POOJA KAGRANA
ILLUSTRATION
NARRATIVE ILLUSTRATION
INTRODUCTION
As I started my first study to this short story, I saw some interesting and different plot of information such as climate description, time or feelings of confusion to the main character throughout the story. This made me understand the text and the story into different perspectives and approaches that I can have when illustrating and understanding story. One more thing I learned while reading The Swimmer over and over again was the way author had described the character and his approach over the spread of time stating each event.
As this short story is around a lot of activities and is very informative I started to realize the illustrations can be very descriptive. One thing that always stuck to my mind was the mentioning of weather and climate and time which gave me a new approach to this story. I then decided to experiment the illustrations using not the story itself but the climate, time and weather as illustrations.
Book cover Research
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I started to go deep in this project with researching about book covers. First thing that came to my vision was the new illustration year 2 studio that was filled with books everywhere around us. I ended up looking at each and every book and started to differentiate them from one another and started understanding the meaning to each of their covers was the content and the style of the author rather than the artist who must have made it. I realized that was to design a particular cover to a story I will have to adopt to the culture of the writer.
I then came across this artist called Ana Grigoriu who has been working as an art director in a lot of firms across world. What inspired me the most was how she let herself expand in different fields of cover design and never had one particular way of designing covers that I have been seeing around usually.
Another artist and writer that I was reminded was of Edward Gorey, his pen-and-ink crosshatched and hand-lettered gems from the beginning of his 50-year career arguably challenged a lot of publishing. His way of creating art has always been in back of my mind. Reading the book swimmer, the art that first came to my mind was something like Edward Gorey, Tim Burton’s art. This art according to me gives drama and sense of what happens next feel.
though the short story the swimmer by John Cheever gives quite realistic feel and I still stick to my first idea about creating art using time change as my plot.
Book Cover Ideas
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I then started exploring with what all I could do with the cover and the story. I really enjoyed this short story and how it had a expression and humor with which the writer described the characters in the story. At the beginning I, of course, trusted neddy, the narrator with his description of his neighbors. It was only near the end of Neddy's visit at the Biswanger's that I realized he must be an unrealistic with his actions, and that his social standing, as well as his life, have possibly changed. The behavior of Mrs Biswanger and the bartender highlight this. at the end of his visit, Neddy overhears Mrs Biswanger discuss someone else's financial ruin and laughs it off as her being rude and a gossip. This point I had almost considered whether she might be talking about Neddy. This doubt was quite sure when Neddy arrives at his ex-mistress house and she tells him that she won't lend him anymore money. Neddy's physical strength was fading and he eventually made it to his own house. He found the door locked and the house dark and fallen into disrepair, yet he still seemed confused. It is only when he looks through the windows and sees his house was empty that he realizes that his life must have changed for the worse. For Neddy who decided to swim home from a friend's party through the pools of friends, this will be the swim of his life. And nothing was what it seemed like had changed for Ned.
After understanding what the short story is really trying to say, I decided to explore and experiment some ideas for the book covers that mostly highlighted on fading away of his memory or the cluelessness that he must have felt the entire story. I started to explore my ideas using a color scheme of shades of blue and green. At this point of stage in the project I was looking into book cover designs but also wanted to focus on a style that could have related to my previous idea of illustrating the story using time climate and atmosphere.
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FAYE MOORHOUSE
A young illustrator whose art inspires me and allows me as a source of reference to inform my own art experiments and practice. I love the way she illustrates, and I found that exploring her work has helped me greatly to change and develop a sense of style that I haven’t practiced before. I was really amazed by the artwork of the birds, I liked how it was so direct and simple.
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I further started to look into more works that could speak more direct and had a simple design. my next step was to create some art work that was simple and could to define the title. I explored with paints and created some abstract designs that further could be edited. I really enjoyed some painting over the summer break, that made me explore in painting more.
Explorations
After my tutorial with Neil, I knew what I had to do. During exploring, one artwork that I did for the book cover was a collage of a swimmer on a blue background. The collage was very simple and what I had been trying to get till now. After the positive feedback on the cover I knew what style and pattern I was working on.
Stephanie Levy
This kind of style reminded me of an artist I follow on social media. Most of her artwork starts with a drawing of an interior or of a still life or a design object. With her ink drawing, she also then does collage materials and colours them that seem to add on the drawing. Her work combines colors, materials, and patterns with the drawing and painting until a composition is formed. She also uses different materials, which varies from handmade paper, canvas, or wooden panels. I really think the compositions that come out in the end have a sense of completeness in them. This style can allow me to use drawing and collage both which I feel I am looking out for in answering to this project.
Mid Summer Afternoon
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With the story beginning, my idea for this illustration was happy and sunny as described. I wanted to avoid doing the water for these illustrations, so I started exploring with the possibilities of how I can create this collage.
"the heat of the sun, the intenseness of his pleasure"
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Inside Illustrations
Around in the sky
"The water refracted the sound of voices and laughter and seemed to suspend it in midair." - The water froze the sound and pushed them into the air. Neddy continued on his journey to getting home.Overhead a red de Haviland trainer was circling around and around and around in the sky with something like the glee of a child in a swing. Ned felt a passing affection for the scene, a tenderness for the gathering, as if it was something he might touch.
Passing of Time
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"The rain had cooled the air and he shivered." The weather continues its gradual transition from a bright and cheery summer afternoon to a cooler, stormy autumn eve and Neddy quickly loses his gumption and grows tired of the trip. This change suggests that a considerable amount of time has passed in Neddy’s life.The change would be that the season was changing from summer to fall when Neddy saw that the leaves were falling off the trees. As soon as Neddy experienced this, he felt a “peculiar sadness at the sign of autumn”
The Place was Dark
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The return home is the most climactic event in the story. Upon arrival, Neddy notices that his house is locked and that it appears weathered and damaged. He finds nothing and no one there – his family has somehow abandoned him without him even noticing. Neddy is left as a confused and exhausted man with everything he once cared about gone.
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