P4: Exercise 4.4 Using basic narrative structure

For this exercise we were to choose a previous sketch and duplicate it three times. Using a pencil and eraser we were to take away and add things to the sketches in order to show a narrative across the three drawings.
I chose the war memorial from my sketch walk in a previous exercise because I thought it could be an interesting place to create a narrative for.

As I thought about how I could create a narrative for this monument, I also thought about which illustrators I am influenced by, especially in terms of creating a scene from panels. I instantly thought of Raymond Briggs, one of my favourite illustrators. Looking over several of Briggs books as referenced below, I noticed that some contain words alongside the illustrations and in the case of 'The Snowman' book no words at all. Since I personally prefer no added words and the exercise called for narrative using illustrations only this influence was a good choice.

Briggs, R. (1996). The bear. London: Red Fox.

Briggs, R. (2010). The snowman. London: Puffin.

Briggs, R. (2013). Father Christmas. London: Puffin Books.

Briggs, R. and Jones, N. (2003). Blooming books. London: Jonathan Cape.

Bower, S. (2016). Understanding perspective. USA: Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.


So with the monument in mind, I sketched out three panels. I originally thought I would do long narrow panels, but that didn't really work as shown below.

I decided to go for three smaller ones, landscape view. I chose seasons as my narrative and changed the scene according to those seasons. I researched about when the poppy wreaths are taken down on a war memorial and found out there is no specific rule, it is up to the council to remove any that look past their best. So with this in mind I included them in Autumn, since that's when Remembrance Sunday occurs and continued them into Winter. They don't appear in Summer.

I really liked how these sketches came out but noticed how my perspective was really off. I turned to my book Understanding Perspective:

Bower, S. (n.d.). Understanding perspective.

This helped me understand about viewpoints and I chose eye level view point for my next set of sketches.

For this next passage of time I chose weather as my narrative. It was a lot of fun to try to illustrate the different weather conditions for each frame. On a larger scale and more detail I think these sketches could look quite good.

For the final narrative I chose the life cycle of a Dahlia flower, which featured in my sketch walk previously.

Starting off as a round bud, opening up into a beautiful flower and finally dying off into a pointy used bud. This represents the change in form, as the bud changes shapes between coming into flower and dying off.

Reflection:

This was a really interesting exercise, thinking about how you can tell a story through sketches without words, was challenging and thought provoking.

I enjoyed illustrations the seasons and weather and found the details fun. Illustrating the Dahlia was harder since it was a more basic illustration and didn't have as much detail to include. 

This exercise technique will  be a good reminder for future work and something to practice to help me to express narrative in a clearer way.

Key words to move forward with: Perspective, detail, reference.