Final BA Project + Graduation

So I graduated from Vilnius Academy of Art! I'm enjoying my free time and reflecting upon these past four years. I'm glad I didn't go crazy because it was definitely not easy. The presentation of my picture book went quite smoothly. I got a positive feedback, which really boosted my confidence since I didn't know what to expect. I know it was hard for somebody who didn't follow my creative process to evaluate my project, but I'm glad it made an impression and evoked various emotions.

This project is published on Behance if you want to see the whole story. I'm sharing some photos in here as well. It was a challenge to work with such a big format as I cut and bound the book myself. I printed and cut out three characters to stick on a white wall behind my book. It was quite a contrast to my small original sketches, but it's interesting to see your characters grow big. I think the white space around them echoes my book, which was made larger with that purpose in mind.

 

    

Now I'm trying to make an English version of my book so more people can understand and appreciate the story. This will be a challenge because translation changes some compositions and the rhyme of the text. Anyways, it's worth giving it a try and improve on working with the text.

It's hard to believe my studies at the art academy are over. All in all, it was a useful experience. Quite a change after studying traditional painting for two years in the US! I'd like to share my art progress someday, but it'll take time to reflect upon these twenty or so years. The art academy offered different printmaking techniques, academic drawing and book art. I also began painting in ink, which I haven't tried before. I went to the UK and studied illustration as an Erasmus exchange student. I rediscovered my passion for children's books again since I was into novels and comics as a teen.

The last year at the art academy was challenging and impressive. Two very different finished picture books in eight months! The first was created in collaboration with my sister and the last one is an authorial picture book. I'm so glad I challenged myself because now I'll have more confidence in being the writer and illustrator at the same time. This was my dream when I was about twelve. There's still a way to go for my books to get published...

I have to work on my storytelling techniques and storyboarding. I'll try to update my blog more often. By the end of summer, I want to be prepared for my postgraduate studies in children's book illustration. I'll be moving to the UK, Cambridge, where I took the children's book illustration summer course a year ago. I really enjoyed it and will make a post about it soon. Hopefully, these studies will be a huge step forward in my career as a picture book artist. I need to work harder!

Final BA Project week 17

It's already summer! Spring was so late and so quick. A few more days left to end my final project at the art academy. I'll take some photos of my graduation show on Tuesday. Before that, I need to make some conclusions about my creative process so I can talk about it during the presentation. Here's an overview of the story development during these four busy months.

Below you can see how my story begins. I'll show the rest of my finished spreads next week.



The author was creating an extraordinary story, but forgot something very important. The main character was missing! What?! How on earth would someone forget something so important? It seems that everything is possible in the creative process. The author started looking for the main character for his story. However, none of the creatures he met was suitable and even worse, they were haunting and annoying him. Did the author give up on his search? He definitely lost his patience at the end. Ironically, rejected characters became part of the author's story, which eventually turns out to be about himself. What a discovery!

But the journey doesn't end here since imagination plays a huge role in my book. The reader is welcome to interpret the story as he wants. There are a lot of questions and no obvious answers. The main character is mysterious. There's not a single word in the book describing him. The author describes the characters he meets but we can only guess what they are thinking as they don't speak. We don't know much about the author, but he's the one telling his story to the reader so we follow him along not knowing what to expect. That's exactly how I felt when I was creating this story.

The initial idea for this project was an action sequence with contrasting and interacting characters in a form of a concertina book. I was thinking in adjectives such as big/small, loud/silent, quick/slow. I also had an idea for a character alphabet, but soon abandoned it due to its restrictive educational purpose. I also didn't want to limit my audience to little kids. I aimed at creating unique characters and enjoying the creative process. I understood that it's better to leave more questions and space for imagination than give away all the answers. My thoughts struggled with my feelings, just like the author did with the random characters. I had to embrace uncertainty and use it to my advantage.

While the random spontaneous characters were easy to make, the character of the author was very hard to create. First of all he's invisible like most narrators are and we can only hear what he's saying. At the beginning, he had an arrogant attitude and was complaining directly to the characters how bad they are. I had an image of  a character from my previous book to visualize him. At one point, I even used him surrounded by all the characters in a huge final spread. This spread was eliminated when I decided I won't use the same characters twice in my book. It only had twelve spreads without the title page so each one had to be unique. I also didn't want my story to end with an obvious answer so this idea was rejected.

Hey, I wanted to be the main character!

 Doesn't look like you belong here...

The author's speech changed the most during all this time. Adjectives changed into verbs to describe specific action and relate to the author, for example, the creatures ate his thoughts, followed him, stared at him and surrounded him. I even rhymed some of them to emphasize repetition. I explained my progress with typography in the previous post. It was a really long and frustrating process, but in the end I realized that I needed something more playful and expressive and hand-writing was closer to drawing experience. 

The main theme of my book is the analysis of creative process, which is a collaboration between thoughts and feelings. It is such a unique experience. It is not something you can repeat again and again. Every time the creative journey is different and unpredictable. There is so much to it that it can't fit in a single book. The main character is found only in the reader's imagination. The book was supposed to challenge thinking, encourage reflection and inspire to experiment.

Final BA Project week 11-16

I'm back and my book is already sent for printing! What a long and unpredictable journey it was.

I was struggling at the end finding the right words to tell my story and expressing my own voice. I'm not a master at typography so this explains why I was so slow with this part of my book. Although I liked the contrast of digital text and traditionally painted illustrations, I felt like it was restricting my self-expression. So I took a water-brush and spent a whole week writing verbs in each spread to express specific action. I also used coloured ink so it turned out to be more playful.

Below is an example of my progression with typography on a single spread from my book. I kept changing sizes, typefaces, compositions and words until I found the right solution for it.

I only had a week to work on my handwritten words before sending my book to print. It was both stressful and enjoyable at the same time!

 

 

I felt so overwhelmed by the typography at one point, I didn't draw for quite a long time. Fortunately, I'm coming back to sketching again. Here are some random characters from my sketchbook. I used a couple of them in my picture book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My final BA project is not over yet, so there will be more updates later on, including finished spreads from my book and some reflection on my story. Thanks for waiting!

Final BA Project week 9 and 10

These past two weeks, after coming back from Bologna, I was working on my BA project non-stop. I played with my rough compositions and tried to integrate the text as a character. I'm using InDesign again for this project as I did in my previous collaborative book.

During the ninth week I was in a bit of a standstill and unsure what to do with the text in my book. I simply made it static and monotonic only to see that it wouldn't work for my story. This explains why I didn't show any progress last week - there was hardly any at all! Luckily, I regained my confidence after getting some good critique and advice last week. I realized once again that the text had to play an important role and interact with other characters. How else can the author express his emotions if he's not visible anywhere in the book? This is not an ordinary book after all!

I chose a sans serif typeface as I liked its solid contrast compared with my painterly characters. It's going to be black against the plain white background throughout all the book. I think this solution follows my main goal of simplicity quite well. However, it's easier said than done and so hard to achieve good results. The best examples of such books I found are either Asian or created by designers using simple colours and shapes.

This week I'll keep working on my story as it needs further development. I'll also print some original size sample spreads and choose the paper I like. By next week my project should be 75% finished and my story well developed and convincing. I still don't have a decent ending to my story so I'm ready for something unpredictable. That's how it works with the creative process. Embrace uncertainty and improvise! It's one of a kind project for me, where the story is driven by random characters and thoughts instead of an obvious main character and a clear plot. I'm glad I took this challenge, but now I have to make it a proper book with the beginning, the middle and the end!

Here are the first five spreads from my book. You'll see more next week!

    

Final BA Project week 6

Week after a week I'm getting closer to my goal and facing more and more challenges along the way. There are so many things to keep in mind when making your own picture book. It's not a quick process, indeed, but at least it's enjoyable.

I'm halfway through with my BA project and for now I have established a basic storyline and made a small dummy book. The text will be integrated in my illustrations and will be an important part of design. The spreads you see below are quite experimental and although I want them to be playful, I'll have to work on the overall feel of my book. Even a total chaos should have some harmony in it.

 

I think it's a perfect time to step back from this project and take a short break. Next week I'll be visiting Bologna Children's Book Fair together with my sister. I'm really excited because we've never been there before and this year the fair is celebrating its 50th anniversary. We'll get a closer look at the publishing industry and the vast variety of children's books from all over the world.

No post next week, but expect lots of photos once I come back. See you in April!

Final BA Project week 5

Yesterday I had a critique of my project. Looks like I've been stuck for a while with the design of my book. As much as I enjoy drawing random characters, it's about time to focus on the hardest part of book making - putting it all together.

I was advised to use a sketchbook format for my book. This would make sense as it's such an important part of the creative process! I was focused too much on a clean and simple presentation of my characters so it started to look dull and repetitive. Hey, where's your playfulness?

I'm still working on my storyboard, which is taking way too long. My creative process is more intuitive and spontaneous than thought-out. Not very time-efficient, but as long as I enjoy the process, that's all that matters. About ten weeks left to finish this project!

Next week we'll have a midterm review, so it would be good to have a rough dummy book printed out by then. Lots to work on this week, but at least, now I do know what I want, although it took me more than a month to figure it out. I need to make the process of creating as FUN as I can. That's the key to a successful picture book. Of course, you have to believe in your project as well. Even if it takes a lot of failures since that's part of the process too...

A great designer and illustrator Rilla Alexander gave an inspiring talk about her creative process, which I found very relevant to my BA project. She explains how "Her Idea" came to life and how strongly it was influenced by her own creative struggles. At the end of the talk, you can hear her reading this wonderful book, which could be appreciated both by children and adults. So down-to-earth and sincere, please enjoy!

 

 

 

Final BA Project week 4

It's already a month since I started working on my final project at Vilnius Academy of Arts. Still a long way to go until my book is finished, but it's working pretty well so far. Looking back at my very first sketches, I know that I'm moving in the right direction. Just stay positive until the end!

 

Last week I came back to painting my characters again. The technique I'm using is rather spontaneous and unpredictable so I always end up with a one-of-a-kind character. I really enjoy this process as I never know what I'll end up with. Instead of thinking what to create, ink painting allows me to follow the brushstrokes and my intuition. I love playing with colours too.

I realized that these characters are actually illustrations of various feelings while the text mirrors the author's thoughts. I was quite surprised that everything is much more simple and clear than I first imagined. My initial concept was about the author looking for the main character for his book. I'll stick to it in my storytelling, but now I know the main theme of my book too. It's the fight between thoughts (author) and feelings (rejected characters). Who will win this big fight?

It turns out that my story will be about the creative process. Just like in A Book about, where twins were struggling to create a book together. The creative journey itself is very important and inspiring to me. It's definitely not easy, but how can somebody be dedicated and not enjoy it? Learn from your mistakes and have fun!

I tried to create my first spreads mixing these characters with some hand-written words. After receiving some valuable critique, I understood that it's better to keep the text more subtle to contrast with my expressive illustrations. I'll try to work on that next time and constantly look for the right balance between word and picture.

I also don't have all of my text written down, so this is gonna be the main goal for this week. Gotta have something decent to work with instead of messing around with some random words. Time to get more professional, it's my final BA project after all!

The author of this book is getting annoyed and mad...



 

 

 

... those feelings are really hard to control sometimes, aren't they?

So what will happen next? Wait and see, it's gonna be one long journey...