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Sara Fanelli was born in Florence Italy, she has nine published books so far and is said to have bought a ‘breath of fresh air’ to picture books. Sara chose to study in London instead of her home in italy as she felt london would enable her to be “free to focus on an experimental approach” and was confident it would encourage her to find a personal voice. Fanelli moved to London and studied at the camberwell collage of art and design and the royal collage of art. 
She found interest in art and illustration from a young age, being brought up around art as her parents were involved with it.

Sara Fanelli is an illustrator who does really playful and colourful hand drawn collage style designs for children's books, childrens jackets, advertising plus some of her own projects. She mixes drawing and collage with a unique sense of typography. The text she uses is all hand drawn and ignores the rules of grammar by combining capital letters with lower case letters.  She thinks of her work as a 3d object casuing her to involve herself in every aspect of her work. for example in her book first flight published in 2002 she used the corners of the pages to create a flick book animation

She explores a large variety of media in her projects like indian ink, paint, collage, pencil drawings. All these different mediums make her work feel really personal. For example in her book called “Sometimes i think sometimes i am”, she has a publication of a book made in a mole skin journal. By designing it in the moleskin journal it makes it feel private, but she is sharing it with the viewer.
She did the illustrations for the pinocchio story and the fox character she created on speckled paper which is a special type of paper called fox. This shows that she researches into the types of materials she uses and brings meanings into her designs not only by what the image looks like, but what it is physically made out of too.  
 
She has a very playful sense about her work. For the Pinocchio book she designed a box that the book sits in, with the same image on the book and the box, which has a side view of pinocchios face so that when you pull the book out of the box, pinicchio’s nose grows creating an atrist/veiwer interaction before you even begin to explore the book. 

Fanelli has illustrated the book ponicco in which the moral of the story is basically to be truthful in life, it is a child based book but with elements that the parent or adult reading it can be interested in too. Fanelli has illustrated the sotry in a way which engages the reader by bringing to life differnt elements of the story to spark imagination. Her illustrations enhance the story, making the audience think about the message that the story evokes of being truthful and moral. These illustrations can act as stand alone one off images but together they create the story we all know and love; ponicco.

Fanelli and the author of Pinocchio were both born in Florance so Fanelli has a personal connection with this book in a way as she is familliar with the settings that the book would of been set in, therefore having her own personal background to add as research to this particular illustration.

The images in this book allow her to further explore her unique styles within illustration by playing around with different medias creating collage imagery shown in the character of the fox, which was created on the speckled fox paper. By using differnt inks and paints it adds to the hand made aesthetic of her style.

These styles are also evident in a personal project of hers which is a book called “sometimes i think sometimes i am”. The book is an illustration which could look as though it has a childs perspective although it does not seem to be aimed at children as it has no story to it. It is more so aimed at children in the way in which she has illustrated it through the use of cartoon style characters and again the handmade aesthetics i.e scrapbooking, collage and paint. 
The book was first published in 2007 by the order of the tate trustees by tate publishing, london. The images in the book create a interaction with the reader as it requires them to think about life in a sort of surreal or imaginative sense, brining to life characters from the imagination in relation to her chosen quotations. 
For example in the first part of the book fanelli brings to life characters of angles and deamons which are portrayed in a very differnt sence then what is usual. 
“A stale mind is the devils bread box” is a quote in which some of her images are based showing ink done drawings of devil like chracters collaged over paper and what looks like a playing card.

This makes the veiwer think about what deeper meaning the text and image could portray.

To create these works Fanelli would research into different materials and quotations in which she would base her work on, giving her designs a uniqe narrative and deeper meaning or purpose. The images in this book could be stand alone images but are created as part of a collection, each work is based on a quote which gives them their own individual narrative but also work together to create an colletive piece of work due to fanellis trademark style.

Overall the book is made in a journal or scrapbook like formatt; a place in which children and adults alike would keep quotations or momentos as a place of memorys or pleasures. The main medias evident throughout the book are found materials, ink, paint, printmaking and a strong focus on collage. Fanelli uses collage in almost all of her works displayed in her book and is evident in one of her works displaying an almost 3d like character made from what looks like cardboard, metal, wall and news papers attached together with string showing that she is not limited to just one media. 
Her style is quite sustainable as she uses reuseable and recycable materials in her works. “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.”

The main message in this book being of life and immagination at random, it is not aimed at a specfic audience but aimed at someone to take what they want out of her chosen quotes and allows the veiwer to interpret them in their own way. As Fanelli is influenced by literature, mainly quotes in this book, many people influence her work such as joseph addison where she used his quote “colours speak all languages” to illustrate in ine of her designs. Fanelli brings about both social and historicl issues in her works through the use of literature and imagery.

I find Sara Fanelli’s work has influenced my own work in a variety of ways but mainly through the medias she uses throughout her work such as the style of collaging. It is an effective way of exploring styles which sometimes sparks an idea.

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