Coloring Book Project

For the last several months, in preparation for the upcoming show at ERA, I have been collaborating with five other artists on a coloring book. To elaborate, the show is going to be called "Rated G," and will feature three elements from multiple artists. The first element is a quilt which each artist designed and was then made by a regional quilt-maker. The second element is a painting, for which each of us created a paint-by-numbers pattern. And the third element is the aforementioned coloring book.

Local writer Joel Finsel contributed five short stories, and each of the artists created illustrations for one of the stories. The title of the story that my illustrations are for is "Ruby's Slippers." It centers around a young girl named Ruby, and features a kind of coming-of-age theme. The above image is the first illustration for the story. Yoshitoshi Abe fans might recognize this a little homage to that artist quoting an image from Lain.

The coloring book will come in two forms. First it will be available as a limited edition hardcover at the night of the show's opening on September 28. There will be only 50 of the limited edition books to purchase, and whatever does not sell that night will still be available at ERA. Moreover, UNCW's print lab will be taking over the project in creating a more widely available paperback version of this book. We expect that to be available early next year. The price of the paperbacks will naturally be much lower than the limited editions.

I will probably upload a few more of my own illustrations here in the future, and we'll see about including the story that goes along with it. No promises on the latter though.