This week we started our final major project (FMP). Although I already had plenty of initial ideas which could be potential subjects and topics of FMP such as emotion, memory…etc, I chose the topic that came up my mind this week. I chose to focus on death and the meaning of life as the topic of FMP.

After writing the draft of major project proposal (MPP), I started my research and did some practice since I wanted to create an illustrated book as the final outcome.

To start my research, I searched for published illustrated books and tried to find them to read. I found a list of 64 children’s book about death online. However, most of the books on the list seemed to be rare and I couldn’t find them in our UCA library. As a result, I went to Farnham library today. I applied for my library card and finally found many related books. These were the books that I found:

• Death and Bereavement by Issues Vol.267
• Where Do We Go When We Disappear? by Isabel Minhos Martins and Madalena Matoso
• Goodbye Grandma by Melanie Walsh
• No Matter What by Debi Gliori
• Grandma’s Gloves by Cecil Castellucci and Julia Denos
• Badger’s Parting Gifts by Susan Varley

Apart from reading books, I started to try on materials for drawing. I tried oil pastel and ink this week. (I will try on more and more materials to see which one I like the most and is suitable for my story.) Meanwhile, I kept recording my practice and research on my blog to show the research process.

I think I’ve already made a good start this week and I could tell that this topic was really my interest. I will do more research on hospice and analyse those books that I found and write blog entries for them. In addition, I will contact Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice centre to see if I could visit them as one of my research trips. If I couldn’t visit them, I would talk to the volunteers at the Phyllis Tuckwell charity shop to see if they could give me some information and advice to my project.

I think things are going well at the moment and I enjoy doing research on this topic. However, I still feel some pressure of making the outcome good and on time. Also, I hope the outcome will be the same as I expect. I will try to start writing the story as soon as possible and try to manage my time well with the time plan.

Good luck to myself!