It's Okay to be Afraid

During my final year, one of the briefs that I chose to do was "Fear is good for you." For this brief, we had to work out "how do you promote fear as a healthy option to an already fear-ridden society?" 

The questions, which we had to answer were:

Who will be your target audience?

What are they afraid of?

What should they be afraid of?

How do you make fear seem natural to an audience who only associate it with extreme states of panic?

Having brainstormed different areas of fear, I decided I wanted to research fear in childhood because the things which children are fearful of, are usually irrational and they have a completely different outlook on life. They tend to fear things, which they can overcome or their fears can be influenced by their parents.

I decided to look into the things, which different age groups are fearful of:

Age 2 - 4:

Fear of animals, loud noises, being left along, inconsistent discipline, toilet training, baths, bedtime, monsters and ghost, bed wetting, disabled people, death and injury.

Age 4 - 6: 

Fear of darkness and imaginary creatures, animals, bedtime, monsters and ghosts. 

Beyond the age of 6, fear of darkness or being left alone and fear of animals tend to be common.

It's usually around the child's 2nd birthday, when they start developing fear and between the ages of 3 - 6, children sometimes confuse reality, dreams and fantasy. However fear is a normal part of development and fears such as fear of seperation is an indication of growth.

Therefore I wanted to created an aid to help parents show to their children that fear is healthy and a normal part of growing up, so I decided a children's book seemed like the right solution.

With this book, I wanted to present fear as part of who you are and that it's okay to be afraid because it means that you are growing up.

I decided on a story, which follows two friends on their search for Big Foot. The two friends consist of Leo, who is scared of everything, which is ironic since he looks kind of like a lion and Noah, who is brave. Since he was named after Noah and the Ark, I wanted him to be the leader of the two. However once they encounter a dangerous situation in the woods, it changes everything! For once Leo is brave, where as Noah runs away and when the dangerous situation is no longer a problem, Noah's brave demeanor returns and he denies that he was scared, but Leo doesn't believe him and tells him that it’s okay to be afraid.

For the book, I decided to illustrate all the images by hand, then scan them in to edit. Below I have included some of the original drawings from the book:

After sorting through the images, I researched some typefaces. I decided on Clarendon 24pt, because I wanted a slab serif that was easy for children to read. As well as it was going on white pages, so I wanted it to have a presence.

Once the layout was finished, I took the book to be printed and bound:

Unfortunately the images were pixelated and I wasn't happy with my book, so I had to redo all my images on illustrator (which I probably should have done in the first place.) After editing the book a bit, here is the finished result:

For more images of the final piece please visit: http://miss-pang.com/It-s-Okay-to-be-Afraid

Oregon Inspiration

After my time in Seattle, my brother and I made our way to Hood River and Portland to visit some friends. 

   

1) Kresse Drug Company sign in Hood River.

2) Mike's Ice Cream in Hood River.

3) View from the really long stairs in Hood River.

4) Across the bridge to the Marina, Hood River.

5) Pumpkins!

6) Mount Hood Railroad Sign.

7) Lan Su Chinese Gardens, Portland.

8) Oregon Zoo.

9) Hoyt Arboretum, Portland.

10) Portland Japanese Garden.

11) Yayoi Kusama x Louis Vuitton Window Display.

Saatchi Gallery - August 2013

It's been a while since I blogged about an exhibition or a gallery that I've been to. I kind of miss it, so I'm going to try to start again.

A few weeks ago, I made the effort to go to the Saatchi Gallery. Here are some photos from my trip.

 1) Dawn Clements - "Travels with Myra Hudson"

2) Dawn Clements - "Movie"

3) Dawn Clements - Close up of "Untitled (Coloured Kitchen)"

4) Jodie Carey - "The Daily Mail - Arrangement One"

5) Miler Lagos - "Fragments del Tiempo "

6) Close up of the branches.

7) Yuken Teruya - "Golden Arch Parkway McDonald's (Blue Tree)"

8) Yuken Teruya -"LVMH - Louis Vuitton"

9) Tom Thayer - "Nature Scene"

10) Marcelo Jacome - "Planos-pipas n17"

11) Elisa Strozyk - "Fading Red"

12) Victor Ash - "The Red Dog"

13) Guvenc Ozel - "Cerebral Hut"

14) Jeongmoon Choi - "Drawing in space - Transformation"

Attracting Wildlife

During my first year at Uni, we had a project that everyone had to do called The London Project.
For this project, we went on a walk and draw from Holborn to the Tate Modern along the Southbank and on this journey we had to find something that inspired us.  My favourite thing that I saw on my journey was a squirrel, so I decided to do a project about attracting more squirrels to the Thames. I ended up making some biodegradable feeders from citrus fruits and used cotton string to hang them up. I decided that I wanted them to be bright and colourful, which is why I chose citrus fruits. As well as it had to be biodegradable because I didn't want to harm the environment. 

Once they were made, I decided to test out these feeders and I knew that St James Park has a variety of wildlife. It seemed to work well and lets just say I made lots of animals friends that day because I was the food lady.

For the final piece, I made a poster with a photo of the feeders, but truthfully it wasn't very good. However recently I was thinking about revisiting some projects and I really liked those feeders that i made and I felt that I could do more with the project. So I decided to turn this project into attracting more wildlife into our gardens because it's a good way to teach children about wildlife and I just quite enjoy watching wildlife visiting my garden. 

Therefore I decided to make a little fold out leaflet, which teaches you how to make the biodegradable feeders and illustrated the instructions, so that it's simple enough to create and could even be a project to do with children. I decided to separate it into eight sections, so when you fold it up, each section has a single instruction. Below is a picture of my instructions.

Then I coloured them in with watercolours to make them colourful and enjoyable to look at.
The picture on the left has a plain background and on the right, I decided to try a dotted coloured background, which I ended up quite liking.

So one side was done, but on the other side was blank, so I decided to create an illustration showing the feeders with imaginary animals coming to visit. My illustration started from a photo that I took of the three feeders that I made.

 

As I coloured the instructions in with watercolours, I thought it would be best to do the other side as well.

 

My next step after that was to draw some animals to go into my illustration. I decided on a blackbird, a squirrel and a wood pigeon because they are all animals that you may find visiting your garden.

Then I added the animals to my illustrations and decided to colour in my background, which I thought turned out quite nicely, but I felt that the feeders needed some colour. However I decided to keep the animals in black and white because I wanted it to look as though, only with the feeders can you attract these animals to your garden.

I ended up colouring the feeders in bright colours because I wanted them to be eye catching as they are the main focus of the piece.

Once everything was done, I tested it out and ended up printing it out on 160gsm card because I wanted it be durable.

 For more images of the final piece please visit: http://miss-pang.com/Attracting-Wildlife