Book Project

For the last project of the semester we were to create a Book (illustrations, binding, and all) on any topic of our choice. I have always have a massive interest in Greek mythology (like i'm actually pretty nerdy about it) so thats what I decided I wanted my book to be on. I was very excited to do this project and had big aspirations for what I wanted to accomplish. I wanted the illustrations to be of gods and goddesses, in the style of Alphonse Mucha (he's my fav). I did a lot of research for this project at the beginning, trying to decided what gods and goddesses I wanted to incorporate into my book, and that would be the deciding factor or how many pages I included.

Once I got an idea of who I wanted to include, I started doing research on each individual character. I knew most stories/ characteristics about each of the gods and goddesses, but was not quite sure if any had any nailed down physical traits. This was a big reason I wanted to do these characters, to kind of make them my own and how I would see them. About midway through my research I was like "ugh what clothes am I going to dress these people in?"...because everyone wearing toga outfits is suuuuper boring. So *lightbulb* I was like hey I'll dress them in modern clothes and make them super fashionable and chic, and I'm not a huge fan of drawing people anyways so I chose to do fashion sketches so I could get away with proportions being off. So for each character, I drew up a rough sketch/ idea of what I wanted to go on my real paper, and then would transfer it to my nice book paper. I also did research on each people seeing if there were any specific traits that made them them, so I could be sure to include those in my illustration. For example: I discovered that Apollo had  golden hair and had a younger looking face, with no facial hair. 

For all of my backgrounds I really looked to Mucha's work for inspiration, and used a lot of the geometric shapes he uses in his artwork. Also loved how vibrant his work is so I wanted my illustrations to be very colorful and bright. For this reason I chose to do water color. My technique for each of my pages was to do a light wash in the background (colors going with each god's personality/ powers) and then I would go back with more intense color to do the foreground / clothing. 


Struggles: 
Okay so I got so so excited for this book and wanted to be SO awesome, that I might've bit off a little more than I could chew. Which is why not everything is precise and perfect like I like it to be. The main thing I had issues with was binding. Lord have mercy this book was just not meant to be bound. It was just once thing after another.....(multiple broken needles, trying to use toothpicks/ nails to improvise, my holes I punched ripping through......yeah it was bad) so unfortunately I had to present my book bound as it was. The other struggles I had were with time management. I think I wanted everything about this book to be so perfect and awesome that sometimes I spent too much time focusing on the research aspect instead of the actual making it happen aspect. I made a Pinterest board specifically for this project, and cannot tell you the amount of hours I'd spend just sitting there trying to discover the perfect outfit inspiration, or try to find the perfect pose, which looking back probably wasn't necessary. There were so many aspects of this book I wanted to include and a lot of them I did, however I do plan on going back after I get it back and fixing everything until its exactly how I want it to be.

Personal choices:

Cover:
I wanted my cover to be leather. End of story. Jk, but I really did have it set in my mind that it was going to be leather and that would look very clean and classic, like what books in greece maybe would've been made of...? Like if they had books idk lol. So as I was on my hunt at various stores for leather (don't try to buy leather at Michales unless you want to throw money down the drain) I discovered this cool alligator leather at Walmart (shocking I know) and thought it would add an expected element to my book. I made the hard part of the cover by using 2 pieces of cardboard glued together for both front and the back, then sealed them with a couple of coats of gesso.

Models:
You might be wondering "um why don't these dudes have faces?'" 
I wanted to keep the focus on the clothing of my models, and let their body language/ style speak for them opposed to what their face was saying. 

Watercolor:
I've used watercolor before, but this was the first time I really made it a key factor of one of my pieces and truly let myself play around with it. I am very pleased with how the coloring of all of my pieces turned out, and feel like it also relates back to my inspiration from Mucha.

All in all I guess you could say right now I have mixed feeling about my book. Im very proud of all the handwork I put in over this past month, and can honestly say that I truly did not procrastinate on this one... however, I feel that all the hard work I put in still wasn't enough and it didn't come out exactly how I wanted it. I put my literal blood sweat and tears into this book (literal tears as I was crying at the beginning of critique this morning because my binding was so terrible and I wanted to crawl into a hole...). I am very eager to get it back and fix the things that need working on because then it might just be my favorite piece yet. 


P.S.
Maybe once I fix what needs to be fixed on my book I'll bring it back to class next semester so you can see it all perfect and what not, since I have you for Drawing 440!!!

P.S.S
Do we get any kind of extra points for having perfect attendance or is that a rumor? This class is the only class in my ENTIRE school career that I've never missed a day of class (pretty big deal for me!!)


Thanks Brent for an awesome semester, you're the bomb.com and I'm looking forward to having you again next semester! Have a Merry Christmas!





























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