Lily's Magic Books

A while ago I finished a class that I followed: Visual Journaling. I followed this course at http://camp.pikaland.com/. The assignments were about character and idea development and as a result I came up with Lily, a 7 year old girl, living in the seventies, with her parents and cat Peppermint above the bookstore they own in Amsterdam. (If you would like to read about earlier posts about this, click on the tag/label 'visual journal' on the left side of the page.)
These are my final results. The assignment was to pick one scene and draw different versions of this; in black and white, two colors, and an abstract one. As the story also takes place in New York, where Lily magicly goes when she opens a book one night, we had to draw food related to the story and place.
I should finish the complete story because I have the idea in my head. Now I only have to follow through...;-).

A slice of new York Cheesecake. An assignment for visual journalings class.
I might actually make a cake like this soon, I got in the mood by drawing this one! :-D

The story is developing....Week 3's assignment for visual journaling; adding text to the story.... These are a few pages of my work so far.
(My cat thinks this book gets more attention than she does these days. So the best place to get some attention is on top of this object of my affection :-))

Magic happens when Lily is reading a book. :-) This is a page from the story that is developing for visual journaling. Painting over what you don't like and altering...I kind of like how this page looks now. Needs a litle bit of paint to cover up previous layers and some finishing touch maybe, but other than that, I'm satisfied.
Visual journaling is fun. :-)

Purchases for today! For visual journalings assignment for week 3, we have to add words and text to the story. Some newspapers in english will come in handy for this one!
Also bought a cute little sketchbook I'm planning to make cute little drawings in...;-).
The book  'Letters to Anyone and Everyone ' is a very lovely book about animals writing letters to eachother and even to a table...:-). This book is a little present for myself. I love the illustrations and the storytelling. Inspiration!

For assignment two for the visual journal, we should think about characters who will play a role in the story. Later on we have to integrate this in the (collage-) work we've done so far.
I came up with the idea for a 7 year old girl, not quite sure about her name yet (suggestions are wellcome!), thinking about Lily, who lives with her parents at an old house at a Canal in Amsterdam in 1971. She lives with her parents above a bookstore they own.  Her parents spend a lot of time working in the store and don't have a lot of time for her....She has a Siamese cat named Peppermint (because he loooves the smell of peppermint) who spends his days sunbathing between the books in the window display.
At night times, when her parents are asleep Peppermint and Lily (?) sneek down to the bookstore and toghether they read books about foreign places and cities. One night when she opens a book about New York something magical happens....
Here's a few sketches of how the girl and her cat might look like! :-D
I had so much fun imagining about Lily, who she is, what she likes, hates, where she lives etc.
It is all happening in 1971, as you can see by the clothing etc....:-)
(Gave the glasses glass after taking the picture...forgot that:-))

A few sketches for the second week of visual journaling. Character development! More to follow!

All the pages for assignment 1 for my visual journal....(hard work :-))

A couple of pages for first weeks assignment for visual journaling. I added a few things since I took the pictures, but more pictures coming soon! :-D This first week we have to glue material such as magazine or newspaper clippings of our own choice into the moleskine sketchbook, really fill the pages with this material, and leaving some space open for expansion in the next weeks assignments. We"ll be working with different media such as paint, text and photo's to fill it up in the next weeks.