Monday 18 April 2011

What is involved in collaboration and in the working relationship between Author and Illustrator?

Introduction


In order to research the workings of the author/illustrator relationship when it comes to collaborating, I will be working first hand with a friend, Richard Standen and his writing partner Tom Stanley.
They have written a children’s book entitled, ‘The Kangaroo Who Lost A Shoe’, aimed at an audience of 5-8 year olds.  Using this story, I am going to illustrate snippets from it, which will then be made into a collection of 7 postcards as the final products.  There will be five 4”x 6” postcards and two longer 4”x 8” ones.  I thought postcards would be the most effective way for me to focus on the core parts and characters in the story rather than illustrating the entire book, which is around 120 pages long.

The research will be done by communication via email, phone and meeting in person to determine what the authors want for the end products.  I am setting up a blogspot.com website to show updates from the project and to use as a diary of events, which I feel will highlight and document the process of collaboration leading to a conclusion, which will be the products created.  This blog will also clarify the complications involved in the process, the communication, the styles, the visual ideas from both parties, the possible differences in opinions and the different depictions of characters and settings.  Taking the text from the story into account, I will email the images and then await critical feedback on each, so that I can get a better idea of what is required from me.

To get a better insight, I will also be looking at the working relationships and collaborations between other artists, illustrators and authors, film directors and actors etc.  This will hopefully help me to establish and get a more in depth look at the process as a whole.

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