Tuesday, 28 April 2015

Sara Fanelli







Sara Fanelli's originality has brought a breath of fresh air to the world of British picture books. With an off-beat sense of humour and an inventive approach to everything from page design and typography to choice of materials, she has the kind of vision you might associate with illustrators such as Kveta Pacovska or Wolf Erlbruch, closer to Czech or German traditions than to British ones.

Fanelli's favoured medium is collage, which she has developed in a very personal way. She took it up not just as a way of moving on from the flat colours she's always used in her paintings, but also to make use of a vast collection of bits and pieces. Everything in Fanelli's collages has had a previous life to be relayed or reinvented. Sweet papers are crinkled and torn, newsprint is yellowed: every mark, every stain has its own story to tell. Surfaces are sprinkled with sugar, lentils, spaghetti and rice to create different, unexpected textures.  

Fanelli has always rejected the conventional approach to illustration, lettering and page design. She sees the book as a tactile three-dimensional object and tries to put every element of it to work, celebrating the art of hand-writing, emphasising its close relationship with drawing, scribbling and doodling. Scribbles occur throughout Fanelli's books - urgent angry scribbles, quiet fluffy scribbles, rhythmic scribbles and wanton loopy scribbles, she says to "generate a sense of energy on the page".

There is a beautiful variety found in her work, strange creatures painted on tickets, graph papers and an eclectic mix of found and created surfaces, giving Fanelli's work such rich texture and diversity. I love her ability to experiment, playing around with compositions and interweaving different items that she may be using, never using a computer to create her artwork. It gives a certain roughness to her work, as her imagination is laid out on the page, similar to that of a child's work.

Harriet Russell







Harriet Russell is a London-based illustrator who is known for incorporating quirky hand lettering into her publishing and editorial assignments. Brought up in a twelfth-century priory, she studied visual communication at the Glasgow School of Art and went on to get her postgraduate degree from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.

Russell’s work often combines ares of flat colour with more detailed areas of line drawing and sometimes texture to add some depth. She enjoys the screen printing process so will sometimes try to achieve a screen printed feel to her pieces. Hand-drawn lettering, words and wordplay are also an important part of her work. 

She lists her inspirations as many other artists, designers and illustrators, including Edward Lear, Saul Steinberg, David Hockney, Alan Fletcher, Johnny Hannah, Paul Blow, Brian Cronin, Angie Lewin and Bruno Munari, as well as gentle, indie folk music with quirky lyrics. 

I have chosen to look at Russell’s work as I like the way her drawings have a quirky and playful feel to them, that would appeal to adults and children alike. I like how she uses a juxtaposition of bright and muted colours and the balance she creates between her delicate illustrations and textured papers and patterns. 

Sunday, 26 April 2015

Blackberry Picking Tips


Useful tips for picking blackberries that could possibly be incorporated in the recipe pages or worksheet.

1. Take a pot or bag to carry them in. If desperate/forgetful you can be creative. Unused and unscented dog poo bags work well. Milk cartons are also useful as they have handles.

2. Keep your eyes peeled because blackberries can crop almost anywhere. Sometimes you’ll see great swathes of them and other times you’ll find just one shoot poking through a bush offering you two ripe berries to snack on (resist until washed). 

3. Don’t pick too low – that’s dog pee territory.
4. Don’t pick from too high up – they’re for the birds. 

5. Don’t be greedy! Only take what you need – others are living by this rule so you can have some, so it is only fair you return the favour.

6. Don’t pick from the side of busy roads. Even though you’re washing them the fumes pumped out by cars and grit/mud splattered up the bushes doesn’t make roadside berries too appealing.

7. If possible try to wear long sleeves and long trousers because you’re likely to get caught on the bushes or stung by nettles.

8. Eat or freeze your berries within 24 hours. 

9. Don’t wash the berries until you are about to eat or freeze them, otherwise they’ll spoil quickly.

10. Aim to pick firm, plump looking berries – the squashed ones will just go bad quicker and taint the rest of your batch.

11. If you get blackberry stains on your clothes, cover the stains in white vinegar and leave to sit for 30 minutes then rinse with cold water and wash as normal.
12. Here in the UK the best time to pick blackberries is typically the end of August and the month of September but you may find them on the bushes a little earlier.

13. Laws surrounding foraging are a bit complicated. I stay clear of private property or beauty spots altogether and I only pick what I can eat.

Saturday, 25 April 2015

Worksheet Design Research











After researching I've found many examples of worksheets related to jam and blackberry picking. For my own worksheet, I've decided to incorporate a few tasks and game ideas into one sheet to make it more interesting for the child, having sections that they can complete on their own, with friends or with adults. I like the idea of the child going out to explore and gather information (be it at a supermarket or looking in hedgerows), as I feel that this will fully engage the child with the tasks at hand and therefore there is more potential for fun and learning.

Tuesday, 21 April 2015

Vintage Children's Picture Cookbook





While researching cookbooks from around the time of World War One I discovered that most have similar traits. Colours are kept to a minimum, one of two, illustrations are kept simple and often feature characters based on realism. 

I want to carry these ideas forward into my own work, using minimalistic illustrations, few colours and adding a character that children can instantly recognise and be familiar with.

Monday, 20 April 2015

How to Cook the Perfect Day








How to Cook the Perfect Day is a short, sweet, miniature cookbook illustrated by paper cut artist Nikki McClure. Although it only contains about a dozen recipes, they are accompanied by beautiful illustrations and headnotes that dreamily document the author's perfect day. 

The minimal colours of black and blue gives the book a striking visual language and is refreshingly different from many other cookbooks. The illustrations are similarly effective, mixing realism with a slight cartoon style. 

While the book may not be aimed at children, I personally think that this book would appeal to slightly older children and grown-ups alike. The book itself is just the right size and shape for children to paw through and the text is broken up into different paragraphs so that it becomes less intimidating to read, creating recipes that would be ideal for child and parent to complete together. 

Picture Cook: See. Make. Eat.










Picture Cook: See. Make. Eat. is a minimalist cookbook from author Katie Shelley, who approaches cooking as a free form expression of individuality. In fact, she includes a brief forward to that effect informing readers that what follows is not "precise culinary blueprints" but are meant to inspire "experimentation, improvisation and play in the kitchen."

An unusual, quirky book, Picture Cook: See. Make. Eat. eschews text in favour of nearly entirely relying on pictures to teach people to cook with solid, well-tested recipes that can easily be thrown together. Although this book is marketed as a general cookbook, I think that the colourfulness and playfulness would appeal to children of all ages. The book presents a less earnest and serious tone than most cookbooks and fully grasps onto the idea that being a visual learner doesn't just mean putting a photograph of the finished product next to the recipe. I think that children would find identifying and reading out recipes engaging and that this would encourage them to spend time in the kitchen. 

The recipes are varied and cover pretty much all types of cuisines and cooking styles, and most of them have fewer than five steps. They are eminently accessible as the recipes act more like guidelines, starting points for people to learn the techniques and steps needed to construct a dish, but simple enough that you are encouraged to deviate and put your own spin on it. There are also 'technique' pages to walk the reader through tasks that may be uncommon to the reader, for example, how to correctly dissect an avocado. 

One of the unique sections of the book is the 'Thoughts on...' section. These are a set of illustrations on adapting recipes to suit you, offering several fresh and creative variations/toppings. The book also offers some unusual combinations of flavours like avocado and feta and strawberry and basil, and will expose children to ingredients and recipes that they would never have otherwise tried. 

The only significant problem with the design of the book may be the layout of the recipes and how to identify what needs doing when. On the other hand, I personally think that this provides more freedom for experimentation and fun. 

Hungry? Innocent Cookbook




Created by smoothie company Innocent, Hungry? is aimed at families with small children and, as well as over 100 recipes for straight-forward dishes and family favourites - some healthy and some indulgent treats - it is full of helpful information like how to test for a good or bad egg, and an easy to read chart of what food is seasonal when. 

While it may not be a cookbook aimed at children directly, there's a lot of hidden gems for children to enjoy tucked between pages, such as tips for how to make your popcorn last through the entirety of the film and 'Things to do in 15 minutes', as well as recipes to make and help out with. Also of note is the photography and the on-brand witty captions and copy in general - a trait which is one of Innocent's strongest brand assets - which children may find appealing. 

The book is also finished with a pocket on the inside back-cover, which is a useful additional feature for torn-out recipes and notes as well as "passports and secret documents" because "burglars never steal recipe books".

Food is Fun!






The team at Anorak have released an amazing book called Food is Fun! that takes a modern approach to engaging with children in a thoughtful way that no other magazine does. Created by the duo behind Anorak Magazine (Mastermind behind Anorak, Cathy Olmedillas, and Anorak's art director, Supermundane), this stylish non-fiction book all about food is a feast for the eyes as well as the brain.

"THE only lil' foodie bible you will need to get inspired and excited about food", Food is Fun! is a hilarious combo of many things food-related and fascinating. It's like an all-in-one hybrid of activity book, fact book, food editorial, kid-friendly recipe book and journal. 

My overall impression of Food is Fun! is that it's informative and educational as well as being fun to read and look at. The humorous tone of the book helps hugely, especially at familiarising 'scary' vegetables such as celeriac, and I like that less obvious vegetables are highlighted throughout the book to really get children thinking. 

I really love the format of this book. It's really informative but the content is varied and presented in a way that will automatically catch the attention of the target audience. The retro feel of the book is highlighted by the limited colours used, mainly orange, blue and white. This is very effective although has one major downfall - the colours of unusual vegetables are wrong which would make it harder for children to recognise them in real life. Although illustrated throughout, Food is Fun! is also very heavy on text and uses various typographies so may be harder to access for new readers but this gives all the more oppurtunity for Food is Fun! to be shared between child and adult. There is a real happy feel to this book and will undoubtedly keep readers entertained for hours.  

I would say that the book is suited to children seven years old and up, although I imagine that younger children may enjoy looking at the pictures and trying some of the activities. 

The Silver Spoon for Children







For over 150 years the original Cucchiaio d'argents (The Silver Spoon) has ben the world-renowned title for Italian cooking. Building on this success, The Silver Spoon for Children features a selection of Italian recipes rewritten for little gourmet geniuses in the making. Often books in this area of cooking (for example, Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's The River Cottage Family Cookbook)  are written for adults as a guide to teaching children how to cook. This books approach involves having a child read it, and then prepare the recipes with the aid of an adult. By simplifying their essence and using large pictures and bright colours to grab attention, this book is one that has a great chance in engaging young minds. 

Aimed at children at least nine years old, the recipes have been tested by children so parents can be reasonably confident that the recipes will work. Each recipe is set out over two pages. There is a photo of the final dish, a list of ingredients, and a box with a few comments on the dish. The method is set out in point form going from left to right across the pages. Each instruction is numbered and accompanied by an illustration. Every page is very colourful and all the words are in larger than normal font size. 

The book is a very good starting point for adults that want to introduce their children to cooking. The recipes are challenging enough to keep children interested, and with enough allowance for margin of error if things go a little astray in the preparation. The variety of recipes ensures that children will learn about a variety of foods and techniques, and that the book can be used at any time of the year. 

The use of drawings and bright colours not only encourages a sense of fun in cooking, but will tempt children to re-read the book. Each recipe also states the time it should take to make, so that adults know how much time to set aside to make the activity worthwhile. Finally, the information on how to cook safely is kept simple. There is no overload of information to confuse young minds.

While the book is aimed at parents who want to involve their children with cooking, I think that adults who want to learn how to cook will also find this book worthwhile. There are also enough quick and simple recipes that parents might find themselves using this book on a regular basis.