This project is a new one for me: an artist’s book that’s also a children’s book.
When I was little, my brother and I had a very common encyclopedia. One of its volumes contained poems and nursery rhymes.
I still have that book; I read it to my children when they were boys, and now I’ve decided to start a project based on one of its doggerel.
The choice was easy: I loved this nursery rhyme and I still love it: there are seven black crows—I mean black, really black—on the pear tree in the Gualtieros’ garden.
I started by designing the book’s shape. I made a prototype to understand how to fold each part and how to adjust the dimensions. Then I outlined a tree, chose the images of the crows, engraved them and put them in a right position.
At a later time I sketched two different trees, one on each side, and chose the position of the crows and how to draw them.
Then I carved all the parts, added the pears and prepared the prints for the book’s box. It took a long time and a lot of work.
Printing was also difficult because I had never used a multi-color technique before. So it took me a few tries before I got acceptable outcome. None of the prints is perfect, but I think I got a good final result.
I also printed out some sheets to cover the book boxes.
The last thing to do was to cut out each book and glue crows and pears on them.
To add the nursery rhyme to the book, I asked a 3D lab to create some stencils.
Finally the book is finished!
