Children’s Book
Have you seen
my glasses?
🚧 This project is a work in progress! 🚧
@varunrau and I wanted to make our own children’s book! We both wanted to create a story that teaches the reader about art history. To start, we researched various children’s books and really loved the simplicity of Jon Klassen’s "This is Not My Hat" and "I Want My Hat Back".
Designing Dottie
Here are some iterations of our main character, Dottie. (We named her Dottie as a reference to Lichtenstein’s Benday Dot painting style!) We designed her to have huge eyes because we wanted her glasses to be comically large.
For the final version, I increased the brightness of the colors and increased the contrast in scale of her eyes and hair to make her appear even cuter.
The Story
We wanted to start with a few pages introducing Dottie’s family and interests.
After the intro, we started brainstorming which paintings Dottie should talk to. We picked artists with distinct styles that were easy to describe. Before we started drawing, we wrote out a basic script! Here are a couple snippets:
D: Hi! I’m Dottie. Have you seen my glasses?
M: I am Piet Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie. I have not seen your glasses, but you can search through my brilliant blues, yellows, and reds.
Dottie looked left and she looked right, but she could not find her glasses.
...and so she continued.
D: Hi! I’m Dottie. Have you seen my glasses?
L: I am Roy Lichtenstein’s Modern Room. I have not seen your glasses, but you can search my living room. Sometimes I lose things in my couch.
Dottie looked in the couch, but all she could find were 25 cents, a rubber band, and a paintbrush.
...and so she continued.
L: I am Roy Lichtenstein’s Modern Room. I have not seen your glasses, but you can search my living room. Sometimes I lose things in my couch.
Dottie looked in the couch, but all she could find were 25 cents, a rubber band, and a paintbrush.
...and so she continued.
Dottie looked in the couch, but all she could find were 25 cents, a rubber band, and a paintbrush.
...and so she continued.
Then, we started to explore what the illustrations would actually look like! The following images are all a work in progress.
We're still working on this, but keep an eye out for Have you seen my glasses?