I’m excited about a project I stumbled across called Picture Book Report. I found it through Twitter in one of those moments of interconnectedness and retweets that leads you to something very cool.
I recognized a bunch of the artists including S. britt and Julia Sonmi Heglund, a fellow Wisconsinite. The site features 15 artists who each chose a book to illustrate based on how their interpretation of the text. Each month will feature new installments from the artists.
I’m looking forward to seeing how each artist will add their own style and imagination to stories that have previously been illustrated by one or more other artists. In fact, some of the books, like Peter Pan, have spawned countless book versions and movies over the years. Some of the artists are also including “behind the scenes” views into their process on their own blog.
It’s fascinating that you could give these 15 artists the same book and they would create 15 wildly different artistic interpretations of the text.
I would love to conduct this experiment one day: write a book, invite X number of artists to create the illustrations, and publish all the versions at the same time. I think it would be an amazing experience.
We need Groundhog Day sales at stores, Groundhog Day groundhog costumes, Groundhog Day parades, Groundhog Day decorations (groundhog-shaped strings of lights, window clings, stickers, buttons, hats, shirts, posters, and furry brown Groundhog Day garland), Groundhog Day greeting cards, a tradition of wearing brown on Groundhog Day (like wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day), Groundhog Day parties, traditional Groundhog Day food, drinks, desserts, Groundhog shaped sugar cookies, and finally, of course, the cherished family tradition where moms and dads everywhere, on Groundhog Day Eve, dress up in their groundhog costume, drink the traditional Groundhog Day drink, dig a hole in the backyard, climb in, and just after sunrise, with the whole family gathered around, jump out and decide whether they see their shadow or not. (A note to moms and dads in colder climates: you may want to take several servings of your Groundhog Day drink with you in the hole and/or dress in layers. It’s gonna be a long, cold night.) If there are 6 more weeks of winter, then the family has a breakfast of cold cereal and milk. If winter will end soon, then let the Groundhog Day hot breakfast feast begin!
I’m a big mashup of excitement and anxiety to hear feedback as the book begins to trickle into the public. Hey, this is all new for me.
