Monday, August 18, 2014

I'm Learning



 
 
I've done printouts of some of my stories and made them into book signatures.  Being able to hold the pages in my hand as physical objects has affected my view of them.  I can see now that as a book, there are too many full-page, full-color drawings one after another.  The eye needs some variety and some relief as one pages through a book.  So I've started doing little minimal drawings that will fall between the longer, more elaborately drawn stories.  And I'm working on some very short, limited-color sequences as well to give the reader  visual "breathing room".
 
Oh, and Marty, since our discussion about picture size some weeks back, I'm trying something different.  I have enlarged the picture on the page, reducing the white space as compared to the printout you saw at my house.

11 comments:

Rickart said...

This is so exciting to see! I love the craft and thoughtfulness you are putting into this... and the pages look FANTASTIC. I'm really looking forward to buying a copy from you in the very near future!

Tom Moon said...

Before doing any hard copy printing I will probably try to make it into an e-book at some point. Maybe I can get some tips from one of you guys that has already gone through that process.

Davis Chino said...

TomMoon!

This is so great! Blair and I were just talking about yr book(s) last night, and I decided I needed to check in with you today and find out how your book making class is going--and here's yr post.

I call it "kismet."

Your desire to break up the flow of an unrelenting full-color narrative sounds great, and looks like it'll yield good stuff. But I still want to see how much the effect (and affect) changes if the pages are printed larger with something closer to a "full bleed" layout.

'Cuz they're so great! I like getting lost in the image--not having it so "framed" on the page, and therefore pushed away from me and my emotional/aesthetic involvement.

Davis Chino said...

...and did Sybil's son Otis remember Blair???

Davis Chino said...

"WORDS ARE VERY POWERFUL."

Love it!!

Tom Moon said...

Thanks Rick. Glad you think I'm on the right path.

Hey Marty, I'll definitely be doing more experiments before committing to print, and if you come down now and again maybe we can talk more about these different options.

Sybil wrote to Otis a couple weeks back, but at the next book session Sybil said Otis had not as yet written back. I forgot to ask about it last class and I won't be going back for awhile unfortunately.

However, I think we can safely assume that no one could forget Blair. Maybe he didn't want to re-open that old deep wound.

Davis Chino said...

Tom: a get-together is a great idea.
I wanna see how yr stuff is progressing in person!

and re: Otis and Blair: !!!

MrGoodson2 said...

Tom. I love the art. The book is weird for me. I automatically thought you would be going into oversize format. To see it almost dinkier than dinky just doesn't work for me.

I love the design idea of breaking into deep thought, simple symbol mode. Those are great and a oerfect complement to the stories. I just want it to occur on 11 by 17 pages.

Also think the white space around the art is over much. With modern stories typically bleeding off the page, it looks like too much orphaning of what we like . The ART!

JMG said...

Gorgeous stuff Tom. I tend to agree with a few others on the border. It distracts and at a glace gives a feeling of a greeting card rather than a narrative. But it's shaping up nicely. Love your palette on all this, just love it.

Tom Moon said...

This is all excellent feedback. Thanks everyone. There certainly seems to be a consensus that bigger art is better, and I'm glad to learn that. It's funny because I've been in love with the idea of printing this small little volume all this time. My private little world in the palm of my hand

So, personal preferences aside, in the end this will come down to economics. Large color printing is of course, very expensive. Are people willing to pay enough to justify the large format? At any rate, that's down the line. Producing more material, publishing digitally and getting public reaction are the next goals.

Davis Chino said...

Tommy, let yr publisher worry about costs!

You are "THE TALENT"!!