Now I know how all those poor monks in the middle ages felt as they copied texts all day. Talk about a cricked neck! I worked on this project for a swap and put quite a bit of time into it. However, it is something I've always wanted to try. I'm fascinated by the idea of a handmade, handwritten, handillustrated one of a kind book. So I made one.
The story is Little Red Riding Hood, obviously.
I used some scrap matboard for my covers and followed the tutorial here for binding the book:
http://curiouslycrafty.wordpress.com/tutorials/The cover piece is a watercolor painting matted with the same paper as the inside cover, framed with ribbon. The whole thing is lacquered to within an inch of its life and glued to the cover. The lettering is simply gold acrylic paint.
I used fancy linen-textured paper for the inside covers. This was the only thing I bought new for this project.
Title Page. The ink is just ordinary calligraphy ink (the kind in a cartridge and pen). The illustrations are done in watercolor and outlined with black artists' marker (ZIG Millenium...I *love* these markers!).
Dedication page. Names are blurred out to protect the innocent and guilty.
The Story.
I was inspired by some kawaii Japanese fabric in my partner's wist, so yes, there must be big eyes and a pointy hood on little Red.
I had to learn how to draw a wolf for this project. I'd never done so. (other animals, yes, but not a wolf).
I love how my backgrounds turned out in these illustrations...I'm still working at painting/drawing whole scenes as opposed to isolated people or things.
Little Red's posture here is awesome, I think. She's looking at "grandma" but her body is turned away. She knows there's something off, but she's not sure what it is.
Rather than make a gruesome scene, I think a spilled basket and flowers is more tasteful (and easier to draw!)
The End!
I ruled the pages in pencil (I can't *draw* in a straight line, let alone write in one!) and sketched in the layout (where the words go and where the pics go). I'm a chronic doodler and I'm sure it shows in the flowers and such. After calligraphy and inking the pics, I erased the pencil. Watercolors came in last. I used standard watercolor paper cut in half and folded. For the first time I broke into the watercolor pastes that someone gave me ages ago (i've used watercolor pencils but never pastes out of tube). I normally prefer acrylics, but I'm pretty happy with what the watercolors gave me.
Once I made the pages, the rest was fairly easy. However, binding takes *patience*! Do a little bit, and let it all dry before you can do more. Move too soon and you have a big mess.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with the result as long as I don't look too closely (I start seeing all my errors up close, and there are many many errors). It was fun but is was also very very time-consuming.
All hail Gutenberg...in the future, any books I make will definitely involve a printer! (Naturally, my sister is already asking for her own one of a kind book, so that might be happening soon)
Cheers to all! I hope you enjoyed looking at my project
Thanks!
