My illustration work in books.

The 8x8 Anthology launch took place at 2pm on the 24th of October at The Anthony Burgess Foundation. Many came to see our presentation as part of the Manchester Literature Festival, where the creative writing students included in the book went on stage to read small sections of their stories, and some of the illustrators went up to answer questions prepared by our tutor Joanna Spicer.

I worked with Laura Brown and her story; 'As It Was' and was asked about how I chose what to put in to my two illustrations.

"Jo asked Jadine Butler about how she set about the task of designing something to go with Laura Brown’s As It Was, and she explained how she “tried to pick the two most symbolic moments in the text”, which includes a half-eaten piece of toast, which, indeed is very representative. Robert says of Laura: “She’s very good at leaving it entirely to the reader to work it out, using the little tiny things to say a lot more.”(MLF Blog 2012)

It is great to see my work in context and actually published in to a book (even though the main image sadly got cropped). We all managed to keep a copy for ourselves, and mine now shares a shelf with all the other illustration books I have purchased over the years.

I have also being printing my 'Female Facade' summer project work in to a zine, after having several book binding workshops with Lucy Wilson. This was another great opportunity to see how my work would look when presented in a book. A zine is a way to put a small amount of your work together in to a tangible object for the public to look at, almost like a hand out. They have always been something quite disposable for me, but Lucy taught us that the process of book binding can be just as important as the content and both can inform one another. So my final product holds more value to me now. It feels special, and I hope that this will make it stand out amongst many others.

I chose coptic binding to hold the book together because the pattern which forms down the spine resembles a platt, which of course has female connotations. I also doubled the thread I used (which was already incredibly thick) so it was very difficult to stitch, but worth it, because the pattern is much more noticeable. The images inside portray the story of adam and eve and how the female was initially created from a physical part of man, and how from the moment she picked fruit from the tree, she has been seen as a deviant.

MlF Blog [Online] Available at: http://manchesterliterature.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/sweet-sixteen.html
See Lucy Wilson's Website here: http://www.elizabethsheart.com/