Countdown to “A Stone for Sascha” Day 6 of 10: Keeping it LooseI...

Countdown to “A Stone for Sascha”
Day 6 of 10: Keeping it Loose

I knew I wanted color to play a big role in this book. It would help create the mood and emotion for each moment in the story but, more importantly, act as a cue for the passage of time. All of the ancient past sequences in the book were to have a golden, subdued look, while the contemporary moments were to have a more purplish, saturated feel. Because the book is wordless, I didn’t have the luxury of explaining to the reader that we were jumping through time. Instead, I had to rely on the next best thing: color.

One thing I remember learning from some of the veteran matte painters that I worked with at film studios in California was the importance of keeping paintings loose, especially in peripheral areas of the image. By leaving out precision, the painter leaves the completion of the image in the eyes of the viewer, who subconsciously fills in the holes. Much like the reader in a wordless book! It’s always been my favorite part of this particular form of storytelling – putting in just enough to make the story engaging and understandable, but leaving enough to the reader’s imagination so that they can gain a certain ownership of the tale.

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Come back tomorrow for part 7: A Golden Heart. In the meantime, it’s not too late to pre-order your signed copy of “A Stone for Sascha” from my local indie, The Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA. Give them a call and let them know to whom you’d like it inscribed. They can ship it anywhere in the USA. “A Stone for Sascha” publishes Tuesday, May 8th.