A book-lover's dream house

Prismacolor colored pencil on Stonehenge paper,  5.5" x 8"

(click to enlarge)

Sometimes an image niggles around in my brain until I just have to get it on paper. I've been sketching this little book house, in one form or another, or sometime. When I started to get serious about this drawing last month, I quickly reverted back to my old architectural drafting days. (It may seem like overkill for a little sketch like this, but when the perspective isn't right in a drawing, I find it really distracting.) I initially thought about making a linocut of this, and I still might.

I couldn't quite decide where each "layer" of the main color would fall, so I played around with blocks of color digitally as a bit of a short cut before applying lots of color to my drawing.

Working on this cozy little piece during the stressful presidential election was the artistic version of eating comfort food. I felt the influence of two of my favorite illustrators: I have been looking at the recent work of Jungho Lee a lot lately, and was certainly inspired by the color palette and dreamy quality of his fantasy book world. The soft pencil lines and hatching were Brian Selznick-inspired, as is the fact that it seems to want to tell its own little story.

So, I may have to listen a little more closely to see what story it is trying to tell, maybe I'll find out who is inside the house and why...!  Any ideas?