My first picture book: What Will Hatch? by Jennifer Ward, illustrated by me, Susie Ghahremani – published in 2013 by Bloomsbury to advance critical acclaim by Kirkus Reviews and Publisher's Weekly.
These paintings were created on wood using gouache. The book was printed at 9x9" with die cuts in each page in the size and shape of the egg of the animal being pictured. This project is a tribute to my love of nature. You can purchase an autographed copy over here (or an un-autographed one over here).
Images © Susie Ghahremani / boygirlparty.com
The text of this book was written by Jennifer Ward, an author with whom I have now collaborated with on 4 books. She is a nature lover like me, and I love working with her.
Here are a bunch of my sketches for the project. Due to a million changes along the way (dimensions, die cuts, and the direction of my then-editor) I actually created over 100 sketches for this project. Blood, sweat and tears went into this project like nothing else I've ever worked on.
I physically cut holes into my sketches to plan for the die cuts, more meticulously as the sketching process went on...and on...and on...
And here's the printed book in its first edition! See the die cuts in action and the way the layers of pages interplay to become things like holes munched in leaves, the other eye of a crocodile, or the white belly of a penguin.
These photos were taken by my good friend Charlie Wright. (Thanks, Charlie!)
And that's what two years of work on a picture book looks like. Thanks for looking!
Drop me a line or visit my site: boygirlparty.com
-susie ghahremani
