Kind Hearts

I made this book in 2016 in Reggie’s Primitive to Modern class. It is small,
only 3.25” tall by 3.75” wide and these photos show it bound in blue cloth
with marbled paper endsheets. I didn’t quite know how to do the window in the cover yet so I did my best at the time. I liked the window and how the watercolor robin painting tempts the reader to open the book. Since then I have rebound the book and done the window a more finished way, changing the color of the cover and using different endsheets.

The poem is Longfellow’s “Kind hearts are the gardens” (text is below). I had an extensive garden at the time and many plants I could use for reference for the watercolor illustrations. All the lettering I did in black stick ink except the last page. All the flourishing on the italic was planned out in pencil on paper and practiced extensively. The last page was lettered in Miniatum ink size with 23k gold leaf with the center in watercolor. I hoped the last page reminded the reader of the sun. The pages were offcuts of natural colored calfskin vellum and sewn on Schiller paper to make the book form. I wanted the hair side to be the only side written and painted on and like how each page is a different shape of vellum.

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Beautiful video of works from "26 Seeds..." through the years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SoNBEt_RKQ