Weekly Review 1

To describe what I have done this week would be the same as describing drawing.
As I said in my last journal entry, I have decided the story that I am going to do for this illustrated story.

For the past week I have been working out the story board for the story. Similar to how story boards work for animations, this story board is just showing how the story flows visually. I have yet to figure out if I am to include text at all. I have been suggested to include sound text. As in onomonopias.

BAMF.

Probably not a word I will use...unless I work teleporting into my story somehow...hmmm...that is a thought.

Anyway, I have about more than half of the story board done. It has been described as to look like a train. I spent my time in class, in art class and my free time designing it. Obviously I will have to go through some revisions.

I've looked at some authors. David Wiesner's books were the ones I looked at most in depth. Some of his stories have the most in depth look into textless story telling. It was fascinating how engaging I found the stories though they lacked at words to actually be engaged with. I will post more in-depth research journal sometime this weekend. Here's his website. If you have read his books, please share what you thought of them!

I have at least three journal entries. Fabulous.

I see my mentor everyday, but I have yet to have completed an actual meeting with her yet this week. I have planned to have that done tomorrow.

Next week is break. I plan to spend a lot of time with some children. I may be over at CSMA working as a councilor for their "Arts Break" thing. The kids there are always willing to give me feed back and request little drawings for them. 

I aslo plan to meet up with Anne Mazer, seeing how I haven't been able to do that for the last two weeks. 

So my last thing to say will be a request. 

Could people please comment below (if they read this of course) what their favorite picture book was? Or an author? Or if you don't remember, describe what you liked most about it. It would be very helpful.

Convinced

For the last week I've been teetering on switching to a new tangent for a story. I sort of wanted to go the more dark story thing. But my sister referred that to be like graphic novel-ish. I don't want to do a graphic novel....So I need to stay with my original story.

So what was my original story.

My original idea was to tell a story about how a girl's imagination got away from her as she walked home. It would be full of fantasy and armies of squirrels...but I couldn't find a plot for it. So I decided to abandon it.

The reason I couldn't find a plot for it...mostly has to do with how I designed the main character. She was designed based on me as a kid. I used to walk home and imagine things to entertain me, make up stories for why the white picket fence was falling apart and so on. So the reason I couldn't com up with a plot has to do with it being to closely related to my actual experiences. So I need to distance it from me. I am currently working on redesigning the character and actually giving her her own personality.

My sister Clair was here this past weekend, and we started talking about it. She was the one to convince me to stay the course and make the plot. If I were to not write a children's book, it would make a lot more of what I'm reasearching a lot less meaningful. I intend to use children for feeback. I'll tell them the story, show them some pictures, and maybe they can give me some suggestions. It will be great fun.

So the story...(I actually have something!! YES!!)

It suddenly came to me during Econ today. With much inspiration from my sister's suggestions...yeah.

Here we go:

It starts out with a little girl walking home from school. She's got her back pack full of books and is in about 3rd or 4th grade. As she walks, she starts to imagine things. Like all the houses are castles, the dogs in the yards are dragons and the cats can talk and they sit in the sun with jewelry decorating them. Things are suddenly magical. I hope to have reminders of reality every once in awhile.

Anyway, she ends up rescuing this squirrel creature (I have him designed from my previous attempt at the story, he's very cute.) She either rescues him from a trap, or awakens him from a sleep he couldn't wake from on his own. This thing is a lot bigger than her. In reality, he either doesn't exist at all or is an actual squirrel. I want it to be an actual squirrel. Suddenly they are attacked by the sky/water knights! They come down from the sky, and the girl and her squirrel friend must best them!! It might be through might or perhaps some trickery, I'm am not sure yet. Or they might just runnaway. Considering that in reality this is just rain, I would assume running to shelter would qualify as winning. Or perhaps use of an umbrella sword? I don't know.

Finally, they arrive at the goal, her (house) Castle! But as they are appoaching they go under the gate (perhaps this is where they escape the rain) and go up to the courtyard (front porch) and are ready to open the castle doors...when a ferocious monsterous BEAR appears. And there is no hope what so ever as the bear throws a bag over her...then black. It then reveals a scene of a bemused parent (father or mother? I want it to be father! Then I can make him humongous, cuddly, and adorable. As well as squinty.) who is drying off their daughter after she got caught in the rain. She is protesting. The End. :)

And perhaps there will be an extra page showing surprise at the squirrel who is either freaking out or relaxing in a rather humane way. Maybe perhaps a hint that what she imagined could be reality. Yes. I like this. Now to physically design her, her dad (yes, I have decided, and the fuzzy creature). I must remember to make her have an actual personality!

Be prepared for art dumps sometime soon.

The Plan...

By plan I mean "What I hope I will accomplish within this set amount of time."

The set amount of time being...two weeks.

So what shall I do for the next two weeks? I have a feeling, that actually deciding on a story would be helpful. If fact, in order for me to get anywhere with this, I need to write that story. Shoot. I still feel queasy just thinking about it.  I still feel I have no sense of plot! What am I going to doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo....?

Well. I best get to it. There really isn't any point in waiting. I should just go and read some articles on writing stories or explore some of those websites I found when I was making my Bibliography (that thing was SIX pages long). It actually looked very helpful. Ah ha. Here it is. It is extremely crappy looking, but...I read some of the articles. They were very helpful.

So...I should write the story. "What story?" you might ask? I shall answer...."I have no idea."

Which...isn't completely true. I have a story idea. But it seems rather dark.

The general gist of it is that there is a girl who has lived underground and secluded her whole life. The place she lives is either a science facility or some cave. It depends on how badly I want there to be a clear 'bad guy'. One day, she either escapes to the surface or decides to explore. As a girl who has spent most of her time alone, she is completely unable to relate to anyone in the city. The city will either be extremely technologically advanced or they use magic in a way that it very common knowledge and basic. She will notice she has none of this "magic" (if I choose to go that root) and she'll feel that even if she were able to relate to the people in that world, she would be shunned for being different. The closing argument for her to stay away will be her discovery that in this upper plane....there is no water. No pure water. The society has discovered a way to hydrate themselves, but what can no longer be found as just H2O. This bothers her because she has a strong connection with water. Down in the cave, it was the source of her joy and wonders. I might add that she has some actual magical connection. She won't realize that she does have magic when she chooses to return to the cave. There she will continue as she always had before...perhaps in the story she can make a friend...hmm....

Anyway, I need to get the fine details put down on paper. Perhaps I'll upload it here. Actually...I like that idea, that way I can get feedback.

And now I am supposed to include that I am supposed to talk to a person about said topic. Hmmmmmm...I'm not sure who I want to talk to. I could talk to Anne Mayzer, but I don't really have any contact information on hand, so I'll need to ask my parents. I think I'll do that as soon as I have the story written. Which means I should get it done sooner....hmmm. I could also, perhaps, talk to In Shik Lee. She is a teacher at TC3. My brother had her, and I took a water coloring class with her a couple summers ago. She's a lot of fun. I think she would be interested in helping me. Though she is probably someone to consult about the actual drawings, rather than the story. It might be best to leave her for later.

But anyway, that is what I hope to have done by the time two weeks have passed.

Now see what inspired me for this story idea. I drew it last summer, I still haven't really finished it. :)

Dear Reader

To start off this project, I present to you a theory of mine. My theory is that this blog will actually be used. As a person who does enjoy writing, I do very little of it. Hopefully forcing me to use this website will help me grow out of this inane habit. That is also one of the goals of my project. See, I am in a class called WISE, if you didn't already know. WISE is an English program in which one participates in class for one semester, and then they design a project for themselves and actually DO IT the second semester. The purpose of this class is to help senior High School students to start working in the community and using and acquiring resources that will help them with their goals.

At the end of it, we students, have to make a thirty minute presentation about how we went about completing our project. Thirty. Minutes.

This scares me.

But luckily I have a project I find worth doing.

One of my most favorite things to do in life is to draw. If you find a piece of paper in my possession that does not have a doodle on it, then that piece of paper is either extremely important, or it has not sat idle in front me long enough. I pride myself in my ability, and I love finding ways to incorporate it into everyday things. I thought it would be a perfect talent to use to my advantage in this project. But I had to come up with something to challenge me as well. I then realized one thing. I have never written a story. Well...that isn't completely true. But I haven't written a story that was completely for me and without boundaries. I also realized that if I were to attempt to write a story, it quite possibly my lack a plot. Even children's books have plot.

So it is with this that I have my project. Over the course of the next couple months my project is to write, illustrate and publish a children's book.

This process will include composing the story, and than matching it up with a story board. It is quite possible that I will be telling the story completely without text. I will then use the people around me (children, librarians, piers, family, teachers) for feedback. Hopefully with many points of views I can move along a path that will make me happy as well as those whom I will force to read the book. After the story is rock solid, I will work on perfecting the illustrations. I'm still unsure of the media I intend to use, but hopefully by experimenting I will find one that I like. Since this process will take quite awhile I will be researching and looking in to how I could publish my book. I am aware of the self-publishing website, lulu.com, and think it is a definite option, but I still need to look into other options to make sure it is the right choice.

So, again, hopefully I won't hit to many rocks on my way. It's very hard to draw anything if the table isn't still.