Book carving

For my book carving I wanted to go more along the lines of something creep; I had one main theme that I started to go with which was "fear" I went around asking everyone what they were scared of and looked up different fobias.  The two that I sketched out were the "seven deadly sins" as monsters comming after a child, which I wasn't a fan of.  The other sketch I did was from an idea I had received from Michelle with two people in the woods and one of them had their head chopped off.  Once I decided that it was creepy enough I started to label the different parts of my picture so I knew what to carve out when. This planning was so important because I had to make sure there was nothing too small or hard to cut out. One piece that was harder for me was carving out a hanging man in the background, the rope ended up being too skinny and he fell out of the book which was frustrating for me because then it became "less creepy". I decided to make the book creepier I would cut the background out and make each layer get smaller and smaller making it look almost like a maze adding an unsettling theme.  With my design I wanted the book on the back cover and some of the back pages to look like they had been sitting in a puddle of blood,  and inside the book I painted the uncarved pages black,  and on one page I painted my fingers red and grabbed the book to look like a bloody hand grabbed it.  The "blood"  I felt was crucial to the overall design because it made the book,  and what is inside, even scarier. In the inside pages I carved and dark figure and a girl in the front center with trees all around them, giving an uneasy feel. I took risks with the background since it doesn't go with the "traditional" forrest with more trees; it's black and gray with the cut out getting smaller as you go back. Another thing that I added to my book was in the back cover I carved "lose your mind" not something a person would see just looking at the original work. Overall I felt this project was quite successful the colors all had a slight gray painted over them giving the whole atmosphere a creepier feel,  all in all I am very pleased with the outcome.

(pictures will be added Thursday I will not be around the book until then)