Illustration / Part 4: Animals
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
– George OrwellHe who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.
– Emmanuel KantThe greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
– Mahatma GandhiI’m not an animal lover if that means you think things are nice if you can pat them, but I am intoxicated by animals.
– Sir David Attenborough
Further to my three recent posts on the natural world – Part 1: Trees, Part 2: Shrubs & Vines and Part 3: Flowers – I am now posting the fourth theme (out of 12 in total) that have most commonly ‘appeared’ throughout my work in order to mark my 10th anniversary of graphic design and illustration. It is the last part of the natural world focusing on animals divided into three sections – insects, birds, small and large mammals. While the majority of work shown below was done for book covers, the section on small mammals also includes artworks showing ‘a cat, a dog and a mouse at play’ for a children’s book of poetry on 12 colours called Barvice (Eng. Coloured Pencils). Finally, I am, additionally, posting the fourth section – weird and wonderful animals I encountered during the last trip to Mexico (Oaxaca), where I undertook a research as part of art residency (Nov 2012–Jan 2013) on various aspects of Mexico for the upcoming children’s picture book.
1. Insects
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
– Muhammad Ali
I should like to present myself to the young painters of the year 2000 with the wings of a butterfly.
– Pierre BonnardOur treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.
– Friedrich NietzscheAs Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
– Franz Kafka, The MetamorphosisThe artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.
– Pablo Picasso
2. Birds
No one is free, even birds are chained to the sky.
– Bob Dylan
Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.
– Tom Waits
A bird doesn’t sign because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.
– Maya Angelou
A forest bird never wants a cage.
– Henrik Ibsen
The tree I had in the garden as a child, my beech tree, I used to climb up there and spend hours. I took my homework up there, my books, I went up there if I was sad, and it just felt very good to be up there among the green leaves and the birds and the sky.
– Jane Goodall
3. Small mammals
Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.
– James Herriot
Time spent with cats is never wasted.
– Sigmund FreudI only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.
– Walt Disney
Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
– Groucho MarxA dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.
– Josh Billings
4. Weird and wonderful creatures
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.
– Charles Darwin
Our task must bbe to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
– Albert EinsteinThe worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essense of inhumanity.
– George Bernard ShowLife is as dear to a mute creature as it is to man. Just as one wants happiness and fears pain, just as one wants to live and not to die, so do other creatures.
– Dalai LamaIt is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb, because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
– Mark Twain
Illustration / Part 1: Trees
I feel like a tree. A tree doesn’t feel a duty to start doing something about the earth from which it comes. A tree just has to bear fruit, and leaves and blossoms. It doesn’t feel grateful to the earth.
– Abbas KiarostamiI think the tree is an element of regeneration which in itself is a concept of time.
– Joseph Beuys
To mark my 10th anniversary of graphic design and illustration, I shall be posting 12 themes that have most commonly ‘appeared’ throughout my work – something that I only realised while gathering material for the new website during the summer. The fact that the largest body of artworks I have created thematically for different projects consists of trees, to a ‘tree hugger’ this came as no surprise but rather as a satisfying delight! Most of these artworks were created for Beletrina book covers (a literary imprint of Beletrina Academic Press, Slovenia) and for art/children’s picture book projects where I was able to influence the decision-making in the image creation. Also, I have recently been involved with other projects that specifically required ‘tree’ related artworks – a school textbook for the CAPE (Unit 2) Geography (A-level) for the Caribbean Educational Publishers, Trinidad & Tobago and a website, Bean’s Trees and Shrubs, for the International Dendrology Society, UK.
I had been photographing trees well before I embarked on a career change from the art world in 2006. I have been particularly interested in their various forms (exploring light and shadow, shapes and textures) and in their different settings (geographical locations and climates), as well as viewing them from a range of natural conditions (growing and decaying) and that of human impact on them (signage, graffiti and incisions). While some of these photos were used in their entirety depending on the subject matter, many, on the other hand, served as a starting point for experiments as the trees got incorporated into a new range of compositions and environments, as well as fragmented or transformed into new shapes and textures, through the use of various techniques. The tree subject is divided into sections – forests, lonely trees, crowns, trunks, branches, leaves and roots – depending on a particular project.
1. Forests
The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity … and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.
– William BlakeThe clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
– John Muir
2. Solitary trees
Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.
– Winston ChurchillI have to stay alone in order to fully contemplate and feel nature.
– Caspar David Friedrich
3. Crowns
A tree against the sky possesses the same interest, the same character, the same expression as the figure of a human.
– Georges RouaultNo traveler, whether a tree lover or not, will ever forget his first walk in a sugar-pine forest. The majestic crowns approaching one another make a glorious canopy, through the feathery arches of which the sunbeams pour, silvering the needles and gilding the stately columns and the ground into a scene of enchantment.
– John Muir
4. Trunks
If you look closely at a tree you’ll notice it’s knots and dead branches, just like our bodies. What we learn is that beauty and imperfection go together wonderfully.
– Matthew Fox
Just touching that old tree was truly moving to me because when you touch these trees, you have such a sense of the passage of time of history. It’s like you’re touching the essence, the very substance of life.
– Kim Novak
5. Branches
I often lay on that bench looking up into the tree, past the trunk and up into the branches. It was particularly fine at night with the stars above the tree.
– Georgia O’KeeffeInstinct must be thwarted just as one prunes the branches of a tree so that it will grow better.
– Henri Matisse
6. Leaves
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
– Albert CamusMatisse draws what I call the essence of the plants. He leaves a shape open. He’ll do a leaf and not close it. Everybody used to say, oh, I got it all from Matisse, and I said, ‘Not really.’
– Ellsworth Kelly
7. Roots
A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.
– Marcus GarveyYou can’t hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree. You can’t hate Africa and not hate yourself.
– Malcolm X
If a tree dies, plant another in its place.
– Carolus Linnaeus
Children’s / Young-adult Book: Children of the World / Oct 2012
I designed a children’s / young-adult fiction book, Otroci sveta (Children of the World), containing 18 stories written by the author, Janja Vidmar, in response to 18 photographs, taken by photojournalist, Benka Pulko, during her six-year journey around the world on a motorcycle. The founder of a charitable and educational project for Tibetan children, Benka was awarded two titles by the Guinness World Records: for circling all five continents and for undertaking a solo female journey across Saudi Arabia. The book was published by her not-for-profit organisation, Undara Studio, in conjunction with Maribor2012, European City of Culture.
The brief required a minimalist design – a style used for high-quality photo journals – to give a clear balance between text and image. The photos of young children from different cultural backgrounds were tightly constructed on the page to emotionally connect young readers to them through the stories. The typography was also chosen appropriately for the age group the book is aimed at.
In 2014 the book was nominated for Večernica, the highest award for children’s and young adult literature in Slovenia. The book was also selected for the 34th IBBY International Congress in Mexico City in 2014.
Andreja was a very attentive designer with many excellent ideas, yet able to incorporate our wishes into the project. She managed her tasks with immaculate precision, following through on the issues to the point where all the authors were satisfied. Throughout the design process for our book she was a respectful and considerate artist. I would not hesitate to recommend her, or to work with her again in the future.
– Benka Pulko, benkapulko.com, otrocisveta.si
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