Ascendance of a Bookworm

Chapter 132: Black-and-white Picture Books (115.1)
Translator: Rebeka
Our first print was a complete failure. Although I came to the conclusion that prints were not suitable for picture books, I couldn’t give up, so I did some soul-searching with Lutz on the way home.

“As the saying goes, failure is the mother of success. Find out the reason for your failure and you will have a chance to succeed next time.”

“Well, Maine, what do you think is the reason for the failure?”

Hearing Lutz say this, I began to think about the reasons for my failure, and immediately came up with at least three.

“First of all, the sketches are too complicated. Wilma’s paintings are too detailed to make prints.”

I could never ask Wilma to illustrate all picture books page by page, so I had to think of methods other than prints. It might be feasible to ask Wilma to change to something with simpler lines, but she had only seen the paintings in the temple. In this case, it would be very difficult for her to change her painting style. I must at least provide her with a model before I ask her to “paint in this style”.

“By the way, I also made some mistakes in the mirrored letters. I need to check them more carefully in the future, but with a little care, I can avoid this kind of mistake, right? I should get someone else to check with me…”

“Well… in that case, how about separating the words from the illustrations in the first place? That way, even if the words are wrong, the illustrations won’t be affected.”

“Lutz, you’re a genius!”

Since this picture book was for children who were first exposed to words, I always had a stereotype that words and illustrations should be put together, but in fact they could be divided into two pages.

“The last thing is the engraving. It’s not very good in many places.”

In some places the letters were engraved through the board, and the lines of the illustration protruded. Lutz puffed out his cheeks in disgust when I pointed out the weakness of this part.

“It’s partly because they don’t have tools for engraving, not because they’re bad at it.”

“No tools… but your home is supposed to have a lot of tools because of work.”

The Lutz family had made a lot of room for tools, which should have come in all shapes and sizes. I thought back to Lutz’s house, but he gave me a slight shrug.

“Although we do have more large tools for processing wood than anyone else because of our work in architecture, we don’t have tools for precision processing because we have no chance to use them.”

The tools uncle Dido used to repair houses were not suitable for precision processing. My father also had some large tools, but he only used a knife for small things.

“That painting is too delicate to engrave with a knife.”

“What? Was that engraving made with a knife?”

If it was engraved with a knife, it could be said to be very excellent. Instead, I should have provided them with tools like the engraving knife when I commissioned the work.

“Then the next time I ask Ralph and Seig to engrave, I will also provide them with tools. Please say sorry and thank you for me.”

“Well, I see… but why did it turn out to be a Scripture for children?”

Asked by Lutz, I began to wonder why I had gone from making a picture book for babies to making a Scripture for children.

“It seems that it is because the paintings Wilma can draw are basically related to the temple.”

“Then if it’s for the babies, it doesn’t have to be a Scripture, does it?”

Because people said I was not good at drawing, I had to give the job to Wilma, and because all the paintings she could draw were related to the temple, I changed my mind to make the children’s edition of the Scripture in order to cooperate with her.

… Huh? Came to think of it, the children’s edition of the Scripture wasn’t a picture book for babies at all, was it?

I finally sensed the seriousness of the situation. Picture books for babies had different needs than picture books for children. I couldn’t confuse them because they were all young.

“Ok, let’s make black and white picture book sfor the babies first. The children’s edition of the Scripture can be made later!”

“We only have white paper and black pigment, so we can only make black and white picture books, right?”

“Yes, but it’s a little different.”

So let me go back to the beginning and think about what kind of picture book I want to make for babies. I began to recall lessons that referred to the theory of children’s libraries and child services. First of all, it is said that babies at birth only have very blurred vision. Vision is inextricably linked to the development of the brain. By seeing a variety of things every day, the brain is slowly stimulated to grow. It takes three to four months after birth for a baby to recognize more prominent colors, such as red, and for the eyes to begin focusing.

It is not until a baby is about a year old that he or she can see as well as an adult. Before that, the outlines of things were blurred in their eyes, and they had difficulty recognizing inconspicuous colors. So, picture books for babies under the age of one were all about strong contrast in color and sharp figures. Colors as long as white, black, and red were sufficient, while illustrations were best made up of clearly defined shapes such as circles, triangles, and squares.

I recalled some of the black-and-white picture books for babies that were illustrated just by putting the graphics together. If such illustrations could be made into picture books, even I could draw them.

“Lutz, I’m not going to the temple tomorrow. I’ll stay home and make picture books for the babies!”

“Okay, I will inform the temple. I will come to work with you tomorrow after I have checked Maine Workshop. Every time you make something, I must be there to watch you, otherwise it will be dangerous.”

Lutz started sighing again. I couldn’t argue, so I changed the subject immediately.

“I want some thick paper. Can you bring me ten sheets of paper from the workshop?”

So the next day Lutz came to my house before the third bell.

“Wow, that’s a mess. Aunt Eva will be angry.”

The table in the room was littered with notebooks, soot pencils, and boards. If my mother was at home, she would tell me to “clean up quickly,” but today she and Turi were away at work, so no one would lecture me.

I kept drawing on the board, thinking about what would be the most appropriate illustration. When I had decided what to draw, I opened my notebook and drew it down with a soot pencil. My father had a ruler in his kit, so I took it out to draw straight lines. After drawing triangles and quadrangles, I should have drawn circles, but I suddenly stopped. I really wanted a compass.

“Lutz, do you have a compass in your house? It’s a tool you can use to draw circles, and it looks something like this, and it’s used like this way…”

I drew a circle on the board and made a circular motion with two fingers. Lutz nodded slightly.

“Oh, the compass? I used to have it, but now it seems to be missing.”

“Well… I can’t help it. I’ll have to use something else instead.”

I got the thread and tied it to the soot pencil. I wanted a thumbtack, but I didn’t have one, so I took a nail out of the tool box and wound the thread around it. Then I held the nail head with my left hand, straightened the thread, and turned the soot pencil to make a circle.

“Wow, that’s amazing.”

It was probably the first time that Lutz had seen such a way of drawing circles, since it was not usually necessary to draw beautiful circles, and people who often drew circles at work used compasses. I was a little smug because I was rarely praised for it. I drew several circles in one go, but found the smaller ones not so easy to draw. In such a need to draw a lot of graphics, I particularly wanted the geometric graphic templates.