creating a creepy feeling. Use the images evoked by the text, but don't be limited to them. The first part was getting the layout right, and that meant using InDesign and doing some research on how to display a poem where the first line is also the title. Accordingly the first line was in bold with a stanza-sized gap to the second line. Then I needed to try out some ideas for the illustrated border. So I printed out a few templates and started sketching. With the first one I tried for a Phantom of the Opera style character, but ditched that idea.  The outer parallel line shows the trimmed paper size and the inner parallel line shows the white border. The next sketch developed the grim reaper and the moon further.  Too many bats didn't create enough interest, so I looked into ghostly options and refined the witch a bit.  Now to get out the good paper and begin: This is how it looked around halfway through. Again I needed to use nib ink to get the black as consistent as possible.  And here's what the illustration border looked like before it got cleaned up in Photoshop: Getting the balance of white and black required more work on the stars at the top of the page.  And what it looked like after the Photoshop work: I've added a hairline border using the blog tools, so that you can see that there is a few mm of white border between the illustration and edge of the trimmed page. It is easiest to see under the boy and beside the grim reaper.  And now to add in the pre-prepared text, without the spelling mistakes.  The thin white border is still there, it is just hard to see on a white background.
Creepy work like this rarely features in my visual diary! With Unit 5 done, it is time to start working on the 6th and final set of projects for this course. This year was my first entry in the CYA Conference competition in the Aspiring category. Previously I was in the Hatchling category. There were two options, either to illustrate up to three artworks for a given portion of picture book text or to illustrate up to three artworks for a given portion of middle grade text. I chose the latter, and here is the given text: © Tina Marie Clark – Squire Chambers (Chapter Book: 543 Words extract. Aimed at 6 – 9 years.) ‘Holy barn-hay!’ Owen exclaimed. ‘Look at the size of the floater in that!’ He stared into the porcelain chamber pot. A huge turd stared back up at him. The wooden peg on his nose was the only thing saving him from the offending smell that filled the air. This was the worst part of being a squire, emptying the knight’s chamber pots when they were in residence at Highglen Castle, and not just using the bushes like when going to tournaments or to war. It was a disgusting job. But as Sir Quentin had told him, someone had to do it, and as he was the youngest squire of all the knights still in attendance in the castle, it was his duty. Remove the debris, toss that out, then empty each pot carefully into the jugs that the fullers would collect. Sir Quentin has made him visit the fullers and see how they used the stale urine to remove the fat and dirt from the woollen fabric they made. ‘At least I’m not a fuller’s apprentice,’ he said, thinking of the way they spent all day stamping with their bare feet on the cloth soaking in the urine. He shuddered and shook his head. ‘Think happy, Owen!’ For a moment his mind drifted to the huge house on the estate that belonged to his father. When on misty mornings like this one, the chamber maid would be the one to remove the pots, not him. He would have already rushed out to the sheep sheds to watch the sheering. But Sir Quentin had come to his home, and chosen him, the thinnest, scrawniest bow legged boy to be his squire. To follow in his father’s footsteps and one day be a knight, and fight for his King. Slowly balancing the pot on his arm, he pushed the heavy door open. At the exact moment it swung open and something solid hit him full on, taking his breath away. The pot went flying through the air. ‘No!’ Owen cried as he saw it somersault over. It landed with a sickening thunk sound. On top of Sir Quentin’s head. The pot fitted Sir Quentin perfectly like a porcelain helmet! He watched as in slow-motion, the urine and poop slide down Sir Quentin’s face, and drip on to his clean arming coat that he had laid out neatly for Sir Quentin just an hour ago. ‘Run!’ shouted his brain. But his legs would not work, they solidified and lime mortared themselves to the stone floor beneath. ‘Sir Quentin, I’m sorry, you opened the door and I opened the door and...’ Owen said waiting for the outrage that he was certain would follow. Sir Quentin cleared his throat. ‘It’s a simple job, Owen, you take the pot each day and you empty the solids out, and put the liquid in the jugs. You ensure it doesn’t land on anyone. S-i-m-p-l-e. ‘Yes, Sir Quentin.’ ‘Make sure it doesn’t happen again. Remember, part of the code of chivalry as a knight is also “Humility”, and believe me I’m showing you lots of that right now. Bring clean undergarments to my room and some warm water to wash.’ ‘Yes, Sir Quentin.’ ‘Now boy! Before my patience wears off.’ Owen fled. For the first illustration I chose the part where Owen is looking down into the smelly contents of the chamber pot.
For the second illustration I chose the part where Owen is remembering life back on the family estate.
For the third illustration I chose the part where both Quentin and Owen have just worked out where the contents of the chamber pot landed.
For colour I used coloured pencils because I enjoy using them for this kind of illustration because it gives me greater certainty of the final colour on the page than mixing the watercolours. That certainty is useful in getting colour consistency in a series of illustrations containing the same character.
I was very pleased to receive a Highly Commended for my entry. |
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