You can’t be an illustrator, married to a huge Wizard of Oz fan and NOT be expect to do at least one illustration from the story. And one was all I ever intended to do. I painted a scene from the chapter introducing the Cowardly Lion, thinking I wouldn’t do any more.
Well, as it turns out, partly because I knew it would mean a lot to the hubby, but also because there is the legitimate fact that the OZ stories are in public domain, I decided to make a full on project out of it. Similar to the Potter-Project I plan to do a painting and a couple drawings for each chapter of each of the books… though how many of the books I’ll do remains to be determined. More on that in a bit. There will also be the cover illustration and a handful of other extra art, including a double sized foldout illustration for at least one of the chapters. To see the chapters I currently have completed click HERE.
When finished, much like I’m doing with the Potter books, I’m going to format and print the book and hand bind it. I’ll stitch the pages together, glued them, and attached the cover boards coated with book cloth and finish it all off by making a slipcase.
To the right is what the finished Potter books look like, to give you an idea of what the finished OZ books will be like. If you want to see more about the process take a look at the Harry Potter page, or click on the image.
The biggest difference between the Oz books and Potter: the OZ books are in public domain. In the Potter books, I use “Loreum Ipsum” place holding text instead of the original text from the books as to not break any copyright laws. With OZ, I not only can use the actual text, I can also sell the finished product! How well they sell will be a large factor in figuring out how many more of the OZ books I’ll be illustrating. As of right now I can say I’m probably going to do at least the first three, but I just want to get through the first book first.
All that said, if the Oz books sell well, and I actually find I could make a living doing them... I’ll do every single one, and then some.