When I started to think about what I wanted the book to look like, I wanted to convey feelings and emotions. A tunnel book is a great way to emphasize a particular scene, layering details upon details. I couldn't select one theme, I wanted to represent five of them, and the best way to do so was a carousel book. A carousel book would allow the time and consideration for each scene and theme, and yet accommodate more than one.
Death
I did not want to depict death with pain or fear, those emotions are separate and I believe though death causes them, I wanted to show them separately. The sketch is extremely simple and just lays out what I believe it should look like. There are four layers, the outermost layer has the poem around it. The other layers have a forest of dead trees in it, leaving enough white space for the silhouette of the little girl. The grim reaper takes up a large amount of the space.
Fear
A lot of fear surrounding the pandemic was based on people. The fear of contact, the fear of rumours, the fear of the unknown. I wanted this to be layered as well, but for this one, I wanted to use tracing paper/translucent paper such that the hands would look ghostly in the distance.
Isolation
For isolation, I wanted to show an empty room from the POV of a window looking in. With lots of white space, I really wanted to emphasize the sparse and desolate nature of the image.
Touch
I really struggled with touch, and even after sketching this out, I decided that perhaps I wanted touch to be a tactile cream colour background. Using the four layers I wanted to create something that would be truly something you could truly touch and feel, with different sensations for each layer. Touch is so important now. After such a long time spent in isolation and distanced from everyone, the ability to touch something that someone else has hand-made is so special.
Healing
This is perhaps the most important page to me, because through the death, fear and isolation, despite how touch starved and lonely people - healing remains powerful and present. I wanted to use colours of this page, the layers showing a girl colouring in a night sky. Art to me is cathartic and healing, and this was a page that signified that.
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