I feel like everything these past two weeks has been centered around paper.
What I did:
- Illustrate (23 hr)
- Visit Allen Elementary (3 hr)
- Fixed pagination (3 hr)
- Visited AADL (1.5 hr)
- Emailing (2 hr)
- Bought lots of paper (2.5 hr)
What I encountered/accomplished/discovered:
I didn't finish all my illustrations over break (which I am very bummed and anxious about). But I did try to use my time wisely... While waiting for the fancy Arches watercolor paper to come in the mail, I spent some time working on my storyboard. In fact, I got some absolutely priceless feedback from my target age group.
I did an exercise where I brought in the story board and asked them to describe to me what was happening in each picture. This was incredibly helpful since I am relying on my illustrations to tell the story, not words. It also helped me get rid of extraneous details and clarify the important ones. I also think I made the ending more significant.
I visited AADL and spoke with a lady named Erin about how to present my book. Although I can't host something at the library, I could take my thesis to a school or community center. Laura, librarian and storyteller was able to offer me some advice about presenting my story. She said that because the visuals are so important to me, I shouldn't take away from that by trying to narrate. She gave me the contact info for someone at the library who does more visual storytelling (like comic books). Hopefully I will get some interesting solutions from him.
I am doing the binding workshop on Tuesday, so I went on quite the paper finding adventure. I was able to track down the number for Xpedx, even though they are closing at the end of the month. I went to the store and got an awesome deal on three types of paper. I am trying a Mohawk stock and 2 different weights of Hammerhill. I also stopped into MBS to look at what they had. I ending up finding some Strathmore matte inkjet paper to try as well.
What's next:
Obviously my next step is to print on all the papers. I want to see which weight works best and which paper brand takes the color best. I will have this done by Tuesday. I will also finish my illustrations and scans of them by next weekend.
Two questions that I am not sure if you have heard already: How are you going to handle the book’s cover? What sort of binding are you going to use? Also, are you considering hand binding? The hand binding is probably not a good choice at this point given the time frame. You could do a spiral binding that has a medical journal or utilitarian feel…not sure if that would compliment the subject matter or not. The questions seem fairly simple, but these elements have a strong influence on how the book reads as it is the initial visual introduction to your material, and in a gallery situation, these aspects will be highly scrutinized.
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