Child’s Play?

After spending almost a year finding the right Masters course, I have finally enrolled at the UCLAN’s post-graduate programme. The course is centred on children’s book illustration which I have worries about it.

I’ve always trained myself to be an illustrative ‘all rounder’ and find the prospect of specialising in children’s illustration is a little daunting Not only is children’s illustration a hugely competitive market – of which I know almost nothing about, it’s also an area with an astounding number of artists already working in or seeking work in it. Most importantly, ‘Kid-Lit” is also difficult to get right. Children don’t have an inner editing system. If they don’t like something - they will let you know. (Trust me - I’ve often regretted the decision to encourage my children to speak their minds!)

Producing a narrative in my work is also concern. Over the past couple of years I’ve focused on single images or character designs. I haven’t needed to consider explanatory backdrops, props or supporting characters. I haven’t needed to move a story forward or develop sympathetic interaction of image and text on the page. I simply have enormous gaps in my knowledge and experience.

So, while I’m starting the course with a great deal of trepidation, I’m entering it with an open mind, an eagerness to get back to study and a confidence that I probably know more than I think I realise.

Both my children and I thoroughly enjoy reading ‘kids’ books. We have accumulated an ever increasing library that I’m hoping to re-purpose for study. (I’m enjoying the prospect of baffling some of my colleagues when I’m citing Winnie the Poo as a reference for my MA.) My wife and extended family contain secret weapons in the form of literacy specialists working in the primary sector. My own teaching experiences have shaped me into a huge advocate of instilling literacy at an early age.

I’m still making weekly submissions to the Colour Collective and the Endangermals project will come to a conclusion in the next few weeks. I still believe the concept has a great deal of potential and I’d like to use it as a vehicle to explore styles and techniques. It is, after all, meant to be a children’s flip book.

I made a test drive last week to get my bearings and the find the campus. It was a mixed emotional experience. I used to make an excruciating, two hour commute from Derby to Preston when working as a photographer and it’s been at least eighteen years since I last visited. I eventually found the building I used to work in and I paused to enjoy a sandwich in the same spot where I used to take my lunch almost two decades ago. It allowed a moment to reflect on where and what I have become over the past twenty years. It also gave time to consider what I’m going to do next.

Which, I suppose, is essentially the point of a journal.