Sara Fanelli

Sara Fanelli is a children's book illustrator with a unique style. One of her most used methodologies is, using photo collage of eyes onto creatures she's created. Like this piece Argus, from Mythological Monsters of Ancient Greece. (1) Throughout this book she creates creatures and adds photocopies of human eyes to add a recognizable element to her abstract drawings. This references avant-garde art, and its clear that she likes surrealist/surrealism art.

I had a go at drawing my own creatures or monsters and adding some eyes to them. With the first one I added some background detail and lines which she occasionally does as well. I made the creatures very simple shapes like she does, and just adding some eyes on top. 

Sara Fanelli is very influenced by collage and photomontage within the art movements, Dada, Surrealism, Cubism and Futurism. She also likes to “fuse the unconscious (the part of the human mind where memories and instincts are stored) with the conscious, to create a new "super-reality" - a surréalisme.”(2) This inspired her animals talking along side humans, and inanimate objects suddenly coming to life.“I have complete freedom in the way I want to express those ideas and in the degree of obscurity of the narrative.” (3)

I then went on to look at how she creates some of her other characters. In work like this one, Insects party from the book Dear diary. (4) Sara Fanelli collages lots of different aspects together to create these surrealist and unique characters. “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.” (5) Fanelli then went on to say how the playfulness of this technique with all the little surprises it creates really makes her enjoy it.

I tried to recreate this by doing the ‘Exquisite Corpse’ game, where you add parts of previous work together to see what kind of strange creature you create. I did this but its not in the exact style of children friendly creatures Sara Fanelli would design. I also did it on some scrap paper and doodled around it with symbols, type and little pictures as Fanelli would.

 I wanted to then look into Fanelli’s use of textural interest. In a lot of her illustrations she uses found bits of paper that add more depth and meaning to her work. In this piece within her book Dear Diary (6)

Fanelli connects with the reader by using old notebook styled paper which has its own connotations of previous life and other uses that the reader can then further relate to.“Everything in her collages has had a previous life. Sweet papers are crinkled and torn, newsprint is yellowed: every mark, every stain has its own story to tell, and she interweaves these stories with her own narratives.”(7) This gives her story even more meaning than what just the new illustrations may portray. 

“with the busy scribbles and notes that cover the graph paper inside this paper-over-board book's cover, Fanelli plunges readers into an enchanting community of committed diarists,” (8) Sara Fanelli is reaching out to something that most people have seen before or do everyday, as well as just adding more interest to her illustrations. 

I then created my own illustration like this, I recreated the old notebook style, with collaged flowers, grass and a butterfly on top. The use of collage of old paper I had, gives the same textural interest that Fanelli creates, as well as making a simple butterfly more interesting.  I also used some notes and scribbles on the page to complete the old notebook style.  

Sara Fanelli also likes to anthropomorphise unusual and unexpected things. She illustrates what its like to see life through these inanimate objects which delights children, and it is good “for exciting and nurturing any child’s imagination or indeed for thrilling older age groups to wake up, look again and never give up looking and thinking about their situation in life.” (9) 

Again it is clear to see Fanelli’s use of Surrealism, by almost creating a whole new look on the objects we use and see everyday. 

I recreated this, by anthropomorphising a table and chair. I did it in the same style and even added some writing in the background which she does in her diary book, referring to them as being a pair and aware of each other. I tried to keep the drawings simple and again added the eyes, which she uses to give the impression of the objects being more human and alive. 

References 

(1) Sara Fanelli, Mythological Mosters of Ancient Greece

(2) Andre Breton, Manifesto of Surrealism

(3) Steven Heller, An Interview with Sara Fanelli

(4) Sara Fanelli, Dear Diary

(5) Steven Heller, An Interview with Sara Fanelli

(6) Sara Fanelli, Dear Diary

(7) Joanna Carey, The Guardian

(8) Publishers Weekly, Dear Diary

(9) Carousel Guide, Sara Fanelli

Bibliography 

Breton, A. (1924) Manifesto of Surrealism,.

Carey, J. (2004) The guardian . Available at: theguardian.com/books/2004/apr/17/featuresreviews.guardianreview8 (Accessed: 12 November 2015).

Children’s book review: Dear diary by Sara Fanelli, author, Sara Fanelli, Available at: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-7636-0965-8 (Accessed: 13 November 2015).

Collins, N. Art encyclopaedia . Available at: www.visual-arts-cork.com/modern-art-movements.htm#surrealism . (Accessed: 12 November 2015).

Fanelli, S. (2001) Dear diary. London: Walker Books.

Fanelli, S. (2002) Mythological monsters of Ancient Greece. London: Walker Books.

Heller, S. ‘An interview with Sara Fanelli’, pp, 5. Available at: http://www.hellerbooks.com/pdfs/varoom_03.pdf. (Accessed: 13 November 2015)

Heller, S. ‘An interview with Sara Fanelli’, pp, 3. Available at: http://www.hellerbooks.com/pdfs/varoom_03.pdf. (Accessed: 13 November 2015)

Publishers weekly, Available at: Www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-7636-0865-8 (Accessed: 12 November 2015).

Sara Fanelli (2013) Available at: carouselguide.co.uk/pdf/Carousel53-SaraFanelli.pdf (Accessed: 13 November 2015).