TGI Friday!  This has been a rough week after the problems of last week and I am glad it is finally Friday!  I’ve had some stressful things to take care of and one more still to come and then maybe I can take a deep breath and relax a bit.  As you know, the #100DayProject, ended on Monday 10th, and all 100 of my mini projects are completed and have all been featured in their “10 day” posts but I wanted to find a way to lay all 100 of them out on something flat and photograph them all together.  I found a large piece of painted board that was big enough to take them all so here they are all in one place!   They are not in date order but the first 20 are at the top and as you can see they are quotes on ATCS which was the original plan, but then around the beginning of the third row I started to incorporate elements from the covers and began to wonder if it was possible to make tiny covers with quotes on them instead of just having the quotes on their own.


This meant more work of course as in the beginning I had the whole ATC to use for my quote but now I had to find space around whatever image I decided to draw on the ATC, so the lettering had to be smaller and sometimes even the quotes had to be changed to shorter quotes.  The background colour was also important as a lot of the covers had dark areas and I did not want to have to write in white pen all the time but sometimes reversing the colours of the cover was enough to solve that problem.  You can see two examples of this on the bottom line where there is a black block under the image and then a white block for writing the quote.  This is the reverse of how it is on the book cover where there is a lighter block under the image and the bottom of the cover is black.

Looking at all the covers together I tried to choose my favourites and managed to narrow it down to 20, I was aiming for top 10 but couldn’t leave any out.  I chose these covers because I really love how they turned out but also I was really surprised at how they turned out, having not attempted anything like this before. Some of them seem to be made of a bunch of random squiggles that somehow end up looking like something or trick your eye into believing that it is something.  i thought that especially with the Charlie and the Chocolate  Factory cover, while I was drawing that one, I thought it looked like nothing at all and could not see how it was going to look anything like the cover, but then when I started adding colour it changed into Charlie and Willie Wonka and the golden ticket!

There were some things I am pretty sure I had never drawn before like a flying horse, or a donkey or even a rabbit/hare.  In your head you know what all of these things look like but then when you try to draw them something else comes out lol.  What does a rabbit look like anyway?  My first few attempts turned out looking like cats (no surprise) and then a fox with very long ears haha but eventually after a lot of concentration, I had something that resembled a rabbit. Now that my brain and hand understand what is required for a rabbit, I was able to draw a much bigger one for a journal page.   I have the hardcover edition of The Martian which has the orange cover and the astronaut floating in the middle.  I love that cover and of course, the book, so I knew I wanted to include it but how do you draw an astronaut floating in orange dust clouds?  The answer is just try to draw what you see and not what you think you see.  I started with his helmet with the black visor and the one dot of light reflection and then suddenly there he was.

I really like the covers of the Karen Maitland books (the wolf and the owl) where the image is a black silhouette filled with tiny icons.  Those were fun to do and I really like the effect so I might do more art like that.  All those tiny icons remind me also of the cover right next door, for Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, lots of tiny icons that are easy to draw but very effective overall.  There are two “grey” watercolour covers which are actually both done using just a black Neocolour II crayon and varying amounts of water to get different shades of grey. Those too are mostly random shapes and blotches of watercolour that somehow end up looking like something. The same thing was done with the Shadow of the Wind cover using only one Neocolour II to get multiple shades.

So that was it, now I have 100 of my favourite quotes from 100 of my favourite books.  What now?

You can find a detailed post for my Day 1 project where I went into the ins and outs of what I was doing, and here is a look at each batch of ten days:

Challenges

#The100dayproject – All the days!
So why ATCs and why these books?  Well in order to make it easier on myself and therefore make it more likely that I could do all 100 days, I thought ATCs would be perfect.  Then I thought of book quotes handwriting them, perfect way to practice my lettering and also indulge my love of books.  So what books?  The first 25 books are all books with elements of magic in them (fantasy, supernatural, urban fantasy, vampires, witches, werewolves etc) and then I changed to modern fiction and so on but now with only 30 books left I have some difficult choices to make!  As with the first 25 books, all books must be taken from my shelves and be actual physical books, no ebooks, no audiobooks!  I have also started taking elements from the book covers and incorporating them in the ATCs so they are starting to look like mini book covers and we’ve been playing “name that book” in our book group lol. [icon name=”book-reader” style=”solid” class=”” unprefixed_class=””]

Paint Party FridayWeek 9, Year 11 Check-In – also joining in with Paint Party Friday with my 100 little painted ATCs

So tell me, which is your favourite book and which is your favourite cover, if any? Let me know in the comments and as always, thanks for reading!

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14 Awesome Comments (btw comment moderation is on)
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pearshapedchris
May 19, 2021 7:30 pm

These all look fabulous Elle – I ember the feeling when I completed my 100 envelopes last year – satisfied but ever so slightly pleased they were done with. Hugs, Chrisx

Kim
Kim
May 17, 2021 12:47 am

Oh my gosh! It’s so amazingly fun to see them all grouped like this. Great project! And congratulations on making it all the way to Day 100.

Effy
May 16, 2021 3:18 pm

I have loved seeing this project progress! The ATCs are gorgeous!

Amy Sorensen
May 15, 2021 12:30 am

These are all amazing! Loved seeing them all in one photo. Impressive and lovely!

Linda Calverley
May 14, 2021 7:32 pm

Lovely. I can see them printed on fabric and made into a quilt.

Valerie -Jael
May 14, 2021 7:01 pm

Wow, Elle, absolutely fabulous! What a wonderful art collection. Happy PPF, hugs, Valerie

Nicole/DVArtist
May 14, 2021 6:43 pm

I am sorry for the stressful week. Hope your weekend is better. This has been a huge challenge and it all looks so beautiful.

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