Tuesday 9 November 2010

Harriet book jackets

So! That thing I promised would be uploaded the next day a shameful amount of time ago is finally photographed and ready to go. It's my final project for the University of Brighton: book jackets for my children's story 'Harriet and the Hair Fairy'.

I wanted to step away from my standard fare of spidery drawings, I felt like I'd got a bit trapped in this one discipline and it was stifling my creativity. So I decided to delve again into the primary-school world of Making Things With My Hands and got very messy, did lots of things wrong, changed my plans a few times, and ended up with something I actually quite liked! (SHOCK AND HORROR)


I wanted to explore the relationship between the planes of the 3D puppets and the 2D cover.. I guess I was trying to do something a bit meta, that whole 'look at the photographic image becoming a flat drawing' type thing.

The story is about a bald girl (Harriet), who is visited by the 'hair fairy', a little old lady who flits around with a purse full of hair 'seeds', ready to plant into the heads of newborn babies. Since Harriet appears to have been forgotten, the Hair Fairy decides to enthrone her head with all kinds of fantastic hairy solutions which all, of course, somehow manage to go disasterously wrong.
I chose to depict three of these on the covers; golden hair that's so fine it gets into an impossible tangle, hair so long it becomes unmanageable and a head of beautiful beautiful flowers that bees find irresistable.
It's a bit of weird story, I know. I'm not expecting it to get published or anything. >_>

I'll post the digital versions, so you can see the covers in more detail.


2 comments:

  1. Absolutely lovin your work! Great sketches and illustrations, I wish I had more time to paint and draw the way I really want to not just twee portraits! Hopefully this will change in new house as it has room for an art studio! Anyway I digress, I too am also writing illustrated children's books so it is great to see a fellow artist at work. I will follow you closely, on your blog that is, not down your lane or anything wierd!

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  2. amazing! i will keep exploring your blog and work closely.

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