For my final major I'd like to focus on illustration as my speciality and create something that may be helpful in developing career opportunity’s in that sector. I'd like to play to my strengths but also do something I've never done before and as such I'm looking to create an illustrated book for children. This allows me to focus on storytelling and the style/theme of illustration I'd like to focus in and also touches on my plans to become a art teacher and work with children myself.
I'd like to focus on the topic of death for my book. Primarily for personal reasons, my mother passed away from cancer when I was sixteen and at the time I dabbled in creating a children’s book on the theme as p art of my way to deal with her loss. Recently I received some very positive reviews on it from among others, a children’s therapist (who stated that it was the exact sort of book she'd want to give children dealing with grief to read and enquired after purchasing a copy) which has really inspired me to have another go at it. My plan is to take the prose from this and re-work the book into something far more presentable. I'd like to look into ways of making the illustrations, layout and medium different without taking away from the story.
Admittedly while I think this project would be useful in perusing both the careers I want to break into, my motives behind it are also personal. I really like the idea of creating something that could help children dealing with loss, to be able to create something truly positive out of a particularly bad event for myself.
Deliverables would be the finial book itself, but also re-writting/editing of the existing prose, character re-designing and the illustrations themselves. I'd like to get the book properly printed for this project (if not for hand-in, then for the final show) at, for example, LuLu Online publishing (www.lulu.com)
