I like to imagine my characters visually. For some reason my newest/next novel feels like I want to imagine the characters as papercuttings. So I bought some Fiskar “Titanium” scissors, and they make me very happy, and it feels very exciting to be experimenting with this medium, and with color too, after all the b&w line drawings for The Book of Dog, butI’m getting a little wild with the palette.
Most people who read my blog already know that I had never drawn anything before The Book of Dog, which I illustrated with black-and-white line drawings–like my dear friend Wanda Lubiejewski.
At the very end of my Book of Dog journey, though, I started fooling around with paper cuttings instead. It was so much fun that, when I realized my Book of Dog paperback cover didn’t work at all for the square format of an audio CD, I came up with this completely different look for the audiobook.
Now I’m having fun imagining the characters of my next novel as paper cuttings. Here is one possible picture for a scene that takes place in the Premature Owl-Baby Ward (why not):
Hans Christian Anderson was a master at this obscure art, by the way. He used to cut out characters while he told his stories and then unfold them at the end. Here is one of his amazing papercuttings: