Moving forward in my personal study

Throughout my personal study during my A2 Graphics course I have researched and responded to a range of different artists such as Alberto Cerriteno, Dr Seuss, Ernest Howard Shepard, Edward Gorey, Tim Burton and Michael Rosen. I have experimented with materials and processes like screen-printing, pen and ink drawings, etching, Adobe Illustrator, painting and pencil drawings.

I have discovered a great interest in Children's Books such as Edward Gorey's The Gashlycrmb Tinies and Michael Rosen's Sad Book, both very different from each other but they have one big similarity; they're both written about real issues. In The Gashlycrumb Tinies, Gorey tells a tale of the deaths of 26 children, who each represent a letter of the alphabet. These deaths could all happen at any point to anyone, for example, ''A is for Amy who fell down the stairs'', ''E is for Ernest who choked on a peach'' and ''H is for Hector done in by a thug''. Gorey is not being cold nor heartless, he is writing and illustrating real scenarios that may have happened or could very easily happen.

Rosen's Sad Book is also a sincere story about how sad he is, how this sadness affects him and how he tries to cope with it due to the death of his son. He explains how he is feeling very openly and easily for children to be able to comprehend efficiently. The way in which he has wrote this book and how subtle yet strong the words are have inspired me to write and illustrate a book which means something and helps children to understand certain issues which would normally be very hard to explain to them, or not explained at all.

As there is only a few weeks left on my course, it would be very hard to write and illustrate a whole book and I don't want it to be rushed, therefore, I am going to plan what I am going to write about and how I am going to illustrate it, which I will then design and create samples of pages for the book.

I believe that mental health illnesses are illnesses which no one talks about unless you have it or know someone with it and it is usually quite a taboo theme to explore. I want to explain how it feels to be depressed and socially anxious to children and adults also. People are diagnosed with mental disorders at different points of their lives. They may have it for a short period of time or it might continue to affect them every day of their lives. It is quite a big issue to try and explain to young children but I think that it is worth the challenge.

Here is a link to a brainstorm that I created about my personal study using wisemapping.com:
http://app.wisemapping.com/c/maps/166796/public

Artist Analysis: Michael Rosen's Sad Book

My favourite children’s books are ones which have a meaning and a purpose; ones which tackle real issues such as death and mental health issues.

Michael Rosen’s ‘Sad Book’ is a very personal story in which Rosen writes about his sadness, how it affects him and some of the things he does to cope with it. He is most sad when he thinks about his second son Eddie, who died at 18 from meningitis on April 26 1999.

There is a specific part in the book which I think is very, very powerful. ‘’This last bit means that I don’t want to be here. I just want to disappear.’’ The illustration, by Quentin Blake, beside this shows Rosen sitting on his bed, looking very sad, and the colours are all monochrome, creating a very dull, depressed mood. Colour has a huge impact on an illustration, for example, if the illustration is about love and happiness, you would use colours such as red, which represents passion, love and lust, and yellow, which represents happiness and cheer. You wouldn't use these colours for an illustration which is about death and unhappiness. Colours associated with death and unhappiness would be very monochrome colours like blacks and greys.

This book is so strong and effective. The illustrations work so well and show what the words mean perfectly. It is going to be a big influence on my work.