Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Design for a Special Book

Cover - Reworked a week ago
Some time ago last year, I took a series of workshops for the children of Shishu Mandir. The purpose of those workshops was to incorporate the illustrations made by the children into the design of a book about the institution. The book in this post is my design, created around the children's pictures. 
These are the endpapers for the book
Above and below are portraits of Hella Mundhra the inspiring founder of Shishu Mandir.
Both paintings were done by Varalakshmi, one of the students in the workshop.

Here below, is a picture of  the superstar of my workshop, Varalakshmi
She was a quiet, dignified little girl who produced bold and striking drawings
Right at the end of the last workshop, I told her I wanted a large dark green background for the cover.'Yes Ma'am' said Varalakshmi calmly. She then look a large sheet of paper and full tubes of green and black paint. As we stood around her and watched, she held both the tubes mouth down above a plate and squeezed  with both hands. Pachakk! We gasped as the entire contents of the green and black tubes landed on the plate. Then Varalakshmi calmly took a large brush, mixed the colours and started painting.
Varalakshmi painting a tree
which I incorporated into the design below.
 In the picture below is Bhuvaneshwari, another hugely talented painter.
Do you remember her beautiful tree from a previous post? 
I've used it below and the picture above is one of her painting it.
Bhuvaneshwari also created the stunning picture below.
Here are some of the other pages in the book with paintings done by different children at the workshop.

 Naagaveni has a distinct and unique style.
This is her tree from one of the exercises in the workshop.

And this is her fantastic deer below
More pages with paintings.
Since each of the stories had a unique and distinct identity, I used a separate colour for each story dictated by the story itself as well as the illustration that was used.


As you can see, the design is built around the paintings and the colours of the pages partner them.





Designing the book was fun, but it also involved a lot of thinking and a great deal of hard work (12 hours a day for a month). A project which started with workshops sometime in the middle of last year for me, ended now. This book is the result of it, inspired by the beautiful painting done by these children and it is my applause to the absolutely amazing children of Shishu Mandir.



You can read more about the workshop here>>
and here>>

















20 comments:

Akhila H said...

WOW! Priya this is a beautiful initiative. Speechless! God bless you & Shishu mandir!

Maya Sara Matthew said...

Great work. I hope the kids get to see the book. The kids are so talented and kudos for bringing out the best in them.

aneri_masi said...

Priya! LOVE this! The paintings look wayyyy more better in the book, not saying they are not nice to begin with, you really make them pop in the book! Reallly realllllly awesome!

Archana Srinivas Pottery said...

The colourful world of children, how I wish to live there:-)

Beautiful!

Savita Krishnamoorthy said...

What a fantastic project Ad and so humbling. way to go kids of Shishu Mandir...just proves that art does not have to be "taught" to produce marvellous results! - Savi

Slogan Murugan said...

:) Congrats!

Priya Sebastian said...

Thank you : )

Vineeta said...

WOW. That is a LOT of hard work. Books are mothers to get done & out there. Congratulations!!! This looks phenomenal Priya. A WHOLE BOOK. And that too with kids happy illustrations. That is so much happy-kicks generated. This is a big deal!! YUHOOOO!!!

DINTOONS said...

Looks awesome, great work, Priya! Congrats, and all the best! :)

pRiyA said...

Yuhooo!!!!!
Thanks guys.

whizkid said...

bravo and congrats :)

Sophie Munns said...

This is a feast for the eyes Priya!
What an amazing project... very demanding I see but hugely rewarding for such wonderful results.
Bravo...
Have a fab year!

Rod MacGregor said...

That book looks amazing..you are a great inspiration to the children! Congratulations!

Priya Sebastian said...

Whizzkid and Sophie: Thank you! :-)

Rod: Hi Rod, I've seen you on Mr. Hughes' blog. Thank you for your kind comment (-:

Sound Horn Please said...

Congratulations! And Happy New Year Priya! I'm finally catching up with posts from my fave blogs :)

Hila said...

this is beautiful, it looks like a great book!

Tororo said...

What a delightful New Year entry! You did a wonderful designing job, that does justice to the young artists work. It seems 2011 was a good year: for you I wish 2012 to be as awesome a year (even more so, if possible!)

pRiyA said...

Sound Horn, hila, Tororo, thank you :)

Unknown said...

What a wonderful project, Priya. I loved the photos of the children's artwork, and then how you put it all together. Wonderful.

Gwen Buchanan said...

WOW... what a fabulous undertaking and Results to match.. so much work, in every stage.. and so well done.. everyone must feel a wonderful sense of accomplishment being part of this.. you are very selfless..