"A Visual Dialogue With Text" Progress 12th of June

So far am I'm around 18 page's into my selected text which is "The Wasp Factory" by Iain Banks.

Themes so far

• Shamanism/Occultism
• Obsession
• Madness

Here is what my first page looks like (the first page covers from the start of the story on page 7 to where I'm at currently on page 18)

The main protagonist of the book maintains something he likes to call "The Sacrifice Poles" where he puts the heads of dead animals as some kind of warning to the outside world to keep at bay. One of the heads hanging of one of the poles is that of a mouse, so I drew a mouse skull into my sketchbook (I used a stock image as reference) then drew a mouse head on tracing paper and layered it over the top.

I like adding layers to my sketchbooks because it engages people when they come to look through it.

I also decided even though the book is dark in tone I like to use splashes of colour in my work to really give the pages a bit more interest. I have no doubt at some point I will probably do some black and white compositions in my sketchbook but I do really enjoy working with colour. My pages are very chaotic that's just how I like to work, but I feel this way of working really complements the style of the writing. I recently went back to my Foundation Diploma and A-level sketchbooks to see what I have improved on or what I could take away from my old sketchbooks. In my

old sketchbooks I could see I really got into my work at the time and put my own spin on it, in my first year degree sketchbooks my artwork seemed more restrained and less chaotic and some how that made it lack character in some way. I could see when the work didn't excite me and I feel like anyone who looked at those sketchbooks would be able to see it too.

Back in my Foundation (and A-level) I made my books very interactive and I could see that had disappeared in my university work. The interactivity of my books is one of the things my peers seemed to love about my work, and it's absence was a huge step back. I work by playing with ideas and I like people to also be able to see my thought process translated into interactive things you could do in my sketchbooks. Through play people could go through the similar though processes to me as I was making the work.

The measurement book is an example of me putting that interactivity back into my work. The measurement book was a punishment for the main protagonist, his Dad has an obsession with knowing the exact imperial  measurements for everything, the main protagonist went around the house ripping all the tiny white stickers his Dad would stick on objects with it's measurements on. So as a punishment and character building exercise his Dad makes him go around the house and learn all of the imperial measurements and note them in the measurement book. I feel the ripping off of the white stickers was our main protagonist gaining control over his father and his father tries to gain back this control by giving the main character this punishment. The book is described as being a "huge loose-leaf thing", maybe this punishment was meant to weigh on our main character but his father ended up giving up on the book and resorted to firing the odd question at him. This suggests he gave up on regaining control over his son.  

Some art/artist which inspires me in relation to this project

Artist: Philth 

I really like the colours he has used
in this mural and it he has painted a wasp inside a white circle which looks to have static coming from it, this could maybe be a suggesting the power of nature.

Found on 
Art on the Street

Artist: Benjamin Lacombe

This piece has a rather macabre feel to it rather like the tone of the writing, even though I would say this piece has a rather more elegant feel in contrast to the book which feels to me like it is set in a rather dilapidated and run down island.

Found on
Benjamin Lacombe official 

More of his work can be found here
www.benjaminlacombe.com