The World God Made for Me
Wow, a LOT has happened since my last post!
It's been a heck of a crazy year! One of the highlights has been to work on a children's book called The World God Made for Me. I wasn't sure about the author's stand on me sharing too many process shots, but now that it's published *squealing* I want to share the whole process with you.
The book is a lyrical poem that "takes children on a journey through God's creation" with an interfaith perspective.
This project was a self-started initiative of a mom who wanted to teach her kids about God and how different religions portray the Divine. The author launched a kickstarter to fund the printing, as well as to create her own publishing venture for future books. And it was a great success!
THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTED TO THE KICKSTARTER!
I LOVED the idea of showing the beauty of different cultures and religions, it got me hooked right away. As we were going along, I brought it up with the author about showing not only other races and cultures, but different socioeconomic realities as well. Because no matter who you are, we need to show that God, or the Divine, loves and embraces everyone.
With great enthusiasm, she said yes! I felt that we need to do justice to the ones who aren't typically seen or portrayed to children nowadays.
As I read the text for the first time, a world of colorful, whimsical, and playful scenes flooded my imagination.
To portray the concept of "God" I came up with 2 different concepts. One where it takes on the essence or spirit of whatever it is interacting with, so essentially a glowy and sparkly version of the object shown. Or just have it be a free form multicolored haze that interacts with everything.
If we were to do the first concept, we would run into the problem of what if it interacts with humans. How would it look like? And for the scene of "He sweeps inside my window just like a gentle breeze, and sings a soft sweet lullaby as I drift off to sleep" What would we do? Have a face hovering over the kid? Now that would be a bit unsettling.
Illustrating the book was so much fun, especially since there was so much trust between the author and I. I sent her the sketches, she gave me the two thumbs-up, and I went on to finalize the painting. I felt so lucky to work with someone as easy going as Laurel.
Work In Progress shots
It was such a joy to work with Laurel, she is an amazing person and a talented writer. The words to the book have such an ease to them and filled with so much heart.
Can't wait to work on the next one ;)
To purchase the book, please visit the Paper Dove Press website
