June 6th- Backwards Planning

I saved the date, my presentation will be June 6th. Which means I will need to have all of my materials handed in on May 30th. Which gives me 2 weeks to get everything done. Right now I have 6 Finals done with leaves me with 8 more including the cover page and some wiggle room for dedication pages. Each final takes about 2 hours to make generously, so this will take about 16 more hours. 45 minutes every day during art will take off about 4 hours so I will need to spend about 12 hours of my own time. Then when my finals are finished I will need to transfer them into my computer and edit which I predict 20 minutes per final to do. Time management will be my biggest friend right now.

Red Flag

I have spent over 10 hours on my project this week, learning that I will be presenting June 6th, I have been working a lot of hands on. What has really helped is that my AP art teacher has given me permission to work on these illustrations during class time as her final grade as well, which helps me because I need all the time that I can get!
This week I have continued to work on my final copies, I have also researched painting computer programs and exchanged emails with a children's book expert, I like to think I have been very6 productive this week thus far.
last Friday my mentor and I made a list of things I can journal about, and once again I am behind on my journals, but I do have a solid list of things to journal about if I can find the time to just sit and get it done.
In class this week we picked our time slots for our presentations, I am June 6th.
Next week I can work more on final pieces and scan them in to my computer to add text.

Computer Painting Programs

I use Coral Painter as a computer editing program, you can also use a tablet and draw right on the program to fix any imperfections. I researched other programs because my prescription is almost up and they are all 80-100$ so I think I will just renew my prescription.

Emailing Kimberly Palombo

My mentor had given me the email of a woman Kimberly Palombo, my mentor said Kim has a lot of knowledge on the subject of how illustrations relate to the text, and aid the text for childeren. When I first emailed her I told her about me and my project in the WISE program, I explained the story line and the age group targeted(6-7). 

She replied with:

"For this age group, I think it is best to reiterate the story in the pictures.  In other words, the reader should be able to have a pretty close understanding of the story from doing a "picture walk".  A "picture walk" is when we teach young children to look at the pictures before they read a book to preview it and get an idea about what the story will be about.  For this story, I see a young boy who is living impoverished (you can show this through physical characteristics and his begging) at the market.  Then the pictures should show the fisherman (again, use physical characteristics to show the reader it is a fisherman, maybe with bright yellow overalls and a hat and fishing rod, etc.) watching the boy.  Maybe have some type of image that conveys the fisherman having an idea (a thought bubble with a picture of the boy putting fish on a family table or something).  And then continue to connect the pictures to the story in this way." 

This was VERY helpful in that I was having a hard time clarifying my illustrations. This may mean I'll have to go back and fix some illustrations, but it will be for the better. 

Quick Tip

Earlier I had described using a window as a "light box". I have a picture to help clarify what I mean!

Out of the Rut

*7 Things I want to accomplish by next Monday*
-Paint more pictures
-Research Painting Programs for the computer
-Get a new printer/scanner
-Talk to John (Author)
-Pick text font
-Try scanning a picture into the computer
-Cover page picture sketched

*5 Things I need for my project*
-Printer/Scanner
-Painter program
-Different fonts to choose from
-More watercolor brushes
-Advice from my dad
*3 Things I should talk to my mentor about*
-Emails between me and a potential interviewee
-The research on other computer painting programs
-Progress with the Cover Page

*7 Things I want or Need to Know More About*
-Computer programs
-Illustrations involvement with text
-Kids favorite types of illustrations
-How colors affect mood
-Can I write a Grant to get money for a program?
-Will I finish?
-How will I need to arrange pages for the book dummy?

Water color

What I like about watercolor is that it spreads really easily and is easy to mix colors. It's basically pushing around colored water into shapes. I also like that you don't need expensive watercolor on order to get good results! I usually use crayola and it works really well. The only thing that one should be cautious about is the paper. Because it's water, you can't use normal paper, but specifically watercolor paper

The process: step 3

For step three, use your step 2 sketch as a reference. For really good results I held both peices of paper up to the window so the light could be used as a "light box" which makes it very easy to trace.

I then used water color as a base of color, not drawing any solid lines.

Once the watercolor paint is dry, then I went through with colored pencil to out line and define certain areas.

The process:step 2

Then you play around in finding your characters physical features. For me this is the most fun. Once you have a character you like then keep that as your reference for step 3.

The process: step 1

The process of making a final page is quite time consuming. First one must divide the story up into pages then draw a VERY rough sketch