Heroes & Heroines

Alison Bartlett

Biography
I have illustrated since graduating from Anglia College of Art in Cambridge. I then went onto Kingston College of Art, starting an MA course in illustration, but was to begin work sooner than expected with the publication of my first children's book, Oliver's Vegetables. Whilst at college, I was asked what my worst nightmare assignment would be. Having replied "a children's book", I was then promptly given the task of producing one. It was exhibited at the 1993 Macmillan Prize Exhibition, seen by an agent and published by Hodder the following year. It was then Highly Commended in the V&A illustration Awards 1994. I have been illustrating since, working for many major publishers throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States. I now live in Bath, England with my son Joel and our two cheeky Jack Russell dogs that are black and white and look like tiny cows!

December 2006 Review

How is your research contributing to your ability to conceive ideas for assignments?

It definitely supports the generation of ideas. Techniques such as mind-mapping help to make explicit numerous ideas and possible links. How ideas actually crystalise, I don't know.

It is good to look at the work of others, to take it apart mentally, see how it's made

Time constraints are not always helpful here.
When do you bring research to an end? Ideas take time to incubate - especially good ones.

I need to create more time for this somehow.

Reflect on and consider your use of visual language and expression in the communication of your ideas.

I can comment reasonably confidently on what I find appealing and what I believe works in a piece using the classical visual vocabulary: line, shape, tone, colour, texture and form.

I would love my work to have a personal style that I could express myself through but I recognise that I'm a long way from this at the moment. What's more, I'm not even sure how you get to that point.

What have been the most significant learning experiences for you and why?

Meeting fellow students/tutors and beginning to form new relationships. This draws out your interpersonal skills - prerequisites in practically any future scenario.

Not to be too precious with sketchbook ideas. To try out many ideas - afterall the worst that can happen is you waste a piece of paper. Not to centre wholly on the great idea or the perfect execution - experimentation may give rise to these.

The classification of witty solutions in 'A Smile in the Mind' - it offers a kind of visual grammar or framework for analysing solutions which in turn supports your own ability to generate ideas.

Hearing Alan Fletcher talk about setting parameters or boundaries for pieces as being a necessary part of the creative process - I had begun to come to this conclusion myself, particularly with some of the more open-ended tasks.

Teaching myself a little more about some programs - I believe that it is only when you have certain knowledge and understanding of any media that you can fully begin to see the creative potential. So knowledge breeds creativity.

Interactive

The preceding narrative piece seemed to concern itself quite strongly with the idea of judgement: Is it right to pursue particular types of vehicles when levying the London congestion charge?

As a consequence of this, early mind-mapping in support of a mobile kinetic piece inevitably threw up the notion of a set of scales or a balance being central to the design.

However, with time being of the essence, I decided to pursue a piece based on three suspended cubes. It was more easily realisable in the time; the cubes offered useful surface space on which to position graphic components; it would have a clean crisp appearance; and, the three main elements - charge, predator and quarry - could be represented in a simple format that makes the audience work a little to make sense of the message.

As I worked on the prototype, and then the final piece, other ideas presented themselves, e.g. coloured tops to the boxes which inject a new element when viewed from particular angles. I also like the way in which cutting away some of the visual components creates different shapes and offers a heightened sense of space.

I feel that all in all it was a safe option, executed quite well, but perhaps given more time the whole piece could have taken a different form, and maybe been a lot better.

Narrative Flow

Still reeling from the 260 images needed to fulfil the London sketchbook, I felt up against it with this brief. A story came to me early on but constraints of time meant that I did not really have sufficient opportunity to explore other ideas. It leaves you with a sense of compromise - the best you can do under the circumstances.

I was interested in the idea of the lions in Trafalgar Square having a story to tell. They've been there a long time. What would they have witnessed? What do they have to put up with?

The potential increase in the London congestion charge was topical at the time and I guess the two ideas collided in my mind. The lions have been long suffering victims of all types of pollution, how would they feel about this issue? I envisaged them coming to life to seek retribution from the most grevious offenders: 4x4 owners. The media and London Authority were already singling them out as an obvious target.

Initially I conceived the narrative almost like an animation. As I story boarded it, I could see it playing out in my head. I realised that, as it stood, it would take too long to develop into a piece with sufficient clarity. I therefore decided to reduce it to a a simpler form and to introduce Ken Livingstone as Admiral Nelson with the lions working at his behest. Lampooning Ken in this way gave the piece a bit of ambguity, which I like. It asks the question: Is this an environmental or a power issue?

The piece demanded a somewhat powerful or sinister style: it's quite a serious topic and the lions are not too cuddly in appearance. With the addition of Ken as the Admiral it leant itself to a kind of period drama. The work of the illustrator Charles Keeping became a reference.

I'm quite happy with the individual images within the piece and the mood created by the tonal illustrations and collage. However, I don't think it works that well as a whole at the moment. I need to work with the scanned illustrations to produce a more effective arrangement of frames and a better relationship between text and image.

Layouts and Composition

Took a while to get started on this due to the volume of images required in the preceding brief. I figured out if we took 10 minutes over each of the 260 images, then it would take 2600 minutes or over 40 hours to complete - that's equivalent to five solid working days.

Immediate starting points appeared in the shape of the 'Voice', 'Air' and 'Underground' research. I was particulalrly pleased with the way that the fluid brush strokes had worked in 'Voice' and 'Air'. They appeared direct, confident and economic. To think I nearly discarded that brush pen as a total waste of time. I also liked the idea of being able to pick out creatures on the underground map in the same way that the night sky constellations are generated.

However, 'Fish' gradually became a rich source of ideas. I experimented with different surface techniques and was particulalry taken by the way that ink 'floated' onto wet PVA reacted to give interesting effects.

Roughs explored different fishy connotations, e.g. fish and chips, flying fish, fishing etc. At this point I decided that the ideas really lent themselves to a stylised graphic form appropriate to children's books: the necessary perameters for the brief were then set.

I liked the idea of being able to see both above and below the surface of water at the same time - with the possibility it also offered for being able to float some of the text. As I imagined fish being tempted by the anglers hook it dawned on me that the hook itself could form the body of the 'f' in fish. The notion of the worm as cross bar was then just a step away.

It was then a question of playing with the aesthetics of layout and construction. I tried different techniques to generate the fish and text, all of them offering new learning opportunities. These included; PVA & ink, cut card and drawing directly into 'Illustrator'.

I wanted to utilise a slightly subdued colour palette and was keen to include some pattern and texture. Being quite interested in the decorative arts I looked towards lace and wallpaper for some ideas here.

The final results include scanned pieces of fabric, card and wallpaper.

I obviously learnt a lot about the creative way in which 'Photoshop' and 'Illustrator' can be used, and, as with all media, tools and techniques, the more your knowldege grows, the clearer creative possibilities appear . However, teaching myself these applications, it crosses my mind that I am probably neither using the correct nor the most efficient means to achieve the desired effects.

London 26 Words

Have enjoyed collecting/making some of the images but as far as others go I can't help feeling that I'm gathering images that I'm not really interested in. I'm just being driven by the need to satisfy a quota - daft! - and it feels like it's to the detriment of quality.

Learning a little more about Illustrator - tracing and effects - self-taught.

Is making me think about colour choices - harking back to colour assignment.

26 Faces

Part One - Letter Forms

Shot these in one morning in the garden - assisted by the brilliant light of the low autumn sun. I had a hunch that setting quite tight boundaries might concentrate the mind here and produce more rapid results. I had initially considered trying to extrapolate all letter forms from one single object; for example, a car. But the notion of using the garden began to offer an organic unity in terms of content and palette that was very appealing.

I think the context successfully binds the letter forms into a coherent alphabet.

Really had to search creatively at times and utilise shadows and cropped images. Seem to work well displayed as a grid where the letter forms are pretty much of the correct height in relation to one another.


Part Two - Faces

Electrical equipment provided a rich vein of images. I like the way in which each has definite characteristics. It makes you consider just what it is about the arrangement of features that produces a particular demeanour.

There must be something compelling about this idea - the whole family got involved.

Note to self - User name is my email address.

First ever posting - wow!