Output details

Croc and Bird

This picturebook explores the subject of ‘difference’ through two characters, a crocodile and a bird, who are born alongside each other as their abandoned eggs hatch on a tropical beach. Believing themselves to be siblings, despite their physical differences, they grow and play together. But peer pressure encourages them to focus on their differences, and for a while they drift apart.

Deacon sensitively uses pictorial narrative to examine profound issues of racism and xenophobia, in a book whose tropical setting is heavily influenced by his previous period of appointment as Artist-in-Residence in the Galapagos Islands. Deacon also used the book as a means of re-examining the very physical act of drawing, stating:

“I was able to refine how the different methods they required could be used to make a range of marks that would be appropriate for different subjects. For example, tonal study is very difficult at large scales because of the challenge in making the tonal area consistent, but straight lines show less deviation and curved lines are able to use the fulcrum of the shoulder or elbow to be drawn with accuracy. I tried to ascertain the aptitudes of various ways of gripping the drawing tool, with some being useful for close control of the point and others for exposing the breadth for marking large areas. I also explored the direction and behaviour of the gaze. I worked with John Tchalenko on his film, 'Capturing Life', made in collaboration with Behavioural Brain Sciences at the University of Birmingham, using an eye tracking device to study the movements of the eye in the action of drawing.”