A Letter from El Gato

This book is not for sale.		A Letter from El Gato. 2003. Written and iillustrated by Sherri Warner. Concertina. 8 pages. 5.5"W x 7.75"H.
This one-of-a-kind book was created as a plea to the Split Rock Arts Program for a scholarship to a Shereen LaPlantz workshop held in the summer of 2003. The program allowed applicants to send along work samples with the other scholarship applications, so I put this book together for them. I was lucky enough to win the scholarship, and attended the last workshop that Shereen taught. This was also the first book art workshop that I had ever attended. The book is constructed from materials I had on hand -- cardboard packing material from educational materials that I had handled in my previous job covered with paper grocery sacks. The title and the paw were hand-lettered with a Sharpie.

The inside is covered in red tissue paper with small flecks of multi-colored glitter. The content is printed on an ink jet printer on regular text-weight paper. I did the line drawings by hand, scanned them in, and used Photoshop to merge text and images. I wanted a hand-written feel to the book, so I used CatchupBold as the font.

I love dimensional elements in all art, so I glued a feather to the page.
It also adds some contrast in both texture and color.

I glued an envelope to the last page, and inserted photographs of my other books.

This photograph also shows my favorite illustration in the book -- the cat listening intently to a conversation and the cat unconscious after fainting from the shock of what it overheard -- the same drawing with two different captions. OK, if you have a cat, you know what I'm talking about :-)

Contact me if you have any questions, comments, or just want to talk about artists' books!