The Big Read Project
The Big Read project is one we started soon after making the Park Royal Illustrations and was one that was pretty important not just for the sake of grades but also raising money for charity. This is because the outcomes of this project went into a book that is being printed and distributed to schools for them to sell to raise money for their programs and the book itself is to help promote and encourage reading for young people. Like the project before it, this was collaborative meaning that a contest was held where children entered Lymric poems and we then took them and made a fitting 2 page spread. it could be a comic, two illustrations, one page of drawing and one for the text or a large illustration over the two page spread. I opted for the last option and spread the text over the page to guide the eye, even adding a little artistic lettering.
Process
My first sketch was made of blocked in colours to plan placement and colourscheme all at once. The text was very rough at this point and the reading order didn't quite flow in a way that would for certain let the reader know which way to go. I also initially wanted to spell the word breeze with more bees but found it blended too much into the background if I did that and I switched it to honey later. I then made two options for the final to see weather I could get advice on what to choose. The font wasn't quite perfect even then and didn't fit the childlike illustration so I got help from my tutor to pick a new font for the final piece.
Finally, I separated out the cheese asset I drew on it's own layer and drew some loose bees and submitted them with transparent backgrounds. This is because we all needed to hand in art that could be mashed together on the cover. The bees also wound up handy for filling empty space in the final book to tie everything together neatly which was a pleasant side effect of drawing them.