Book Project

This post is way after I actually worked on and finished my book, but I never had the chance to talk about my process making it.

I drew out my outline of the different things from La Grande that were going to be in my book. It took awhile because I used a ruler to make straight edges and making the lines nice and even. I drew, in this order, a tree, Denny's, the big red rocking chair, a tree, a house, I believe another tree, a train and a truck. Once I had everything drawn out I went over it with a white pencil. It showed up, but it didn't give it the look I wanted it. It was defined enough, it just looked like colored pencil drawn on black paper. I wanted it to really stand out. I forgot I had a silver sharpie, so I went over everything with that after. I only outlined each thing, I didn't fill anything in because I just wanted it to be an outline of a city, this one being La Grande. I colored the rocking chair red, because that's the whole point of it. If I didn't add color it would just look like a rocking chair.

After I had it drawn I cut it all out, which ended up being quite difficult. I had to cut it all out and keep it connected together. There were some parts that almost came apart because I cut the "hinge" or fold a little too thin. After it was cut, I just drew everything on the back so it would be two sided. It was easier drawing this side because the outline was already there so I really just had to draw in the lines. The part that made it more difficult was adding the truck on. I didn't have enough room to add the truck to begin with so I had to draw it separately and then glue it to everything else at the end. It made it hard to draw on both sides, it's too confusing to try and explain it so I won't.

Once I had everything cut and drawn how I wanted I put my little titles, La Grande, Oregon in the picture frames and then ripped the stand off the back. Then I glued the little flap on each end of the book to the covers. When I folded it all up I noticed that the train and the truck were a lot longer than everything else and stuck out the sides of the book. I didn't want that, I wanted everything to be contained inside the covers. So sadly, I had to fold the train and truck in half, which made it look a little weird when opened, but you could still get the point.

After a few little finishing touches, my book was complete. I was pretty happy with it. It turned out just as I imagined. I would maybe make it a little bit more sturdy and so it would last longer, but I liked it.