Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach is a dark story about a boy who lived happily with his parents until they were eaten by a rampaging rhinoceros that escaped from the London Zoo. James is then forced to live with his two horrible and hideous aunts, aunt Spiker and aunt Sponge. They are so awful that there always-beat James almost without any reason and poor James has to go days without a scrap of food.
One day, a nice man gives James a pack of crocodile’s toughs and after this point James’ life is about to change completely for the better. A peach on near by dead tree starts growing and then some, till it is as big as aunt Spiker’s and Sponge’s house. James takes the peach on an epic adventure to New York with his new kindly friends, a glow-worm, centipede, spider, silkworm, an old-green-grasshopper, earthworm and a ladybird.
I had always loved Roald Dahl’s stories ever since a child and when I heard that Puffin was holding a book cover competition, I could hardly resist. Although constantly throughout this project I had constantly made my self aware of the dangers of relying to heavily on the visual references of the book illustrations by Quentin Blake or defiantly the film by Tim Burton, which is heavily incorrect to the Dahl’s original text. In my opinion, both do not really do the Dahl’s story much justice. This is an imaginative and dark story, and I really wanted to creatively/ visually represent that thought my vision of the illustrations. For this piece I defiantly felt the importance to express the story though colour so I choose to use inks and watercolours as the main medium with a slight use of photographic collage.
Character development
Lady Bird
Silk worm
Worm
Grass Hopper
Glow worm
