Wednesday is the last class of the semester, and that’s the day this artist book is due. I’m about 20% through, which is not good. Once again, I’m trying to do something that is too complicated for the time allotted. This is an abecedary bestiary about creepy-crawlies, a subject which is constantly in mind by the end of summer in Florida.
I’ve had to cheat on Q: it was either include the Queensland beetle — whose appearance in Florida is only anticipated with dread but not actually in the population — or something else. I chose something else: the mosQuito. I’ll put the mosquito in the Q, I think. No creepy-crawliary of Florida would be complete without the mosQuito anyway.
The nematode, whose microscopic head and tail are blown up across two pages and two papers, was drawn with a school nib and Chinese stick ink and McCaffrey’s ivory ink. I knew drawing on that unsized leaf-inclusion paper would be a difficulty. But I did it anyway. You can see some bleed-through on the next spread for the zebra butterfly. Oh well. I kind of like that too.
The zebra butterfly image is an acetone image transfer of a photocopy of a drawing I made by using a folded pen (a butterfly pen, it’s called, haha). The image transfer is a little “pebbly,” probably because of the texture of the Arches Text Wove paper it’s on. I like it. The bit of vermilion gouache matches the rust-colored leaf-inclusion paper better than is shown by the photograph, which turns the rust sort of maroon, for some reason.
Beth, I feel your pain. I never give myself enough time to do what I want to do on a project with a deadline. Or, to be more precise, I encounter problems along the way that I didn’t anticipate, and THEN realize that I don’t have enough time.
Of course, while you’re ultimately the best judge, I have to say that your book looks pretty cool from here. And I think that mosQuito is the PERFECT solution for Q. Good luck!
Clara
Thanks for the encouragement. I didn’t have a chance to respond before since I way over-achieved on this book and had to pull an all-nighter to get get it done in time. But I did get it finished, even if I had to skimp on the binding, which was going to be a caterpillar binding and ended up being a long-stitched slotted hard cover.