Since 1994 Dave McKean’s been producing extensively layered images using computers and digital manipulation. In his collaborations with writers, illustrations and text appear to be intertwined so that the paper becomes part of the content and I was interested to find out how he achieves this effect.  In an interview on Apple’s website he describes how his approach has changed with the increasing sophistication of digital technologies.

“The major things that have changed … are the tools and materials I’ve been able to use. When I started on ‘The Sandman,’ I was aiming toward a translucent collage, a layered look, an insubstantial feeling where you’ve just got an atmosphere. I tried to do that with things like double exposures and different printing techniques. To a degree, this approach is always pretty limited by the fact that the illustration has to be a physical object and, if I have to photograph it, limited by gravity.”

The illustrations for COIL were made in 1998 (COIL 7) for a supposedly ‘anonymous’ piece actually written by legendary indie producer Keith Griffiths (of Koninck fame) about a film he produced by Iain Sinclair & Chris Petit called the Falconer – itself about another ‘legendary’ 60s filmmaker called Peter Whitehead. Its a many-layered piece about becoming trapped in the layers of legend and hype spun around Whitehead and the narrator’s (“Darke”) attempt to unravel the story. Darke is a thinly veiled characterisation of the Falconer’s script writer (and 90s film critic) Chris Darke. The techniques of double exposure and layering that Dave McKean mentions in the interview with Apple are clearly visible in the collages of text and images he produced for this.

The process of creating these illustration begins with “endless drawings.” Out of these, one is chosen and painted onto a backboard of colour photographs and paper collages, a basic canvas already with a life to it, containing interesting textures, colours and shapes. Illustration comes next where McKean paints the characters onto the canvas. From here, the process moves onto the computer. “Sometimes I finish it [the painting] quite well and sometimes I leave it open and rough, scan it and make sense of it in the computer. The compositing is the fun bit, really, and dragging all these elements together all happens very quickly.” As McKean writes, it’s an explorative way of working, “I like the fact that I don’t really know what I’m aiming toward completely. I have an idea, but it’s also the shapes shifted and composited in the computer that allow me to find a nice blend.”

In fact, it seems that his process and approach has remained surprisingly constant as tools and materials have evolved. In this article, he suggests this goes back to his college days at Berkshire College of Art and Design, “Before drawing anything we had to have a clear idea of what we were trying to achieve. So to this day, I still write personal briefs for myself. I still need to be clear in my own mind what I’m doing.”

For me, what is so inspiring about this description of the process is that having a clear plan from the outset in no way constrains the experimental, organic nature of the final illustrations. As he writes, “Techniques may change and go in and out of fashion, but ideas are always worth exploring and re-interpreting.” I wonder if we could get him to design an eBook…

The event will be free to attend – participants are encouraged to bring a laptop or device with mobile internet  access and some text/images/digital artwork etc to begin creating your own eBooks & StoryCubes.

Date : Wednesday 10th February 2010
Time : 2pm to 4.30pm
Venue : Etta’s Place, Unit 85-86, Brixton Village / Grandville Arcade, Brixton
Location : http://spacemakers.org.uk/brixton/location/

RSVP – we will only have limited internet access on site so it is important to send a request for a bookleteer account to bookleteer at proboscis.org.uk before Wednesday 10th (mentioning spacemakers or Brixton Village)

It was really inspiring for us (myself, Karen Martin & Stefan Kueppers representing the bookleteer team) to see just how enthusiastic they were about picking it up and using it for different purposes. In not time at all half a dozen eBooks and StoryCubes had been made with bookleteer as we talked about different contexts and types of use the Shareables could be put to.

Matthew Sheret has posted some pictures from the evening on his Flickr site:

Here are some other images of the things they made:

StoryCube by Emilie

eBooks by Matt, Tom & Mark

StoryCube by Anne

StoryCube by Julia

Ideal for Creative Writers

Bookleteer could prove ideal for creative writers who want to share a selection of poems, a short story or novel extract.

I’m writing a teenage novel and regularly send chapters to teenage and adult readers in order to get feedback. In the past, I’ve emailed out my work as a Word document with a portrait layout, and have found that 15% of people don’t download and read the email attachment. However, this Autumn I used Bookleteer to produce a miniature hard-copy booklet of the first three chapters, added a Creative Commons illustration to the front cover, printed and folded the copies, and distributed them to readers.

The response has been terrific. 100% of targeted people were motivated to read my work.

My teenage readers reported that the miniature size of the book made it portable; they stuffed the booklets into their schoolbags and read them on the bus or tube. Some of the girls noted that the booklet had the feel of ‘a personal possession’; it seemed to tap into teenage girls’ lust for secrets.

The adult readers were keen on the format too; they felt they’d been sent ‘a real book’, rather than a document that closely resembled their office paperwork. Readers had to turn the page every couple of hundred words, which kept them engaged with the story.

My writing sample was 40 pages long, the maximum length recommended by Proboscis, so the folding and scissor-snipping were fairly labour-intensive. Having said that, the product is robust enough to withstand some wear and tear; a third of my readers have successfully circulated the writing sample among colleagues and friends.

The Bookleteer format would be suitable for writers who want to send a writing sample to a publisher. Creative writing students at the University of London are enthusiastic about using the format to workshop their writing. The .pdf that is produced would also make a valuable download on a writer’s personal website.

Kati Rynne
www.katirynne.wordpress.com