Industrious Illustrating #23 – Finished Book

For those following along with Industrious Illustrating, posts 19 and 20 were about my process of creating a childrens’ book for ARTDES 270. Well, now I have a finished product for my efforts! I cut out several 3.5″ x 3.5″ chipboard squares, printed and cut out 7″ x 3.5″ spreads of my illustrations, and pasted it all together using rubber cement. The end result looks like this:

While I’m still not super into making physical objects such as paper cuttings or sculptures, I still enjoyed getting to see my efforts come together into a tangible object. I’d say that it’s one of the pleasures inherent to being creative and making artwork. I’ll definitely look forward to working in various ways in the future to explore and realize all kinds of different artistic visions I may nurture!

Industrious Illustrating #20 – Childrens’ Book

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! This week I’m continuing off of last week’s post by showing what the end result of my sketching and exploration process for this ARTDES 270 childrens’ book project looks like. I edited together 3.5″ x 3.5″ square illustrations and added text digitally to create a cover and four spreads.

If you saw last week’s post about the material explorations I did ahead of making the finished illustrations, you might recognize that I took cues from the thicker paints (gouache and digital) I experimented with to try using saturated application of watercolor in a similar way. I ended up pretty satisfied with the results, so I’m glad I took the time to play around with other mediums first.

 

 

The end result will become a physical board book made out of chipboard, but I haven’t made the prototype yet because I’ve been too busy with schoolwork and holiday break travel to assemble it. I may post the finished physical book in another column if anyone is interested in seeing it, however.

Once I return from my trip abroad, I’ll do my best to find some time to make sketches of what I saw and integrate them into future illustrative projects!

The Kingdom of Tokavsk, Session 4: The Golden Hawk, Part I

The following is a myth of how the Kingdom of Tokavsk was founded.  The text has been translated and supplemented with footnotes to clarify certain phrases for modern readers.

A hundred generations after the Melting of the Sun1, there lived a young chief.  He assumed power in the midst of a famine that had stricken the tribe.  Having lost his father to the famine, he was determined to find a steady food source and save his people.  Now the chief was a very devout man, and he lit his torch and bowed to the trees2 every morn and night.  One night, as he was beseeching the Great Sky, he heard a hawk call from outside his dwelling.  Afraid to break his prayer, he continued with the mantra, only to be interrupted by the hawk again.  He resumed once more, and a third time the hawk called.  Sensing this was more than the caws of a wild bird, the chief rose and set out into the forest in the direction he had heard the cry.

 

He soon came to the cusp of the woods, where the firs abruptly ended and snowy hills rolled outward into the great beyond.  He had never traveled far beyond the trees, but he was unafraid and had faith in his heart.  The clouds above him gathered dark and gray, but before long a soft glow formed from behind them.  A soft wind blew from the south, and thusly the clouds parted to reveal an infinitely gray sky and down swooped the Hawk.  He had the body the size of a tree and wings winder than ten men, and his feathers, beak, and claws were of solid gold.  His eyes gleamed as burnished gems, and his formed gleamed like a sheet of stars.  He floated high above the chief’s head, not needing to alight for the winds that heeded his call.  “Chief,” boomed the Hawk in a voice a hundred times deeper than the lowest voice of a man, a hundred times louder than tumbling walls of snow.  “Heed my call.”  “I hear you,” responded the chief.  “You are to lead your people west,” said the Hawk.  “There, you will find an abandoned settlement upon a river.  This is to be your new home.  Stay there, and your people will never go hungry.”  The chief, understanding the Hawk was a manifestation of the gods3, promised to lead his people there with his life.  “Be warned,” said the Hawk, “for a life-swearing can never be broken.  Your life is now tied to the finding of this new home, and upon its discovery so shall your life end.”  “I am not afraid,” the chief replied.  And the Hawk stretched upward into the clouds and became the orb in the sky.

 

  1. The ancient Tokavskan creation story describes the world as having been formed from a great celestial cataclysm. This resulted in parts of stars and planets dripping (in some versions, “weeping”) downward to form the ground, water, trees, and snow.  The entrails of the Sun formed light by which to see and the first living beings, hence why the dripping, or melting, of the Sun was considered the most important.
  2. Referring to ancient customs of the Tokavskan folk religion. A torch or branch was lit outside every home to welcome benevolent spirits and signal faithfulness; similarly, bowing to the trees was a way to pay homage to nature and perhaps to spirits or ancestors.
  3. The early Tokavskan religion did not have a pantheon in the traditional sense. They were monotheistic in that they believed in one God, yet they also believed in spirits both good and evil that could control nature and fate.  The use of “gods” here may be an error in translation.

Literary Baby Names

Every year a list of the most popular baby names is published.  Some names are always on the list, or have been for the past twenty years like John and Andrew.  Throughout history names have been chosen from different sources. Some common inspiration for names are nature, religious, historical, and literary.  Art has influenced names throughout history.

Historical names are taken from all different types of historical sources.  The most popular example is a family name. Even though family names generally do not descend from a specific historical figure, a lot of names go back generations and they are historical when considering timelines.  Other historical names are from famous historical figures. Some possible potential historical names for females are: Jane Austen, Susan B. Anthony, Amelia Earhart. Some male historical names are: George Washington, Martin Luther King, and Marlon Brando.  Historical male names could also include all past presidents. While most historical names only use the person’s first name, if a parent wanted there to be a stronger connection then they could use the first and middle name to have a stronger significance.

Literary names have also been prevalent throughout history.  The most common literary names are Biblical names. These names have been prevalent since the Common Era has started.  Some other old literary names come from Greek Mythology. Some very common names are: Achilles, Caesar, Aphrodite, and Artemis.  Similar to historical names there are more male names to choose from than female names. Names from Greek Mythology are not as common now as they used to be.  Greek names are now seen as more formal names and are not common at all in America.

Other literary names are more modern.  One of the most modern examples of this is Harry Potter.  Harry Potter names are slowly becoming more common as people who read the books as a child are having children.  The names Harry, and Hermione are becoming more popular and will only continue to become more popular for the next 10 years or so because of the popularity of the books and the movies.  Other modern literary names come from childhood books that children attached to and remembered. Some examples would be Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web, Ramona from Ramona and Beezus, and Matilda from Matilda.

Literary names have always been common, and they change throughout the generations as new books come out and capture a generation.  Some names have always been popular and will continue to be due to the significance the names have.