Sara Fanelli has a style that involves collage materials and very traditional mediums. This style is one that I would have said is completely opposite to mine, but I actually found myself enjoying the freedom and child-like methodology to her work.
This was my first trial at a Fanelli style image, and I was inspired by her book, 'Mythological Monsters of Ancient Greece'
[1]. I tried to include her signature nose and mouth, and used hand written text instead of a font. This piece is also completely traditional, which is different for me as I'm usually quite digitally based, so that took me out of my comfort zone. As Fanelli said in an interview with Steven Heller, 'I definitely love the element of accident and
surprise which is a gift of the process of making
images, especially in a relatively old fashioned
technique like collage. Cutting the wrong shape;
spilling the ink; covering mistakes.'
[2] I was very interested in the illustration Fanelli did for the creature Argus, as it had so many eyes. I wanted to try and interpret that.
I also took inspiration from her book, 'The Onion's Great Escape'
[3], as there are a lot of stand-alone quotes that made you think in that book.
For the next three experiments, I used my preferred digital method to produce the images. I was interested in Sara Fanelli's love of fairy tales, as she illustrated 'Pinocchio'
[4], but I wanted to do my own take on it, so I chose a nursery rhyme as my subject. I also got inspired by Fanelli's book, 'Dear Diary'
[5], where there's an entry from Knife and Fork. She said in the interview with Steven Heller, ' I also enjoy
giving life to inanimate objects very much.'
[2] I got very inspired by the visuals and how the limbs were drawn. I used collage elements and drew on top in a very similar style to Fanelli, and also used hand written text which changes in style randomly like hers usually does.
I was inspired to do this piece after looking at Fanelli's book, 'First Flight'
[6], where there were very interesting images of butterflies. This image is very much a replica of Fanelli's work rather than an inspired piece, as it looks almost exactly like one of her illustrations, but I was very interested in her methods and how she created the shapes and body. The body has interesting typography of random letters stuck one on top of another, with varying sizes and fonts. I used patterned paper to create the wings and drew the head very similarly to how Fanelli draws heads in general, with the semi-circle shape and the nose sticking out very pointed.
Fanelli has an affinity to dogs and wolves, and draws a lot of inspiration from them for her illustrations. She said in the interview with Steven Heller, 'The dog/wolf
character is very organic and also adaptable. I
love the way dogs expressions can sometimes
be read as brilliantly enacted human emotions.
I have always drawn dogs, but they change
and grow.'
[5] I wanted to create a scratchy dog illustration like hers after seeing her book, 'The Doggy Book'
[7], as I really enjoyed the diversity of her illustrations and how some were completely finished whereas there were others that were very sketchy. I also added another quote inspired by, 'The Onion's Great Escape'[2], where it's quite a philosophical question that makes you think and has a lot of weight to the question. I used a digital technique for this image, but it could've been easily recreated if not better using traditional means.
After so many quite close recreations of Fanelli's work, I decided to create an extra illustration that is much more my style but influenced by her work. I decided to base it on the story of 'Pinocchio'
[4], and found a quote from the book I really wanted to illustrate. I still kept the illustration as a flat background with the graph paper behind, and only added depth to the character which is a very Fanelli type of trait. I drew it in my traditional style, with ink washes and bold outlines, but I edited the image in photoshop to add the collage element to his shirt. I also used the hand drawn text for the quote, and feel it really set off the image. I do like the fact it's mostly black, white and green with just the colour coming from the collage element, and how it's much more muted than most of Fanelli's work. That is more of my style coming to the illustration.
Overall I have learned to loosen up studying Sara Fanelli's work, and have a new found respect for her style, which I didn't enjoy very much before this project. I feel like I could take some inspiration of her work into my future illustrations and be influenced by the sense of freedom associated to collage and mixed media.
References -
[1] FANELLI, Sara (2006). Mythological Monsters of Ancient Greece. Walker Books Ltd, London.
[2] HELLER, Steven.
Wolves, Logic and Happy Mistakes. [Online] Available from: http://www.hellerbooks.com/pdfs/varoom_03.pdf [Accessed: 5th November 2015].
[3] FANELLI, Sara (2012). The Onion's Great Escape. Phaidon Press, London.
[4] COLLODI, Carlo (1883), trans. ROSE, Emma (2009). Pinocchio. Walker Books Ltd, London.
[5] FANELLI, Sara (2001). Dear Diary. Walker Books Ltd, London.
[6] FANELLI, Sara (2002). First Flight. Jonathan Cape Ltd, London.
[7] FANELLI, Sara (1998). The Doggy Book. Egmont Books Ltd, London.
