Salvatore Rubbino's Wordless Narrative Workshop

Today I had a workshop with Illustrator Salvatore Rubbino. He was helping us explore the ideas and approaches to creating a wordless narrative.

Salvatore gave many great tips on how to create and structure a narrative. He suggested that when we plan a narrative, we draw out each frame on a different piece of paper, that way we can move scenes around or slot ones in that we feel may suit the flow of the story better.

I chose to illustrate a sequence from 'Haroun and the Sea of Stories' for this workshop, as I am still unsure as to which book to pick.

I chose this section of the novel as it's very descriptive and contains a lot of vivid imagery. In this scene Haroun is describing the houseboat he is on, the windows and the furniture. I chose to illustrate this section in the exciting way that Salvatore suggested, bringing the figures in the windows to life.

Finalised Work from Workshop 1

Here are my refined pieces from my first workshop. These have been refined in Illustrator. I chose to use two frames from my "Lord of the Flies' sequence and one of my drawings from one of the exercises.

Jonny Clapham's Movement Workshop

Last Friday we had a workshop with Jonny which was all about movement. In this workshop he wanted us to all practice working towards a reveal with our illustrations.

The first step was to take turns drawing three frames of movement, and then leaving the final frame free for a surprise ending. Once we had a few movements illustrated (I had a dancing person and a person looking in a plant) Jonny gave us a number of different types of ending scenarios to try out, ranging from a disaster to a romantic surprise.

We then had to relate what we had practiced to the brief. As I am unsure which book to pick, I chose Travelling Light, as this is one that I am interested in. The scene I picked involved a female character returning an old hat, and being pleasantly surprised by who the owner of the hat turns out to be.

This is just a rough idea of the frames I will be working with. I will refine these ideas on Adobe Illustrator.

Rob Flowers Workshop

Today's workshop with Rob Flowers focussed on refining work from yesterdays workshop. He taught us lots of valuable tricks for drawing on Adobe Illustrator. This was very useful as I have not had any experience using this program.

I imported my scans from yesterday's workshop into the program and began to draw the outlines. As suggested by Rob, I did the outlines in red to make them easier to see. I put the line work on a separate layer, just as I would do on photoshop.

The next step was to add colour. I used the blob brush tool, adjusting it's thickness by double-clicking on the icon. I created separate layers corresponding to how I wanted to layer the colour. Once the colour was added, the image really came to life!

I then began working on the second frame. For this one, I needed to use lines with thinner ends. To do this I had to click the white pointer and select the anchor of the line, moving it to my desired thickness. I also highlighted the main focus of this drawing using black lines, and making the background lines a slightly faded colour of grey/green.

I did not finish my drawing in the workshop but this is how far I got. I decided to layer the green on the bushes with 3 different shades and I really like the effect that this created. 

Visual Metaphor Workshop

Yesterday I had my Visual Metaphor workshop with Pete Murgatroyd. We started this workshop by looking at a variety of images and writing words that we associated with the images. For example, a image of scales made me think of the word 'Libra' and a ladder made me think of the word 'Up'. Pete wanted us to explore the ideas of associating two words.

For the next part of the workshop, we had to pick one image, and use it to relate to 6 other words. For this, I picked the pen. I then had to draw associations between the pen and the words 'science', 'memory', 'relationships', 'fashion', 'buildings' and 'parties'. Here are my outcomes.

For 'Science', I drew a syringe pen.

For 'Memory', I drew a post-it note with reminders on it.

For 'Relationships', I drew some toilet cubicles with couples writing on them - an idea that my tutors particularly enjoyed.

For 'Fashion', I drew a Tie-Dyed t-shirt.

For 'Buildings', I drew a blue print of a house.

For 'Parties', I drew a party invite.

The next part of the workshop involved the selected texts in the Narrative Unit. As I am still undecided as to which book to choose, I picked the extract that produced the most vivid settings and scenes, and the one I chose was from William Golding;

"Ralph grasped the idea and hit the shell with air from his diaphragm. Immediately the thing sounded. A deep, harsh note boomed under the palms, spread through the intricacies of the forest and echoed back from the pink granite of the mountains. Clouds of the birds rose from the tree-tops, and something squealed and ran into the undergrowth."

I produced a four-panel narrative for this scene, focussing on the impact that blowing the shell had on the forest and setting the scene.

Perfect Binding Workshop

Last friday I attended a workshop to learn how to do perfect binding. Being someone who wants to make their own books, I thought it be best for me to go along to learn this new technique.

We started out grabbing a wad of paper in our chosen size. This paper will form the basis of the sketchbook. I decided to make my books A5 as A6 seemed a bit too small to work in.

The next step involved the paper clamp. We had to turn the clamp upside down, and drop the paper in, ensuring to keep the stack straight with all paper lined up to make the pages straight when the book is formed. 

When satisfied, the stack was clamped in place and then turned upside down, to present the spine of the pages.

Taking two pieces of rough paper, I unscrewed one side of the clamp and the wooden flap came down. Resting my pages on some rough paper, and using another piece of rough paper to keep the line straight, I applied PVA to the ends of my pages. I then removed the paper and screwed the flap of the clamp back in place, turning it around and doing the same on the other side.

I then left my paper in the clamp to allow the spine to dry for 10 minutes. In the meantime, I prepared my Japanese paper (measured to the size of the spine plus 1cm on each side) and my coloured end papers (coloured A4 folded in half).

Once the spine had dried, I removed it from the clamp, removing the front and back sheet depending on if they were damaged or had glue on them. I then applied PVA to the spine marking on my Japanese paper, leaving the 1cm flap free on either side.

The next step was to glue the end papers on to the front and back. I used rough paper to glue a 1cm line on the folded side of the paper, and then stuck it under the flap of the japanese paper. I then glued the japanese paper down and used a bone folder to flatten it out. I then did this on the other side.

Here is my book with both coloured endpapers attached.

Next I made the cover using the creaser. Taking my printed design, I measured my spine and took this away from the length of the paper. Measuring away from each end, I got my spine markings. My spine measured at 6mm, so I measured 14.5 cm in from each side of my paper (A4 size is 29.7 cm, so taking away 6mm plus 1mm extra, then dividing in half). I then made the cover folds by adding 1cm, so making creases at 13.5cm and 15.5cm.

This gave me creases for the spine and 1cm on each side. I had to flip the paper after creasing the spine to made the paper fold the correct way.

The final step was to glue the 1cm folds of the cover (NOT the spine) and attach it to the book! I then left it under some weight to ensure it stuck down.

I will be using the Blue sketchbook I made for the Narrative project, the 'Doggy Do's' print one will be a gift.