After seeing the popularity of my previous Wes Anderson book covers that I had made into prints that you can frame and hang on your wall, I decided to carry on in the series and make the rest of the movies as book covers. I decided to start off with The Grand Budapest Hotel, after already doing The life aquatic with Steve Zissou, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Moonrise Kingdom. Since I was doing this recently, I thought i'd share the process in how I make the piece as it might be interesting for some to see.
As all of the other book covers are overview shots of that characters doing something with their hands, I thought I would keep along the same theme, so it seems as if you are the character. After watching the movie over and over again, I finally decided on the scene in the prison where they are cutting into one of the Mendl's 'Courtesan au Chocolat' with the prison shank/shiv, as it seemed like the iconic pastry in the film. So I started off this piece by looking at the film screen grab and sketching it over and over again until I was happy with the final layout. I also had to head down to Evans Art Supplies and the Art and Hobbie shop to get the exact pastel tone of paper that would suit the piece.
I started off by making the doily that would sit underneath the pastry as I thought it would be easier to shape everything else around that, and also so I could judge how big I would need to make the base of the pastry. After that I made the shape of the bottom part of the pastry and then made another a little bit smaller and another a little smaller than that so there was a large, medium and small pastry. After that I made the shapes for the different coloured icing that goes on each different size. I then cut out the shape of the Mendl's box that the cake would go inside. I lay it all out on my watercolour wood texture, that I painted to be the table the box would sit on, to see what it looked like. I decided that the pastry needed a lot more detail at this point as it needed to seem fancier than it was.
Before that I made the prison shank/shiv that cuts into the pastry, finally being able to use my metallic paper for something. I then shaped the fingers and hand around the shank so it looked like it was holding it and about to cut into the pastry. I wanted to add a bit more texture to the piece so I decided to find some blue ribbon, like the one that the Mendl's box is tied with, and use it in the piece to make it more interesting. After all that was done and the hands were complete I went back to making the pastry look more exciting. I decided that I would paint on the different details to make it look more appetising and glossy like the pastry in the film. I used gouache to add the little details on as it give a nice strong colour and blends well for the detailed parts. I also added gouache to the hands to fill in the details and added a matte top coat nail varnish to the nail parts to make them seem more realistic, it also gives them a nice shine for when you photograph the piece.
It was now time to put it all together, which meant printing out the title block to match the rest of the series of Wes Anderson prints, which you can find here. So I printed it off on the same paper as the others and cut it to size. I then laid everything out to photograph in the layout that I wanted. And finally edited the photo on my laptop until I was happy with the final piece. And this is it, the print will be available to buy very soon, in the same size as the rest of the Wes Anderson prints, on my Etsy and from Jam Art Factory (online and instore).
Hope you enjoyed this weeks post,
Jess x
