I finally finished my latest book art illustration! It is a tribute to Beauty and the Beast. I have made other illustrations/sculptures in this series so I thought on this one I would share a bit on the process behind this piece.
About 7 months ago I found this beautiful book at an antique store in Valley City, North Dakota. This style of turn of the century children's board book tends to have many of my favorite fairytales featured in them. This book is over 100 years old and was probably published in 1911-1912.
I then did a few thumbnail sketches to see which layout I wanted. Here were my top two.
I then looked for inspiration and imagery that I wanted to incorporate into the work. Even looking to some of my own graphic design work I made for the Minnesota Book Awards.
I started the layout with the 100+ year old book pages. When doing a layout like this I can't plan everything until it comes together. The words on the pages are some of my favorite features of this work and that means I might have to change the layout to highlight words I like. To create these moveable template parts I use tracing paper throughout the entire process.
Here are a few closeup shots on some of the details.
Here is the final work. If you would like to have this as a print or maybe even a cute tote, check out my Society6 shop!
UPDATE: 12/24/17
My cousin got her Christmas gift which was fabric made out of four of my book art illustrations.
