Don’t Know How To Do This
The last 5 months or so I have been working on a project. It was a project that I honestly thought was going to come together quite quickly.
Cleaning out my studio room I came across all sorts of artwork tucked away and that gave me a plausible theme for a hardcover book. I have already published a few soft cover books through KDP publishing on Amazon and I was itching to see what a hardcover book looked like. A book filled with over 8 years of artwork, would take months to organize, but I had no idea, and so the struggle began.
While cleaning, I found a file organizer filled with drawings of Dexter wearing sweaters and another organizer filled with dancing dogs coloring pages. My search for all the miscellaneous pieces of art began. Piles of sketchbooks had to be revisited and lost projects had to be rediscovered. Then came the photograph sessions. I don’t have proper studio lighting or a dslr camera but my iphone is pretty darn good. What I needed was a sunny day and living in Sweden means that doesn’t come around very often (as I was organizing this whole big mess around mid January 2023)
As I look over all my art, from years back, I can see my style has changed, my pen strokes are less, watercolor is more and even the mediums I was using have changed. I am doing a lot more digital art now. Dexter’s early years consumed a lot of my time, because the children were in school and off with friends, and I was the only one around. I wasn’t always happy about that either. He was a handful. But as I was looking over these artworks now, thinking and feeling about years ago, I am older and so is he, we have grown-up together. He has mellowed and so I have I. He is my friend and I feel his trust in me. So this book, with the catalogue of art, the design decisions, and the personal history, is something very, very dear to me.
And I don’t know “how” to put it out there in the world.
Making an instagram post with a photo of the book seems so bleh. I am not a videographer, and don’t know where to begin with reels. So if you have any ideas of how to do this I would love any tips!