WE HAVE A DREAM

A book with my illustrations is in the making! The book is send to the print shop this week, WHOOP WHOOP 
It's going to be in the bookshops in September. ​This is a dream come true.

The cover will look like this:

The story

It's a book with a heartwarming story about 10 year old Marisa from the Interior of Suriname having the dream to stand up and make a difference. The book gives a wonderful glimpse of Surinamese cultures and the problem of goldmining with poisonous quicksilver.
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The story is close to my heart and touched me, as I experienced the destruction quicksilver brings to the beautiful nature and health of the kind Surinamese people. Indigenous people live close to nature in the forest and the riverwaters are their source of life. Poisoned water means poisoned ​fish and people, destroyed nature means destroying their lives. Little people know of this and little care or take action. It is a complex problem, so I am grateful that that this topic get's some attention with our book in such a positive and beautiful way.

To give you an impression of the situation, I love to share some photographs I took last year in and around Apetina, a small village deep in the jungle of Suriname.

We have a Dream

The book is part of the exhibition We Have a Dream by De Nieuwe Kerk Amsterdam, opening on 16 September 2017. We Have a Dream is an exhibition about three world-renowned figures who profoundly influenced the course of the twentieth century: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. 

I'm so grateful to be part of this great project, getting a glimpse of the world of book publishing and it is an honor to work with renowned author Cynthia Mc Leod from Suriname. I had the pleasure to get to know Cynthia in Paramaribo, while I worked at the 'No Kwik' campaign against the use of quicksilver. 
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Cynthia Mc Leod saw my illustrations, my animated movie for the No Kwik school program and the bus I had designed for No Kwik and asked me if I would like to illustrate her book. 
Oh my god, OF COURSE I like to do that. In the last weeks I made 6 full page illustrations and a cover. I can't wait to hold the book in my hands. ​​

Behind the scenes

These last days, I got asked how I actually made the illustrations. So if you are interested, read along and learn about the art of combining paintings with digital drawings. It was a great way for me, creating colourful images with my passion of painting but also having the freedom of digital editing and being able to make changes. 

1. Once I had read the manuscript and come up with the ideas of the illustrations, I first sketched a line-drawing on paper.
2. Then I scanned it, vectorized it and coloured it on the computer. I did that for every element of the illustration.
3. I painted patterns, elements (like plants) and all backgrounds
4. I combined all elements in a file with many many layers.  

vectorized outline

coloured element

layering background elements

Marisa in Arawina

Working on a book together was an amazing experience and I am happy and proud of the result. I'd love to illustrate more books, so if you know anyone looking for an illustrator, feel free to say my name :)

And meanwhile on instagram...

Here's a recap in pictures from the last weeks. For those of you who aren't following on Instagram, come and join me!

That's it for today

I wish you a wonderful summer period!
Big hug and xox,
Lisa