Vignettes on a Hans Christian Andersen book
A vanishing fore-edge painting featuring The Ugly Duckling, The Ice Maiden, The Fir Tree, and The Little Mermaid
Welcome, my new subscribers!
Are you ready to see some magic?
Seriously, I don’t think you are.
I painted this over the Christmas break and finished it on New Year’s day.
(Video footage courtesy of my sister Filly Mack, who is far more media-savvy than I am. If you like soulful, dreamy indie songs coming straight from the heart, do yourself a favour and check out her music!)
In case you are keen for some in-progress shots of this project, here they are:
Each tiny ‘vignette’ scene/circle is just under 2 inches high x 2 inches wide. They are all derived from Hans Christian Andersen tales found in the book itself.
To anyone new here, this is a vanishing fore-edge painting, painted on the (you guessed it!) fore-edge of a book. The master craftsman of this ‘endangered’ art form is Martin Frost, and his gallery of books is superb: https://www.foredgefrost.co.uk/gallery
Lessons learned this time around:
Watercolour paint always dries lighter than you think (basic knowledge, yes, but I seem to forget each time and panic a fair bit).
Do NOT attempt to remove (aka dampen and then gently ‘scrub off’) paint that you have laid down (even if a brush stroke goes awry). It just floods the surrounding area and inside of the pages with more paint.
AND even more strongly I must caution — do not, ever, I beg, accidentally shove a long fingernail straight into the edge of the pages while attempting said ‘scrubbing’. I was 0.2 seconds away from a crying meltdown at 11pm when I did this on The Little Mermaid scene…my thumbnail cut through the pages clean as butter, and all of the paint immediately flooded to the cut like greedy piranhas.
The cut acted like a sponge and it ruined the Prince’s face. I had to perform intense paintbrush-surgery for the next hour trying to somehow save the painting.
So. *deep sigh* We live and learn. Martin Frost rests his painting hand on a ruler to keep his fingers clear away from the surface of the pages and I now see why…Time spent on this painting: around ~40 hours. I strongly suspect that painting mini scenes takes longer than one large scene, mostly because it is more complex to plan individual colour palettes for each vignette while ensuring it all stays cohesive.
Finally — tonal contrast is EVERYTHING. I can make the Ice Maiden’s dress look white purely by surrounding it with pale blue ice! Awesome.
I hope this latest vanishing fore-edge painting has brought you as much delight as it gave me to paint it! This beautiful copy is returning soon to the lucky gal who kindly put her faith in me and gave permission to experiment on her book. Thanks, E!
This hobby is now an obsession. I have already purchased today three (3) more gilded books to paint on (two Jane Austen collections and one Edgar Allen Poe).
As the young’uns say hyperbolically — “send help…!”
xx The Inky Baroness
So cool!!
This is so beautiful. Your abilities continue to grow. Thank you for sharing this with us.
My favorite of the paintings is the Ugly Duckling. The reeds on the right and left give the feeling that we're witnessing a private family moment. It's very intimate.
And I've subscribed to your sister on YouTube Music. What a gorgeous voice. Thank you for sharing her with us.