After I finished my third book, Where All the Little Things Live I realized I had learned a lot. My writing improved, weeding out words and sentences. I’d learned how to render light sources better in the illustrations and how to be more subtle using the spot colors. And I’d settled on a layout style that I really loved.
I turned to my second book and after about a year of revising the text and illustrations — even adding a few new ones — I completed a 2nd edition of Tamaishi, So far it seems it’s gotten more attention when I bring it to book events, and I’m really happy with how it’s turned out.
In 2021 I realized I was almost out of copies of Zosan, my first book, slowly selling them over the last seven years. The revision of Tamaishi was such a success I decided it was worth revision Zosan as well.
I’ve thought a lot about how I could have just left these book behind and started something new. But I’ve realized that even though I published these books that they were, in many ways, still a draft. Not a first draft, but certainly a step in the process. The third book was a product of that evolution and could not have happened without the other two.
Back to where it all started…
And so I turned my attention to Zosan. First published in 2015, I realized grand ambitions of letterpress printing the book because I wanted it to be something that would last generations. This printing process came with a number of constraints — the most obvious being I could only print using a single color.
I struggled with this. A central theme of Zosan is color, and it seemed odd that there were none in the book. I justified it both with the constraints of printing and the idea that color could be left to the readers’ imagination. But I was never quite satisfied with that.
With the 2nd edition I’m using five spot colors in addition to black to use color in a way that enhances the book aesthetically, visually, and thematically.
Color unfolds
The book begins a monotone blue. It adds some depth but is generally flat and mirrors Zochi’s pleasant but bland view of the world. But he discovers something and his world opens up — suddenly he starts seeing beauty everywhere. We see this unfolding as see more spot colors on the page, green, red, violet and eventually even blending the spots together to make a sixth color.
I loved how in Tamaishi I was able to switch from the vibrant green (381U) to blue (290U). it signals a point in the story where the situation has turned for the worse… until things are resolved as we revert back to the original green.
With Zosan, I want to use a deep purple layered to a similar effect — at a certain point in the story the colors disappear and the tones become dark, saturated with deep violet.
Preview
I’m looking forward to realizing this with Eberhardt Press once again in the coming months, hopefully getting it done by early next year. I’ve currently revising the text as I’ve gotten through all of the artwork, even adding two brand new illustrations to the mix.
Trusting the process
It’s exciting to have a chance to finally be able to see the book realized the way I originally imagined it — a testament to trusting the process, something I’ve always wanted to embrace from the beginning.
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