bridging images and words, books and events by author-illustrator bridget marzo
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Spring starts in Bologna
Bologna gets the spring fever going, for kids book people at least.
Publishers are gathering dummies, books, figures and worrying about flights and stands, illustrators might be polishing off a final pic to show, the Italian fair organizers are doing their best to keep calm and organized...
I'm off on Saturday from Paris, to meet SCBWI Bologna keynote speaker and friend Leonard Marcus off his NY plane. I'll be carrying a pile of stuff for the SCBWI Symposium on Monday, as well as a few books and illustrations for my own showcase at the SCBWI Stand (Hall 26, stand A 66) on Tuesday from 1-2pm.
Still caught up with SCBWI emails and powerpoints, so haven't finished my story roughs I was hoping to show.
So hard to get the balance right but when you've been dubbed International Illustrator Liaison you can't procrastinate. I have to think about the group first - a lot of expectations to fulfill the day before the fair opens, moderating panels, helping it go smoothly as possible. And there's an incredible energy in a group of creative people planning together online from many corners across the world, and then converging or a day's conference and a night in the old town.
Then comes the Fair, and work for the SCBWI stand. Last but NOT least, I tell myself, my own work for my own Showcase. I have some cards, and books to show. Do I need to put a small portfolio together at this point? Do I have time? Will I have the energy to paint with my favourite gouaches in the Duelling illustrator event at 3pm ? And where to go next? Well I want to see Shaun Tan at the Illustrators Café at 4pm for a start.
The Fair is first and foremost for publisher to sell co-editions of their books to other countries. I've never been one to push my stuff. Some people manage to do that so well. But it's painful to see young illustrators hugging portfolios like camp beds, looking in vain for a shelter. But who knows what I'll see and who I'll run into? I'm looking forward to exploring Korea and China and Slovakia and....And I can't wait to see the final mock-up of the book I've just done for Bloomsbury. Here's to them selling lots of co-editions of Mini Racer -a whacky race with an ecological twist.
Here's the final final rough cover with a better road colour and another spread.
Publishers are gathering dummies, books, figures and worrying about flights and stands, illustrators might be polishing off a final pic to show, the Italian fair organizers are doing their best to keep calm and organized...
I'm off on Saturday from Paris, to meet SCBWI Bologna keynote speaker and friend Leonard Marcus off his NY plane. I'll be carrying a pile of stuff for the SCBWI Symposium on Monday, as well as a few books and illustrations for my own showcase at the SCBWI Stand (Hall 26, stand A 66) on Tuesday from 1-2pm.
Still caught up with SCBWI emails and powerpoints, so haven't finished my story roughs I was hoping to show.
So hard to get the balance right but when you've been dubbed International Illustrator Liaison you can't procrastinate. I have to think about the group first - a lot of expectations to fulfill the day before the fair opens, moderating panels, helping it go smoothly as possible. And there's an incredible energy in a group of creative people planning together online from many corners across the world, and then converging or a day's conference and a night in the old town.
Then comes the Fair, and work for the SCBWI stand. Last but NOT least, I tell myself, my own work for my own Showcase. I have some cards, and books to show. Do I need to put a small portfolio together at this point? Do I have time? Will I have the energy to paint with my favourite gouaches in the Duelling illustrator event at 3pm ? And where to go next? Well I want to see Shaun Tan at the Illustrators Café at 4pm for a start.
The Fair is first and foremost for publisher to sell co-editions of their books to other countries. I've never been one to push my stuff. Some people manage to do that so well. But it's painful to see young illustrators hugging portfolios like camp beds, looking in vain for a shelter. But who knows what I'll see and who I'll run into? I'm looking forward to exploring Korea and China and Slovakia and....And I can't wait to see the final mock-up of the book I've just done for Bloomsbury. Here's to them selling lots of co-editions of Mini Racer -a whacky race with an ecological twist.
Here's the final final rough cover with a better road colour and another spread.
Saturday, 13 March 2010
Pictures and text: Gita Wolf "An expanded organisation of meaning"
This article by Gita Wolf, publisher of Tara Books, India (who will be joining us on our publishers panel in the SCBWI Bologna symposium next week) says it all so well.
Picture Literature
Here are some snippets from it.
Thought is impossible without an image — Aristotle
When you look at a newspaper article — or an advertisement — what do you see first? The words or the image? And what do you remember later? If you are like most people, the odds are that the picture — the frozen moment or the carefully constructed image — will stay with you longer.
This is simply part of the human condition...
But when it comes to books and literature, pictures (at least for the adult reader) are traditionally seen as mere supplements to the text. Literature has largely come to mean the written word. There is a long and complex history behind why this is so, but the fact remains that in the literate world, the word triumphs over the image...
This is most obvious when we consider children. In children’s literature, we assume that it is the very young child who enjoys picture books. The older a child gets, the more she is lead towards reading ‘proper’ books. Children typically graduate from the visual to the word.
Seen another way, it is implicit that those who can read well will not spend too much time on a visual account of the same thing...
We forget that when a subject is rendered visually, it will not be the same thing.
The way we construct meaning from an image is through our perception of line, colour, form, depth and motion. Even with all this, our perception of the image as a whole is still more than just the sum of its parts. ‘Image’ resonates with the possibilities inherent in ‘imagination’. When words and images work together well, they don’t just say the same thing in two different ways.
They amplify each other, creating an experience that is an altogether distinct and expanded organisation of meaning.
Combining pictures & words
Delving into what this special experience could be has been a key project with Tara — the publishing house I’m part of — for the past decade. We’ve experimented with picture books not only for children, but for readers of all ages, trying to widen the experience of literature, given our fascination with visual communication. Gita Wolf.
Gita Wolf of Tara Books will be talking in our SCBWI Bologna symposium.
Picture Literature
Here are some snippets from it.
Thought is impossible without an image — Aristotle
When you look at a newspaper article — or an advertisement — what do you see first? The words or the image? And what do you remember later? If you are like most people, the odds are that the picture — the frozen moment or the carefully constructed image — will stay with you longer.
This is simply part of the human condition...
But when it comes to books and literature, pictures (at least for the adult reader) are traditionally seen as mere supplements to the text. Literature has largely come to mean the written word. There is a long and complex history behind why this is so, but the fact remains that in the literate world, the word triumphs over the image...
This is most obvious when we consider children. In children’s literature, we assume that it is the very young child who enjoys picture books. The older a child gets, the more she is lead towards reading ‘proper’ books. Children typically graduate from the visual to the word.
Seen another way, it is implicit that those who can read well will not spend too much time on a visual account of the same thing...
We forget that when a subject is rendered visually, it will not be the same thing.
The way we construct meaning from an image is through our perception of line, colour, form, depth and motion. Even with all this, our perception of the image as a whole is still more than just the sum of its parts. ‘Image’ resonates with the possibilities inherent in ‘imagination’. When words and images work together well, they don’t just say the same thing in two different ways.
They amplify each other, creating an experience that is an altogether distinct and expanded organisation of meaning.
Combining pictures & words
Delving into what this special experience could be has been a key project with Tara — the publishing house I’m part of — for the past decade. We’ve experimented with picture books not only for children, but for readers of all ages, trying to widen the experience of literature, given our fascination with visual communication. Gita Wolf.
Gita Wolf of Tara Books will be talking in our SCBWI Bologna symposium.
Friday, 12 March 2010
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Re-do and to do!
My website badly needs updating in time for the Bologna international book fair and our scbwi symposium & showcase there. Last week while in London, I was all set to get that done.
Then I got Mini Racer back from my publishers with their edits . I like their cover rough, and font choice and the basic design but still...
I spent a week editing the edits - in London - on the Channel ferry - and back home in Senlis. Finished at 3am on Monday morning.
The problem with digitally submitted images (although this book was part gouache...) is that it's so easy to cut and paste. Easy as text editing. And everyone has their colour preferences.
And you can re-do and re-do...
Enough said. I'm happier with it now. Here's a small peek (text is roughed in).
This page was the only one I didn't re-touch:
Fingers crossed Mini Racer (written by Kristy Dempsey) will be out this year or next...I should check the date!
All I've got ready for Bologna, is my sample for the Illustrators Display Portfolio on show at the SCBWI stand Hall 26, A 66.
Another glimpse of Mini Racer plus some "cat kids" for Bayard France - a snippet of my line-free work...
Naughty cats kids - they managed to slip out of the SCBWI Bologna online gallery!
http://www.scbwibologna.org/displayportfolio/illustrators-gallery.php
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Back in London, back on the plot
All this in-betweening takes time. Am I dissappearing into the in-between? Any volunteer will know what I mean. But there's always the pull - the excitement over kids book obsessives like me, converging from across the world to meet in Bologna especially in the old town, at night.
Now, surprisingly at a table looking over a London street, I'm back on a story line, moving only across paper - a welcome change...
And another brief diversion - this phone snap I took later last year, when wandering around the wonderful Oxford Blackwell's. Heartening to see my book in my favourite bookshop. Odd it was under Hobbies and labelled 'Art Appreciation'.
Art Appreciation - I ask you! Sounds so precious.
The Big Book of Shapes, like the Big Book for Little Hands, is not about art or appreciation. It's about action - a book to draw in, with story pictures to complete for fun and as freely as any small hand can and wants to...And that's that! Glad it was on offer. Hope someone small might enjoy it. If anyone can reach up that high to that shelf.
Now better get back to that plot!
Tuesday, 19 January 2010
B is for Books and borrowing. You can read about everything.
O be amazed that art and wire
Can so artfully conspire
to reveal that part of man
Which himself he cannot scan!
It's not just about X-rays.
http://www.kb.nl/nieuws/2004/abcboeken/tweedereeks.html
This alphabetical sample of apparently benign ABC books from all cultures and times contains more than this by Joyce Dennys in 1916.
or T for torpedo. Spanning informal sketches to highly designed prints and photography, the transitions reveal extraoridinary cultural shifts as well as some interesting art work.
Enough to keep cultural and political studies people mulling, let alone illustrators.
I nearly missed Zola in a 1900 English parody of Hoffman's 1845 Struwwelpeter
"Z is Zola, see his rage,
Look at him on this very page..."
Can so artfully conspire
to reveal that part of man
Which himself he cannot scan!
It's not just about X-rays.
http://www.kb.nl/nieuws/2004/abcboeken/tweedereeks.html
This alphabetical sample of apparently benign ABC books from all cultures and times contains more than this by Joyce Dennys in 1916.
or T for torpedo. Spanning informal sketches to highly designed prints and photography, the transitions reveal extraoridinary cultural shifts as well as some interesting art work.
Enough to keep cultural and political studies people mulling, let alone illustrators.
I nearly missed Zola in a 1900 English parody of Hoffman's 1845 Struwwelpeter
"Z is Zola, see his rage,
Look at him on this very page..."
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