Book Project Part I: The Saga Begins Anew

Book Project Part I:

The Saga Begins Anew

In which lions become rabbits and things get off the ground... and by things, I mean rabbits...

Long awaited, I know, but here we are... finally, FINALLY a post about the second semester book project. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, Viktor is no longer with us this term. We do, however, have a new book project. This semester, Marshall and Carl have joined forces to create one incredible team... I feel as though they should have superhero names or a daring duo sort of title. (Note, I am taking suggestions, so feel free to write in with your best picks.) ... alas, digressing... Marshall and Carl have teamed up to run our book project workshop.

The project is essentially a mini-thesis. In past years, the dynamic duo (not official title) have given a general theme or over-arching subject for the project. This year, however, the project was left wiiiiiiide open. At the end of first semester, Marshall and Carl left us essentially with: We trust you. Imagine what you will. Now, go forth and make art.

When we arrived back at school in January, we had to have a proposal ready to go... which I did. For this project, I had two ideas, both revolving around New York City. The first was a book of short stories with illustrations in all different styles and mediums and all different characters and styles of narration; the main character in the book, however, would have been the city itself. The second idea, just the kernel of an idea really, was for a wordless picture book about a wild night-time romp around the city but which ultimately lacked a central conflict. Over break, I wrestled with my ideas, wrote A TON, but ultimately decided to do the picture book despite the missing conflict.

And so I drew and I drew and I drew and then guess what? Yes! I drew some more. I spentmuch of the beginning of the project sketching thumbnails and putting together a book dummy (essentially a mock-up of the entire book). A traditional picture book is 32 pages, so I used that as my framework and kept drawing.

This round of sketches went through major revisions... and of the sketches I'm sharing with you today - believe it or not - only one of them made the final cut in its original form.

In the next bunch, you can see the progression of sketches... sometimes I do some very general outlines and flesh it out later.

So there you have it... the first of many posts about the second semester book project... stay tuned for further adventures in which I tell you more about my actual idea and how the story has changed entirely and even - GASP - how I was told to scrap the whole project and start over. Stay tuned dear readers! There are more sketches, black rag board, tons of paint, and color ahead!