T H E M A K I N G O FS t o n e o f Y o u t h

Cinyee ChiuM I C A I l l u s t r a t i o n Pract ice 2016 T h e s i s B o o k

T h e

w o r l d

i s m a d e

o f t i n y

s t o r i e s

I come from Taiwan, and my major in undergrad was economics, entirely

irrelevant to illustration. Though I always know drawing for me is something

special, the shift from economics to illustration seemed to be too big to be

considered easily. But the farther I went, the more I realized I was not living

my life. Once I decided to let my nature guild me, my path turned into a

whole new direction dramatically. After I finished the college, I decided

to find a job allows me to draw, and I ended up working in a game

company for three years. I didn’t rush before I made the decision to

study MFA, I gave myself enough time to explore my nature. And

finally in the summer of 2013, I decided it’s time to nourish my-

self with some illustration educations, so here I came to MICA.

I w a s l i v i n g

a n o t h e r

p e r s o n ’ s l i f e

y e a r s a g o .

Even though it seems like I abandoned everything before the

big shift, no experience is wasted. I appreciate all the things happened

to me, and I learned to observe interactions between my inner and

outer world, from which I tell how things shape me. Everyone has

those experiences, that some events happened on them contributed

greatly to their value and point of view. For me, I clearly feel grateful

to those events big enough to shape me, for they brought me lessons

and messages, for they polished me a little bit more and make me

more complete. As an illustrator, the way to show my highest level of

thankfulness to those important experiences is to turn them into my

artworks.

That is how Stone of Youth started. I experienced something

touched me so deep and shaped me strongly, that I decided it deserves

to be turned into a story.

T h e c h a r m o f

m e t a p h o r

There are different approaches to make messages into stories,

and I especially feel attracted to metaphor. The Little Prince, a story

that affects me so deep that it owns a special place in my mind. I

remember when I first read The Little Prince I was about ten, at that

time I couldn’t understand the story at all, and maybe because the

copy I read wasn’t so well-designed, I lost my interest pretty fast. “It’s

an adventure story, but there are many other adventure stories more

exciting than this one,” I wasn’t a kid loves to read. And after that,

for so many years I rejected The Little Prince, for the plain reading

memory I had. Then one day in my twenty, a beautifully illustrated

version of The Little Prince came to my sight in a bookstore (yes

I’ve always been visually oriented.) “The most beautiful story in the

world,” it said. I picked it up and to my surprise, the story now in my

eyes is full of wisdom. I was totally shocked, because I still remember

clearly how bored I was at the first read — I experienced two layers of

one story at two different times in my life.

That was when I realized the power and charm of metaphor.

First, with a layer or layers of packages, the author can hide the

message deeper and deeper, and only the life experience of the

reader can be the key to unveil the messages. Such an exclusive and

emotionally deep reading experience the author can provide to his

or her reader! Second, with the same metaphor story, everyone can

interpret it from different angles, base on which life experience they

linked the to story. That means, although what the author really

wants to talk about is A topic, people link to B or C experience

might also be able to feel the resonance, so that the story become

meaningful to different people from different angles. What a ro-

mantically magical moment!

Maybe is my longing toward metaphor story, that when I was

overwhelmed with the crucial inspiring experience, the sentences

just came to me naturally. “That is just like a thief wants to steal the

stone in a lake from the guard….” and I wrote it down, matched

up each metaphor elements with the one in the real event, then fill

the gap with some magical force to make it logical, and then I got

the story. The final story has a poetic and fable-like tone, which of

course shows no obvious traits of my original thoughts. Yet I believe

people who possess certain life experience can interpret the story in

the way they need.

P i c t u r e b o o k

i s a c u r e f o r

a d u l t s .With the idea of making story seems to be for kids

but actually for adults, I naturally think in a picture

book. Later I learned that this “natural thinking” is not

so natural for people from the United States. The market

here is divided clearly: picture books for children, graphic

novels for young readers or above. In Taiwan, picture book

for adults is a widely-accepted concept. In fact, the most

popular and famous picture book author, Jimmy, mostly

draws stories for adults. I think people take picture book

for adults as visual poems, that touch the sophisticated

emotion kids can not understand. On the other hand, we

don’t really have a market for graphic novel, but we have

a huge market for manga. Manga and graphic novel have

very different voices, but manga also targets the young

reader market. Yet comparing picture book for adults with

manga, the later feeds more juvenile audiences. Perhaps

the structure of “one story for the whole book” has its

limit, or a story like The Little Prince is just too chal-

lenging, picture book for adults in Taiwan now develops

other structure, more like a collection of illustrated poems.

Overall this kind of picture books, the good ones, either

bring the reader peace in mind, deposit their thought, or

refine their previous experience. I personally feel it like a

therapy.

I choose picture book as the format for my story,

partly because the Taiwanese picture book author affects

me a lot, partly because the process of the whole making is

the treatment for myself.

Illustration from Taiwanese picture book author Jimmy

T h e

M a k i n g

H e w a n t s t o

s t e a l t h e

s t o n e .

The story starts with a man who wants to steal the stone of youth, came

to the lake guarded by a lake spirit. He sneaked to the center of the lake and

get close to the stone by pleasing the creatures from the lake. When the spirit

realized, it was already too late to stop him, and the man successfully got the

stone and leave the lake. However, he didn’t know that the stone will lose its

magical power once it leaves the lake, he ended up winning nothing, and the

lake lost the youth power forever. The story ended first at here, but then I

added a subtle twist to tune the sad ending into a hopeful one. I showed the

new stone in the lake starts to change by the environment, and hopefully will

gradually turn into a magic stone. I didn’t want to show the hopeful ending

too obvious, so that the reader can experience the emotion change, maybe at

the second read.

Early storyboard plan

The story can be interpreted as a fable, with the

moral that don’t take greedily from our nature. But for

those readers who used to eager for something, tried to

get it but failed, maybe they can replace the stone with

the object they were longing for. In this case, the story

can be interpreted in many different ways.

But for me, to tell the truth, it doesn’t matter how

people will interpret it. As I mentioned in the beginning,

the reason I want to have this story is for showing my

thankfulness to the experience I went through, to deposit

my emotions and thoughts, to celebrate a landmark on

my life map. By finishing the book, my need is satisfied.

T r a d i t i o n a l

d r a w i n g s h a s

t h e m a g i c .

When I started my style research, I realized all the

styles that attract me are traditional drawings. It would

be a great challenge for me if I decided to draw the book

all by hand, for I am more used to digital drawings. I did

start with some trying in traditional methods, including

pencil, watercolor, charcoal, color pencil, but in the end,

I came to the conclusion that I still need some time to

develop my voice in traditional materials.

Test1pencil, watercolor

Test2 / part Apencil, watercolor separately

Test2 / part BAssemble the elements in the computer.

At this point I were thinking in cutting each layer on paper, then build paper cut scenes, and make a photogrph picture book.

Character testWatercolor, pencil, color pencil

Test3Watercolor, color pencil

My voice wasn’t so strong and the skill was not

stable enough to repeat it again. I ended up using half

traditional half digital — draw crucial elements in

charcoal and then color it in the computer.

Step1Charcoal

Step2Digital color

+

Finished arts

Title hand lettering studies

I w a n t t o s e e

i t m o v i n g .

I also want to show my ability in making animations,

hoping that can open me more job options, so I made a

trailer for the book. In fact, picture book trailer is one of

the initial motivation for me to learn to make animation.

In this two years of MFA, I also took animation class and

explored my interest and possibility in it. After indulged in

animation for a semester, I decided not to make it my main

path, but to make it as a tool for promoting my illustration.

Stone of Youth picture book trailer

https://vimeo.com/160469400music credit: Phoenix Ho

T h e

E x h i b i t i o n

Because I have another collaborative thesis project with

Ricardo Nunez, at first I didn’t plan to have another personal

project. From I decided to make the book to the thesis show

in March, I have only five months to make it. And I made it.

Because my story is a metaphor base on my own experience,

and the purpose is more for myself than for the market, I didn’t

have much research or study to do compared with other types of

picture book. Even so, I felt a great challenge to finish the book

in time, and I’m so happy that I came up with a whole finished

book plus an animation trailer at the show.

I tried to build part of the scene in the story to the

exhibition area. With the graphic mountain shape and

water line painting on the wall, and the canvas foam mat in

the corner, I tried to bring the lake from 2 dimensions to 3

dimensions. On top of the mat, I sewed a painted bean bag

representing the center mountain in the story, at the same

time provides a little corner for people to read. The making

of it was frustrating, but the outcome was quite nice and

comfortable, supporting our worn out body during the

installing nights.

The bean bag area

We also made Pongo for our books, to show how

versatile Pongo is in being customized in different topics.

This is also a way to tie our personal project closer to the

collaborative project.

M o v e

O n

The book is almost done, at least good enough for showing to

publishers, so definitely that will be my next step. I’m also ready to

self-publish the book if nothing happened with the publishers.

The event I experienced not only brought me a lesson, make

me grow, but also brought me this story. The making of this book is

like after molted, I gather the old skin and feathers, and made them

into an amulet. I enjoyed the process.

If the world and life are made of tiny stories, I want to capture

those important ones. From the making of Stone of Youth, I feel

encouraged to transfer more of my important life moments into

illustration works. The next one can be a graphic novel, animation,

illustrated short fictions, or another picture book. Now I have my

first nice try, I want to keep doing this.

Thank you MICA Illustration Practice.