PENS

This is a big piece I made back in 2016. Since then, I have sold many small prints of it, apparently a lot of people are in love with this drawing. Last week I had a great idea to make this design into one of my concertina books. Of course, the lay-out had to be adapted because the big design is square and my concertina books are oblong: 75 cm/14 cm. For those who are interested in hearing how I proceeded, read the entire working process below. 

I already have a nice scan of the first drawing of the square piece. I use my new photo editor Affinity to cut and paste all the elements, rearranging everything. Since the lettering is too big for the much smaller book, I rewrite it onto another piece of paper, knowing that the block has to fit in the middle part of the book. After that, I also scan this and then it's playtime,  puzzling can start! 
​ 

Once I'm happy with the lay-out, I start drawing lines for the writing on the concertina book, using my fine pigment liner. I'm doing this first thing because there's always the risk of making mistakes! After that, I print the whole book - in parts - on regular printing paper, put them on the light box and transfer the nibs in pencil, then filling everything with the black pigment liners. It takes a lot of patience because of all the tiny letters but that's no problem, it calms me down!