Julia Sarda
I saw Julia Sarda's debut picture book, The Lizsts in Waterstones during our initial research for this project. She has re-imagined many classic children's stories with her soft, Autumnal palette and gentle brushtrokes. Since I will be re-imagining a classic children's story, I thought that Sarda would be a useful artist to investigate. She hasn't attempted to modernise these stories, to change the stories we are so familiar with, but she has stayed true to the original texts and illustrated drawings that readers will feel enchanted by.
I'm especially interested in how Sarda combines her illustrations with text from the stories she's illustrating. Format and composition is very difficult when you are confined to a space or frame, but Sarda works really well with borders, squeezing entire scenes into one oblong, page-sized box. These are conventional colour-plate formats that aren't used as much since digital printing and lower colour printing costs enabled illustrators to print in colour throughout entire books, but Sarda seems to be bringing this trend back and embracing the traditional aesthetic of books holding just a few precious colour images.
Audience: Sarda's charming and ethereal illustrations are intended for children. Again, they may be also consumed by older audiences, especially book/print enthusiasts, or adults who remember/loved these classic books when they were younger.
Context: Children's books, including Mary Poppins and The Secret Garden.
Also exist as prints (the format works perfectly for this and would be great for libraries, bedrooms, offices, schools, etc). Sarda sells her images as high res digital files so that they can be printed by the customer, which I think loses some of the value and authorship of the print. It's not been printed by Sarda, or even shipped by her - it's come out of your own printer.
Purpose: To illustrate the discourse of the stories. Her illustrations are lively and full of action for entertaining her intended audience. She is primarily a storyteller and she tries to visualise the discourse through her characters.
Promotion: A lot of the promotion of Sarda's books is done by the publishers she works with or the booksellers she she stocks her books within. Bookstores have made displays to celebrate the release of books she has worked on and her publishers will regularly promote these books in an attempt to sell more. She has a website and social media pages where she posts snippets of her creative process and latest projects.
These are cakes with Sarda's characters on made for the release of The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow. A very inventive and playful promotion.
Inspiration: fairy tales and folk art have inspired Sarda's dream-like stories and images. She is also informed by vintage illustration and packaging (especially for typography and colour schemes). She travels a lot (India and Tibet), which inspires her work culturally.
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