Summing Up

I’m uncertain about how to sum up this course; we have covered many topics, some that I expected to be boring, that weren’t; and some that I expected to get a lot from, but haven’t.

This is the first course that I have done externally in ten years. I miss the classroom. I don’t think I have given the right amount of time to the right areas of emphasis. In a classroom teachers are able to guide their students, give verbal prompts that remind them of what’s important and where their focus should be. As I was re-reading the concepts of the course, I found myself at a bit of a loss, and I shouldn’t be – I’ve done the hours (albeit in spurts, but that’s largely out of my control).

So, as I look over the objectives of each topic, what have I learned?

I was able to realise the different forms that books may take, though I don’t believe I have come anywhere near a definitive definition of book. I hope that I can look at an object and identify ‘bookness’; or rather what ‘bookness’ is for me. I’m confident about my knowledge of manuscripts, illuminated or not. I found the subjects of that topic quite spectacular – it’s one of those topics where I learned more than I bargained for. One day, when my chicks have flown the coop, I’d like to see some, especially those whose colours and intensity I found mind-boggling when viewed via a monitor.

I have a fairly clear idea about what block books are; how they were made and why they were made that way. A couple of exceptions though: how are craftsmen able to use multiple blocks in a way that produces a cohesive whole image? And how were/are illustrations transferred to the blocks prior to carving? I asked those questions on my blog, and sincerely tried to find answers (within the confines of the WWW), but I only got inklings of possibilities. I regret that I didn’t look further into William Morris and the Kelmscott Press; as a graphic designer (in the making), it is an oversight I must definitely rectify.

I chose illustrated children's for the optional topic and Assessment One. In most of the books I came across it was obvious which were picture books and which were illustrated books. The history was extensive and I found identifying the important contributors to the genre difficult as there were so many. I spent a lot of time trying to find two appropriate examples of the same children’s illustrated books for the assessment. I scoured the local library's bookshelves and those of friends. I had several books sent from Wagga (expensive business, that), including Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense, and delighted at the myriad styles of illustration from the web links provided for us and those I found myself. Illustration is a true Art form. I looked at many books but Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are astonished me the most because of the changes in the panels and the way they tied with the story. I read that book to my children and children I cared for, many times – and never noticed. Examining the relationship between author and illustrator difficult; there just didn't seem to be much information available.

Artist's books turned out to have a resonance with me, particularly work such as that produced by Ed Hutchins and Emily Martin. The work I have done with scrapbooks and other paper crafts over the years made the genre feel familiar. I would like to look into William Blake’s work and that done by other book artist’s more. Using the form of a book as a way to affect how content is read is something I don’t understand, except for blatant examples of form; like Linda Newbown’s Tennis Ball and I haven’t had the oppostunity to read that yet. I haven’t been able to fully determine quite what an artist’s book is or is not as yet; but I’d like to hope I’ll know one when I see one.

I understand hypertext and hypermedia and can see how they might be used by authors, book artist’s and artists, though I suspect that there are yet many ways they can be used that I have not yet encountered. Digital artist’s books are elusive. Except for one I was able to borrow from the University of Queensland’s library, and then could not use because my technology had surpassed that of the CD-ROM and wouldn’t work (my screen resolution couldn’t be set low enough!); I haven’t been able to find many that were free to view (Patternbook being a noteworthy and wonderful exception). Artist’s need to earn a living too, but as a student, I thinks I’ll have to wait awhile before much digital hypermedia is available to borrow form libraries.

I thoroughly enjoyed this course and got a lot from it. I would have gotten more if I had been better able to focus my learning. As I’m continuing distance education, I hope that’s not too long.

Children's Illustrated Books Part II

• George Cruickshank's Comic Alphabet is a small accordion-folded book with 24 etchings representing the letters of the alphabet - I don't know what happened to the other two letters. It's interesting that the book doesn't use recognisable symbols for each letter as current alphabet books do. N for nightmare? O for Orpheus? It makes me glad I was educated in the 1970's not the 1870's.

• Why was chromolithography garish and unappealing? What are electrotype and photoengraving?
  

• I wanted to find some examples Edmund Evans' colour wood engraving. It seems the most famous children's illustrators to use this process are Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway.

Walter Crane



Randolph Caldecott



Kate Greenaway


The three styles of the above illustrators are very different from each other, and each of them are delightful in their own way - though I must say Crane's style is not really my cup of tea.

• The photographic process was used to transfer artist's drawings onto a block of wood. How was this transfer done?

• The illustrated children's book emerged as an important component of the publishing industry in the 20th century. What caused this - was it Edmund Evans?

• I wanted to find some samples of Jean de Brunhoff's Barbar and Edward Ardizonne's Little Tim. I'm not familiar with Little Tim but my boys have spent many a happy hour in from of the tv watching Barbar. I'd have gotten hold of some printed material for them, but I didn't know that Barbar had such wonderful beginnings, let alone have a presence outside the box.

Little Tim





Barbar

Interestingly, Jean de Brunhoff died at age 38 and only produced the first seven of these books; his son Laurent took over, producing Barbar books from 1948 till 2003.

• Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr - what a wonderful man to produce such a site as this, featuring myriad children's illustrators covering so many genres that I can't list them all. From comic book characters to fearsome monsters with a few fables in-between this site will show you so much stuff about illustrators between 1880 and 1920; 105 of them to date - you won't remember where you started.

Developments Affecting Children's Illustrated Books Since 1800

This task, to create a timeline from 1800 to present day with major developments in printing and major children's book illustrators, is one I found difficult. There are so many wonderful illustrators to choose from, and a timeline can only fit so many entries before it becomes indecipherable.

But here it is...


There are many, many more illustrators of children's books. Here's a wonderful place to start looking if you're interested in finding out about some of them.

Note: Most illustrators had careers spanning many years, sometimes decades. The dates accompanying their names are either those provided by some of the research I've done, or have been picked from about the middle of the illustrators careers. This Google Book looks at some of the more contemporary illustrators. This site provides information and images about the very early children's books, chapbooks and some of the more famous illustrators of very early children's illustrated books such as George Cruikshank and Kate Greenaway.

Children's illustrated books Part I

Ok, a departure for me, I'm going to post before I have everything done. One of our readings has been Perry Nodelman's 'Picture Books' in The Pleasures of Children's Literature. I've read it through twice before and only tonight came to the conclusion that I don't agree with what he's written - and I'm only 4 pages into the reading...

He writes "Like words, in fact, pictures do not convey much meaning until we know the language in which they are expressed. Like words, they are "abstract", in the sense that they exist within systems of learned codes, and thus make little sense to anyone without a previous knowledge of those systems. Because pictures are premeated by the ideological assumptions of their culture, children will not understand pictures until they develop some understanding of the culture."

I disagree that cultural understanding is necessary for children to understand pictures. Children are not taught cultural understanding - it is something that goes on around them, it's not 'culture', it just is. Until a child begins to learn of other places in the world that have a different culture from what they are raised in, 'culture' itself has no meaning for them. An apple pictured in an ABC book is available to a child who lives in a culture where apples are available, if not in their own home and eaten by them. An ABC book for African children, say, will have something else representing the letter A, and there's no reason to presume that that child won't know what the object representing 'A' is. Nodelman's point is relevant to adults, not children.

On another point - "Once we have experience in books and reading, visual information directs our response to the story in a picture book before we even open the book. Particular expectations arise from each of the physical qualities of a book: its size and its shape, even the kind of paper it is printed on."

How can this be? We have only to look at the plethora of children's book available at the local library to know that regardless of size or substrate we will be looking at a picture book that was considered good enough to make it into the library's collection. Does he mean that the higher the quality of paper, the better the illustrated book will be in terms of its value to children? Or that a bigger book will have more illustrations than a smaller one? Has children's illustrated books changed so much since 1992 when Nodelman wrote this?

One of the children's books I have is Green Air, written by Jill Morris and illustrated by Lindsay Muir (Queensland: Greater Glider Productions, 1997). My children and I have gotten far more enjoyment from this book than they ever have had, or ever will have, from The Classic Fairy Tale Treasury (various author and illustrators, Kansas: Andrews and McMeel/Areil Books, 1995). The first is a thin paperback in a square format on good quality paper. The second is a tallish, thick rectangular hardback book with a padded cover and gold page edges, also on good quality paper. I'm sure the expectation of the gift-giver of each book was that they would be enjoyed again and again by my children. Not so; even over the course of reading to my children for many years I got far more requests for Green Air than I ever did for The Classic Fairy Tale Treasury. What's that old saying - 'don't judge a book by its cover'?

I'm going to quote a passage from page 131 of The Pleasures of Children's Literature:

"In earlier times before Euro-American culture became so pervasive, many anthropologists and explorers showed tribal people in Africa or South America realistic drawings and even photographs. These people, unaquainted with Western culture, were often unable to recognise what the pictures depicted. Because such depictions did not exist in their cultures, they had no strategies for making sense of them.

The pictures that did exist had purposes different from our pictures, and showed the world in a different way. Jan Deregowski reports a study in which some African villagers preferred a split-type drawing of an elephant (showing it from above as if it had been split open, so that all four feet could be seen), while Europeans preferred a top view that did not show the feet. Deregowski says that the different responses come from a different understanding of what pictures are for: "Split-representation drawings develop in cultures where the products of art serve as labels or marks of identification. In the cultures where drawings are intended to convey what an object actually looks like, this style is muted and the 'perspective' style is adopted."

Having disagreed with what Mr Nodelman has said and on a lighter note, I find this staggering - not he fact that the split-drawing style is used by the African villagers, but because I can't 'picture' what such a picture would look like! Luckily the internet is really is all-knowing, here's an example of split-drawing.