Pratt Capstone Development (2024)
mixed media
In our penultimate core studio course, senior illustration students at Pratt propose and begin early explorations of their capstone project. I proposed mine as a children's book based on a translated folktale from Alexander Carmichael's Carmina Gadelica vol. V: a page-to-page translation archive of Scottish Gàidhlig oral tradition. I aimed to design this book as a language-learning tool for the endangered Gàidhlig language.
Through my material explorations that semester, I determined that I would use laser-burned wood and woodblock prints as the core line art and texture of my illustrations, which will be colored with blended transparencies of paper and fabric collage.
character studies
thumbnails and layout studies
selected scene for exploration
sepia ink comp drawings of pages 12 and 13
sepia ink comp drawing, and subsequent basswood laser burnings, of long-eared owl language-learning card
page 12 laser-burned on birch plywood
page 12 laser-burned on birch plywood and painted with gouache
language-learning card woodblock prints from laser-burnings on newsprint
page 12 woodblock prints from laser-burnings on watercolor paper and newsprint
previous work adapting other songs and stories from Alexander Carmichael's 'Carmina Gadelica,' with sepia ink