Moira Millman | United Kingdom
‘The Trip in a Bottle’ is a picturebook which was developed as part of my MA in Children’s Book illustration at Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University.
It is is an intergenerational story of Hank and his Grandad a retired sailor. They build a model ship in a bottle together and this leads to them taking a rather unusual boat trip; travelling in and out of the bottles on Grandad’s shelf. They relive Grandad’s martime adventures and help people along the way; Hank discovers that small acts of kindness make the world go around.
The idea for this story came from the powerful personal family connection that I have with the sea. I grew up on the coast with strong generational links to the Royal Navy and the Naval Dockyard. My Dad used to make ships in bottles when I was a child and as objects they hold so much power for me, a microcosm of memory held within their fragile glass walls. I was always fascinated by these objects as a child and I wanted to introduce the wonder of this lost craft to a child audience.
This dummy book is a mix of pencil roughs and colour artwork.
The final artwork for this project is created with a mix of analogue and digital techniques. Pencil drawings, printed patterns and printmaking textures are scanned, assembled and coloured digitally in Photoshop. The illustrations are created with a limited palette of 3 colours which evokes a screenprinted technique.
Education:
Cambridge School of Art - Anglia Ruskin University
MA Children's Book Illustration
Graduation: 2022