Shape & Color: P4
For my fourth project I created a series of Shel Silverstein books. Silverstein wrote poem compilations for young kids. Most of the poems were silly with whimsical topics. He even recorded himself reading these poems aloud in goofy voices.
Shel Silverstein’s
Where the Sidewalk Ends
A Light in the Attic
Falling Up
Interim Crit
Book 1:
For this first book, I tried to embody the whimsical child-like feeling. The black thread that runs throughout the front and back covers of all books in the series is blown through the wind. The twists and turns and circles it creates is indicative of those of a child’s imagination. The concept of Falling Up reminds me of a child floating up simply by the buoyancy of a handful of balloons. The balloons were also mimicked by the dots located on the front cover on the twine. Furthermore, the small hand was repeated throughout all the books in the series for congruity. The white block on the bottom of each book cover was attached also to show uniformity throughout the series. The spine contains a single balloon to reflect the bunch of balloons and the author’s name is listed as well.
Book 2:
The second book revolved around the concept of light. I tried to envision an attic room where a young child reaches to turn on a single light. The light bulb itself hangs from the ceiling with just a string hanging adjacent to turn it on. In this way, the child is curious about what mysterious things lie in the attic and turns on the light to investigate. The hand, white block at the bottom and the twirling threads are again repeated to show the child’s role in the books, creativity, uniformity. On the spine there is a single light bulb and the author’s name as well.
Book 3:
In the third book, Where the Sidewalk Ends I envisioned a child walking all the way to the end of the sidewalk and jumping down to see what is below. This is analogous to thinking about concrete, realistic ideas and then getting to the edge, jumping and enter the world of imagination and creativity. The twine wraps around the end of the sidewalk as the child jumps into the unknown. The grass accents are placed to contextualize the sidewalk.
Comments
I asked for comments specifically about how to maintain a specific style throughout the series. I found this especially hard as I was combining the use of the pen tool on Illustrator as well as a physical pen and tablet to apply my own drawing skills. I received feedback about the uniformity of line width through the piece.
I also asked for feedback on the color scheme. A few individuals comment that the background colors were good but the colors of the balloons were a bit too bright. The background colors were more pastels and the balloons should match as such. In addition another comment was that the purple background in book three was far too dark once it was printed.
Other comments are as follows: didn’t understand the white block at the bottom of each, font didn’t fit the theme, the sidewalk awkwardly stopped, the attic imagery was indiscernible, the layer of the font on the twine was hard to read.
I took all of these comments into consideration on the final product. I also changed around the orientation of the books in the series.
Final Crit
Book 1: Falling Up
I changed the font to be more like a drawn line — more organic. Furthermore, throughout the series, the images are drawn more organically and shaded less accurately. This is to emphasize the child-like nature of the book. I got rid of the white block at the bottom and extended the color to be solid throughout. I made all three books more pastel in regards to the background colors as well as the balloons in the first book. Furthermore, the hand which is depicted in each cover, I draw to be more accurate and more along the style of the rest of the cover. A clear edit I forgot to make was to change the color of the single balloon on the spine of the cover.
Book 2: A Light in the Attic
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I removed the image of the attic room and simplified the imagery. Instead, there is a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. A child is reaching up to turn it on. This can be taken as the literal sense of investigating the mysterious attic room, or creating ideas and brainstorming in one’s head. Simple outlines of clouds are added throughout the series to add to the illustrations. The light bulb illustration is again created organically. The inner color spills out past the lines, such as a child who has yet to learn to color inside the lines.
Book 3: Where the Sidewalk Ends
In book three I focused on extending the sidewalk to make it span from the end to the back cover. This compromised the author’s name on the spine. I think it is OK. Furthermore, the large sidewalk illustration somewhat compromised the fluidity of the twine. I added smaller grass fluffs to continue to contextualize the sidewalk. I also removed the random dots along the twine from the interim crit.
Reflecting
The more I look at the covers, the more I feel this was an overall success. Looking back, if I had more time I would focus greater time and effort on the details. In addition, I would add the authors title to the front cover somewhere.
~~Initial Sketches~~
~~Initial Concepts~~
For our fourth project, I will be recreating the covers of three of Shel Silverstein’s books. Although this is not a series, the theme of childhood imagination is carried throughout his books of poems. The three books I chose are A Light in the Attic, Where the Sidewalk Ends and Falling Up.
On the front and back and potentially spine of all three of the books, I plan to carry the whimsical theme of child imagination by a ribbon wrapped and twisted in many directions. I hope this will tie together the front, back and spine. In addition to the title and author, I will incorporate a cartoon-esque illustration on each front cover according to the specific book’s theme. On the back I will list a few sentences playfully scattered among the ribbon threads. The spine will also contain a bit of ribbon and the title of each book.
Book 1:
Title: Where the Sidewalk Ends
Author: Shel Silverstein
Graphic: Girl pulling adult towards the end of the sidwalk which is connected to the ribbon.
Book 2:
Title: A Light in the Attic
Author: Shel Silverstein
Graphic: Girl is peeking into a circle of light in an attic. Ribbon comes out of head? or light? and reaches up into the clouds
Book 3:
Title: Falling Up
Author: Shel Silverstein
Graphic: Girl grabs onto handful of balloons with ribbon intertwined.
