What a challenge to find ten images, books etc. to provide a history/context for my current interests in art! I suppose I need to articulate to myself what my interests are, as I flit through life at an increasing pace. I suppose one aspect has been a long-term interest in children’s picture books, so this will form the basis of my mental map. Trawling back many years to my childhood, there are few books that I can recall which satisfied my visual/graphic needs, hence those I remember provided significant impact.
Image 1 -Mabel Lucie Attwell
As a very young child I remember the illustrations made by Mabel Lucie Attwell (1879-1964). These images influenced my drawings, I spent ages drawing families and creating stories to match the characters. Please see:
http://www.nocloo.com/gallery2/v/mabel-lucie-attwell-grimm-fairy-tales
Image 2 -M.L.Kirk
In sketchbook 1, I mentioned memories of Hiawatha, I don’t have the book but I would say the illustrations by M. L. Kirk (Longfellow’s book adapted by Clayton Edwards) are the nearest to the memories of my original book. I remember having a homemade hessian sack Indian outfit and black wool hair so that I could play the part. The images became play and brought the book experience to life. Please see:
http://our-little-library.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/longfellow.html
All kinds of music have been significant over the years but two singers stand out.
Images 3 and 4 -Music
This would be music that has inspired me which would include Bob Dylan (e.g. ‘Blowing in the Wind’) and Leonard Cohen (e.g. ‘Take this Waltz’). I love much of their music, because their songs have stories attached to them and they conjure up so many mental images. Dylan sings that the answers to the world’s problems are ‘blowing in the wind’ they are intangible or ethereal because we cannot grasp them. Cohen sings about ‘a piece torn from the morning’ followed by ‘a garland of freshly cut tears’ and intends to ‘bury my soul in a scrapbook’. Examples via:
https://www.youtube.com/channels/music
I feel I need to divide books into: leisure, children’s picture books and what I have learnt about images through personal study, as these all form part of my history.
Image 5 – Book for Leisure
I enjoyed John Fowles ‘The Magus’ when I was in my teens, because it played around with and questioned the truth of experience.
Image 6 – Picture Books that Inspire Children Today
I will pick one, because I used it as part of a study: ‘Naughty Bus’ by Jan and Jerry Oke (2004, Little Knowall Publishing). It is a picture book that uses photo-shop to change photographic images and changes the text in interesting ways linked to the story. It demands of the viewer some sort of participation (see snap shots from research below) thus leading to high quality play experiences.
Children aged 3 – 5 years particularly enjoy it.
It raises the question of why do some form of visual texts appeal to certain groups/individuals more than others?
Image 7 – Snapshots from Research
Kabuto (2009) describes young children as living in a world that is saturated with visual and graphic information ‘where text is not exclusively black and white or situated in linearly configured blocks’. She highlights the significance of the varieties of font, colours, shapes and sizes, which give opportunities to create images unheard of twenty years ago, emphasising that communication is multimodal and not simply provided through the ‘voice’ from the text.
Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) deliberate over imaging as a form of communication and how it might best be described. They prefer to use the term visual grammar (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006:3) and decide that it is ‘a social resource of a particular group’, the group’s ‘explicit and implicit knowledge about this resource, and its uses in the practices of that group’ (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006:3). In this sense it is a form of communication, which has to resonate with those making sense of what ‘it’ (the book) has to offer.
They also suggest that images can either present a demand or an offer perspective to viewers (ibid pages118-119). If the image of a character (human or non-human) looks directly at the viewer then the relationship demands ‘social affinity’ of the viewer with the image in some sort of imaginary relationship, suggesting they want the viewer to act in some way. In the offer perspective, the viewer’s role is one of an invisible onlooker, as no eye contact is made, providing opportunity for the viewer to search for information, or in providing opportunities for contemplation (ibid pages 118-119). Kress and van Leeuwen link the offer and demand perspective with the linguistic concept of ‘speech act’ which may include the demand for information ‘in the form of question’ and ‘demand goods and services for the listener to undertake’ (ibid page122).
Thus with the support of a knowledgeable other (adult more able peer), children can use images as a springboard to problem solving in play situations.
Images 8, 9 and 10
I am not very proficient with technology but I do like creating pictures. I have chosen three, painted in gouache, which are linked to stories I have written for children for fun.
Kabuto, B. (2009). Colour as a Semiotic Resource in Early Sign-Making Early Childhood Research and Practice (ECRP) Vol 11 No.2. http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v11n2/kabuto.html. Accessed 5 March 2014.
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, Theo. (2006). Reading images: The grammar of visual design. 2nd Edit. London: Routledge.