Seika Classes: Illustration, the Little Red Riding-hood assignment

The assignment:

In the third week after my arrival in Japan I finally started my illustration class assignment. We were given the assignment to make a picturebook image for the story of the classic Grimm story “Little Red Riding-hood”.

The specifications were only that the final work had to be on a panel covered with paper at the size of 760mm x 1080mm and we had to finish it in 2,5 weeks.

My tutor, Nakamura-sensei, very kindly gave me a translated copy of the little red riding-hood story which was very hilarious and a bit strange because it was a literal translation from Japanese into english, but it did help to fresh up my memory about the details of the original story. It had sentences in it like: '"what do you have under your apron, little red cap?" Said the big bad wolf' and many more of that nature.

I actually felt this kind of assignment back home in The Netherlands would be giving in the first or second year, but I guess it is just how you go about it that sets the level of the work.

The process:

Of course I started off by (very roughly) sketching ideas.

just for fun

I wanted it to be lurking, it not being cute but it being the adult story that it is underneath it's fairytale skin. The dark lurking woods had to be at the center of it as I wanted to make the viewer feel as if they were being lost and swept up inside the deep darkness of it.

I started to draw trees and from that shaped flowed a more geometrical shape to give a feeling of being captured and dizziness, being lost in a labyrinth of trees. I experimented with the shape and made it so that it would connect and thus form a pattern on the big paper, functioning as a backdrop for the main image and as a dazzling whole to capture the viewer.

I decided to make a linocut stamp for this so to stamp the pattern on the paper.

From the shape of the trees the main shape of the triangle came to be 

Making it have dept for the 'deep forest' effect but still keeping it clean and not too crowded. I tend to work with a certain sobriety.

Then on to working out the main piece.

Concept:

For the main I wanted to do an inwards layering image that would begin big and which would pull your view inwards towards the center.

I knew already quite quickly after this thought that I wanted the wolf to play the biggest part and for LRRH (little red riding-hood) to play the minor but equally as important part. I chose not to depict the hunter and grandmother as I did in earlier sketches because I wanted this moment to focus on the wolf and LRRH as the story according to Freud is about sexuality and becoming an adult.

This fact it wanted to show in image-rhyme (beeldrijm) and as subtleties which would slowly seep into your brain.

For example. The nose of the wolf I shaped to slightly resemble a penis. It is not a hard graphic penis as I don't not want it to be vulgar but to give the picture the same subtlety has the original story's metaphor for sex. Inside the nose of it, the nostrils form a uterus, suggesting penetration and womanhood.

Other imagery rhythms are that LRRH her face is at the same time the throathole of the wolf, the front strand of her hair is his uvula(huig). Her mouth is shaped like a house, suggesting grandmother's house and the path that leads towards this house is also the tongue of the wolf. The wolf's fur at the end on the bottom shapes the outline of trees/a forest which has to strengthen the “lost woods” feeling and work together with the background pattern.

final version of 760mm x 1080mm

Material:

For the pattern I, as mentioned, made a lino cut about the size of an adult man's hand and mounted this on wood for a good grasp when stamping. I used black sponge inkpads for inking.

For the wolf I used a thick, sharp coal pencil which I had discovered and bought a week earlier in the art shop at school, this coal pencil gave to me a very natural feeling like wood, moss and rough rocks but at the same time had the depressing, loaming color I wanted for the wolf's fur.

The inside of the mouth had to have the big contrast and I used an oily piece of black crayon to outline LRRH and work out the darkness inside the wolf's gaping mouth.

I choose to use black and only a small amount of red on and around Little Red as I tend to work all B/W in my of my work, so this was a style choice which fits/represents me. Also I feel the story asked for this dark and depressing contrast while the red being more of a sexually aspect and had to be delicate.

Ironically enough the day before the critique was to take place I cut into my pinky finger with a sharp Japanese kitchenknife and my red blood flowed richly. I still had to finish the last little its on the big picture canvas at that point and so in the evening, with stitches and a numb left hand added the red into it.

The Crit:

The next day after the cutting incident was the critique. I was infront of the whole class and 4 teachers.

2 men and 2 women from the illustration department where there to give feedback on the work.

I was last and Oha, the man who guided me to the hospital, was there to translate technical words and feedback for me.

I was last and so first sat through the crits of the other students. This gave me the opportunity to see their works, most of which for the first time as everyone kept their work-in-process quite to themselfs.

What was very peculiar was that almost everyone works in a very cute way, only thinking about what you see and not about concept or meaning. The skill level of everyone in class is incredibly high and so technically it was interesting to see, but most of them were just cute images, not expressing much, just LRRH skipping happily through the forest with a basket of wine and bread, things like that. It would have been much more interesting to look at if next to their amazing skill they had a good and fascinating idea behind their images. Though some people (about 3 or 4 ) had crazy weird things and ideas which along with mad skill made them highly interesting to look at. I don't have pictures of other people their work, they kept so secret about it up to the critiques, I didn't feel comfortable asking or just taking.

I later talked with a friend about how speaking openly or making work openly about one's thoughts is not something that is accepted in the Japanese society and so heavy, depressing, deep or critical concepts are hardly a thing in the works of the students here.

My critique went well, the teachers were interested and happy with the fact that I thought about my concept and how I wanted to reach out to the viewer. They had not seen anyone using stamp pattern yet and all 4 of them came up to my work and almost touching it with their noses looked at the detail. The only point of feedback they gave was to let LRRH standout even more and to make the contrast inside the mouth even bigger. Other than that, all was okay.

The next assignment:

Right after the critique we were given a paper with the explanation of the next illustration class assignment. MORE little red riding-hood.

The assignment, which as of writing this we are in week 3 of, is to make the full picturebook about LRRH. The specifications are: Design a jacketcover, the front and back of the bookcover, title page, colofon and the illustrated inside which has to be 6 spreads. So a 14 pages book with jacketcover.

We were given all the freedom with the story and were even allowed to change the content. I used this opportunity to change it into a new Japanese folkmyth. I am highly interested in Shinto, Japan's number one religion and I have been studying the subject in my free time for years.

I rewrote the story and Little red riding-hood became a Miko(shrine maiden) who all traditionally wear a red hakama, japanese skirt/pants and other red features. The wolf became a fox, which in Japan is a highly regarded animal aswell in a good as in a bad way. In front of many shrines they serve as stone gate guardians. The story I am writing is about how they became encased in stone there and thus creating a new myth.

All details inside the story, like a red ancient holy bow and a key are all related in reality to the Shinto religion.

The jacket typography I will be making myself, it will be a western readable script that is in style based on the Japanese Katakana script. Katakana is a script used to write/read foreign words in Japanese language. It is a phonetic script and so I am making use of the way the katakana looks and of the way it sounds to create a new typography for it. What is seen here above is a small test for look and composition. 

First image that I wanted to be in the picturebook.

Semi-rough storyboard:

I spoke about and showed my storyboard to my teacher Kishimoto-sensei and she was pleasantly surprised by this change and was very interested in the fact that it is so accurately involving Shinto and Japanese tradition. So she gave me green light for continuing to develop the picturebook. She did suggest to change the last scene and tell more about what exactly is happening.


Designing the jacket and front/back:

I am intrigued by the Japanese gingko biloba tree and it's leafs. Also called the Ichou here, the leafs have had a hypothesizing effect on me ever since I saw them years ago. I even wear a solid golden one around my neck. So for me, this leaf represents Japanese nature and as Shinto is the religion of nature it was only logical to me to use the Ichou leaf pattern in the book.

I will do a jacket that is covered in the leaf and the inside with be a more simple and elegant pattern with a different and smaller leaf.

leaf to for the jacket pattern

simpler design to make a pattern with for the inside front and back

To be continued...