In this week, we had to get together in groups of 6 our second group project. We were briefed on what an ‘artist book’ is, and how we could turn our creative interpretation of Elephant and Castle’s origins into our own artist book. My group and I decided to use the natural surroundings of Elephant and Castle in order to explain our interpretation of the origins. We used the leaves outside of the college as our ‘paper’ and drew our story on them using a white-out pen and regular ink pens.
The basis of our story was to create something more along the lines of a children’s short story. A family of royal elephants call upon their fox jester to provide entertainment for their heir, to which the heir doesn’t enjoy at all. The king – in a fit of rage, dismisses the jester, who becomes both upset and angered. The jester plants bombs underneath the elephant’s palace, and sets them off in order the kill the family as a form of revenge. Getting away with this, the family have statues made in memorial, as other foxes watch one.
As this was a one-day project, my group felt like this would be very challenging! However, when we saw the autumn leaves, we knew that could be an essential part of our project, and everything went upwards from there. We were able to make up a story and once again worked well as a team together. This project was fun and beneficial as it helped me think on my toes about something I had not put much thought into before.