"Love Begets Love"
"Dragostea naște dragoste"/"Love Begets Love" is a wonderful Romanian children's book written by Brandusa Vranceanu that speaks to the young readers about true love, empathy and kindness. The world of the story is populated with diverse and colourful characters and while it doesn't lack its share of conflict and tense moments, the narrative remains grounded in a tone of peace and tranquility, utterly beautiful in its imaginative descriptions.
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Technique and Process
For this project I provided the entire design of the book: from planning out the interior to creating the illustrations, the cover, choosing the fonts and text placement. I absolutely thrived on the freedom of creation that was given to me, being allowed to design the book exactly as I envisioned! The illustrations are created with multiple transparent layers of watercolour and gouache on cotton paper, which gives them a beautiful depths and richness. For the final result they were enhanced digitally in Photoshop.
I had the idea of supporting the feeling of the story by giving the book a classic design: I created decorative letters, charming spot illustrations and detailed full-page illustrations that give away a new detail every time you look at them.
Being my most elaborate illustration commission, the whole project was finished in about a 7-8 months.