Belonging to the Land: An illustrated collection of short stories
I like writing, so decided to put some of my short stories together, and design an aesthetic that would fit well with the content of the prose. After some experimentation, I decided colour pencil on an unbleached natural sugar paper would work best. I then put it all together in a hand-made book, using drum binding. It is colourful and simply designed.
The book is A5 in dimension, and has a wrap-around cover design of a desert landscape and sun. It has a textural feel, and hand-made appearance.
There are a few more pages to this book, but I chose to select my favourite pages to display here. The page above shows a desert scene. The loose colour pencil markings allude to heat, and the dream-like quality of these alien landscapes.
The illustration above shows baby emus dancing in tall grass. The story accompanying it is about two small girls who have very different backgrounds, but share a love of dance.
I really wanted to focus on earthy and bold colours for this book, as well as simple shapes and forms. I looked at the Impressionists for inspiration on colour and mood.
