The design here is based on Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands. I quite like Mr.Burton’s movies, but I wholeheartedly adore his style of art, and Edward Scissorhands is an excellent example. The movie is sort of a modern day retelling of Frankenstein, and Edward is that fish-out-of-water character that a lot of Tim Burton movies seem to feature. Another common element to his films is the factory assembly line sequence, and you can see his taste for that sort of thing in Edward’s Scissor-hands.
I’ve also been meaning to try out paper-cutting for a while (despite the fact that I struggle to cut in a straight line). And here are the results:

Of course, not everything went well. Halfway through, I found out I had no glue.(All the people who know me are now rolling their eyes going ‘Of course. GOD.’ I can feel it.). I was pretty much ready to rip everything up and wallow in misery, but then I realized that I was out of glue and not the world (I do have my moments, folks) and so I ran to the nearest store ,complete with a fish I’d drawn on my foot in ball pen (don’t ask) with the result that I now have four tubes of glue. Meaning a repeat can be expected 3 months from now.

Version-1

I wanted to do two very different versions, each of which was a valid understanding of the story. So, here’s the second one, done in pastel colours:

Thoughts in the comments section, as always.

When I read this letter of Van Gogh’s it comforted me very much and seemed to throw a clear light on the whole road of Art. Before, I thought that to produce a work of painting or literature, you scowled and thought long and ponderously and weighed everything solemnly and learned everything that all artists had ever done aforetime, and what their influences and schools were, and you were extremely careful about *design* and *balance* and getting *interesting planes* into your painting, and avoided, with the most astringent severity, showing the faintest *acedemical* tendency, and were strictly modern. And so on and so on.

But the moment I read Van Gogh’s letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty in things to others, by drawing it.

And Van Gogh’s little drawing on the cheap note paper was a work of art because he loved the sky and the frail lamppost against it so seriously that he made the drawing with the most exquisite conscientiousness and care. ”
― Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit

That is one of my favourite written pieces on art.  It helps that it is  inspired by Van Gogh, whose style I admire to no end. ( Fun fact: of my earliest ‘proper’ pieces was an interpretation of ‘Sunflowers’*. )

*No, not ‘Not Sunflowers‘  (the title is a reference to Van Gogh’s piece, but the painting wasn’t inspired by it.)

This time I chose to go with a pattern, instead of building the design around a theme (Again, because I’m nothing if not lazy and thematic stuff would require me to think and whatnot, whereas this is the kind of thing I do on a daily basis (although, not so much on t-shirts)). Wow, that’s a lot of parentheses.

Stage-III!

I’ll leave you with that very poor photo of the back of the shirt, following the same blue/purple color scheme as the front, although the photo seems to suggest otherwise. You know how they say ‘the camera never lies’ ? Figures I’d go and have the only one that consistently does, doesn’t it?

Anyway, it’s too late now to wish anyone a Merry Christmas, but happy New Year to you all! Keep commenting!

More to the point: I’ve been wanting to do book covers for a while now. Partly because I hate leaving my books on the shelf with no protection and partly because it would involve my thinking about the themes of the book, before coming up with a design, which is my idea of a good time (not even kidding).

The only book I’ve done thus far is for a Jane Austen Collection as pictured below:

The front cover is representative of the quick and always entertaining back-and-forth narrative as well as the dancing around the more difficult questions that happens in so many of  Austen’s novels. It doesn’t hurt that balls and social niceties (and fancy script) are all reminiscent of the time setting of the novel, either, I think.

The spine of the book just uh, bears the contents ( because I am nothing if not lazy). So, yeah, pretty self-explanatory.

This, of course, is the back cover. With this, I wanted to represent both the apparent image of a successful, ‘marriageable’ (as viewed by society) woman (the lace) and also women who were accomplished in their own right (the piano) and who saw purpose in life outside of marriage and who were intelligent and capable but whom Austen’s contemporaries valued only in the capacity of ‘wife’.
It is easy to classify these books under ‘romance’. But they seem to have some worrying undertones of dissatisfaction and entrapment. That marriage seemed to be the only way to not get left behind and that not many women could stand up to the pressures of society is apparent through her seemingly light-hearted jabs. I view the novels as not ‘happily ever after’ so much as at least partly a documentation of Austen’s struggles that are still relevant today. Apart from that, it’s just an incisive, brilliant portrayal of family and society in the early 1800s and the many joys that were to be had (despite the obvious trials) for someone in possession of Austen’s sensibility and wit.

And also because pianos and lace just look nice. #deep

Tagged: book cover design, Emma, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Review, Sense and Sensibility ]]> http://blackwingedconvolution.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/holiday-homework-1/feed/ 0 Blackwingedconvolution JaneAustenCollection-front JaneAustenCollection-spine JaneAustenCollection-back http://blackwingedconvolution.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/flamingo/ http://blackwingedconvolution.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/flamingo/#comments Sat, 08 Oct 2011 10:37:15 +0000 blackwingedconvolution http://blackwingedconvolution.wordpress.com/?p=287 ]]> I don’t know; it reminds me of a flamingo.

The idea was: I’ve done paintings that predominantly feature the primary colors, blue and yellow (also green, but that’s secondary–pun!). So of course, I wanted to finish the collection with something ‘red’ and I have this to show for my efforts..

..which is not really red.

Should I pass it off as my Red painting anyway? Vote in the comments section!

Sigh.

Still enjoying the colours but–GAH!

(For anyone wondering about the movie: It looks gorgeous. The costumes, the scenery..are all as wonderfully over-the-top as one would expect from a Tim Burton production, but unfortunately the movie fails at story-telling. You would think that capturing the exhilarating insanity of the book would be right down Tim Burton’s alley, but somehow the movie really falls short. In fact I think this may be the one time I will ever accuse Tim Burton of really dialing it down too much. As for the actors- there were too many characters with too little screen-time, which really left them no room for development. Mia Wasikowska (Alice) was pretty good, although not quite good enough to carry the film. Depp, I thought, gave a really disappointing performance as the Hatter. In fact, I’ve only see him do worse as Willy Wonka (God, I wish that move had never been made!). Thank God, then, for Helena Bonham Carter as the Queen of Hearts. She was absolutely spot-on fantastic. Her performance gave a nod to the fairy-tale aspect of the movie, while never degenerating into Anne Hathaway-esque excessive silliness. Her delivery was just impeccable and had me laughing out loud several times throughout the movie.

Bottomline: Underwhelming, particularly if you’re a fan of the book. Or a fan of Tim Burton.Or Johnny Depp.)

That’s right, I painted on a shirt, this time! As I’ve now discovered, it really isn’t a horribly difficult surface. Meaning, there may be more of these (You have been warned!).