Baba Jaga

 all images in this post © La Cicala editore 2020

Samples from the illustrations I made for the book Baba Jaga by Fiorella Colombo, published by La Cicala editore. This time I used another techique I always loved: ink pen on paper.

The story is a revisiting of traditional east-european folk tale Vassilissa the Beautiful, in which appears the terrible and enigmatic witch Baba Jaga. For this project I was in charge of all the graphic design of the book, besides the illustrations, and together with the author we decided to compose the whole book around the concept of light and darkness (known and unknown), visualized by an alternation of white and black pages. I designed also a series of decorative vegetable friezes to frame the illustrations and the text pages. These branches flourishes as the story progresses, to symbolize the growth of the protagonist, the girl Vassilissa. The addition of a third colour, red, was necessary to give visual prominence to the third force symbolized in the original story by the red knight, servant of the witch. The red color is a digital addition to scanned drawings.

Sul fronte del porto

 all images in this post © La Cicala editore 2017

Three sample illustrations from Sul fronte del porto (On the Waterfront) by Ivano Baldassarre, published by La Cicala editore. For this book I made three kind of illustrations: the full double-page pictures, shown below...

then, the full single-page pictures, shown below...

...and finally the "symbols", cut-out drawings of objects, small enough to be placed among the text, shown here below.

All was done in pencil art, a technique I always loved, and hope to use again in the future. I choose this techinque for the project also to give the feel of old black-and-white photos, since the core part of the novel is settled between the 1930s and the 1960s.

The Tale of Colours

all images in this post © La Cicala Editore 2015

My first book for newborn series Libri da Cantare ("books to sing-along") published by La Cicala Editore. Short stories for kids aged 3-7, including a CD with the narrated text and an original song about the characters, to sing and play along.

This tale, written and narrated by singer Artemidoro, tells of a yellow baboon kid asking his grandfather how the different colours were born. The basic idea for the illustrations was to use a colour only when the little baboon named it, so the book goes from a yellow-tinted beginning to a rainbow-coloured ending. A funny thing to imagine and to paint.

In the Beginning - Dialogues with Masters of Eish Shaok

all images in this post © La Cicala Editore 2014

Cover design for the book In principio (In the beginning), a spiritual essay published by La Cicala editore, Italy.

Technique: digital.