The Art of Annotation

Hello writers! I’ve been beyond excited getting ready for this post, which is near and dear to my heart as I’ve worked on the project for over a month.

A stomach bug sweeping through the ranks of my family put me down for the count when I was supposed to post this last Saturday. So please excuse the delay, and enjoy this adventure in annotation!

It all began when Kamama and I wanted to annotate books for each other as a fun friend project. Neither of us had very much experience in annotation, so we decided to practice. I picked up this antique book of classic fairytales at a tea shop and saw the perfect victim- um, I mean project! The perfect project for beautifying through the power of pens and pastel highlighters. Besides, it was so badly beat up I figured whatever I put it through couldn’t cause that much damage. Hopefully my adventures and misadventures will inspire and prompt you to create a work of art of your own. Remember, anything can be made into art if we strive to think creatively.

Annotation can take many different forms. Some people like bold highlighters with bright colors to mark their favorite passages. Others doodle in the margins, experiment with art, or stick strictly to Pinterest tutorials. However you decide to undertake annotation is up to you. I'm a personal fan of making everything artistic, with soft colors and ink illustrations. I also discovered I could create a pretty effect with decorative paper cut into triangles and then torn and glued into the book. If you want to give this a try, learn from my mistake and let it dry COMPLETELY before closing the book. Otherwise the pages will stick together and you will suffer trying to open it without tearing it.

To make my illustrations I sketched lightly with a pencil, then went over with ink and erased the lines. Pinterest was my source of references. I discovered that tattoo art is a great source of creative inspiration, as well as clean lines to follow. For the pumpkin illustration to the left I could search "Pumpkin Tattoo" and "High Heel Tattoo" and a decent amount of ideas would pop up I could combine, throwing in my own art such as the vines and swirly stem. For the pumpkin, however, I actually went from scratch and just drew it without a reference, though I did use one for the slipper and modified it how I needed it. Shoutout to all those amazing tattoo artists out there who do that ON SKIN!! I do not understand how but I respect y'all.

Illustrating is great, but annotation requires some actual annotation as well. I enjoyed highlighting passages that sparked a sense of beauty in me, had deep emotional meaning, or just looked pretty. Sometimes it's not the fancy drawings that make a story special, but the words used to craft a tale. In Snow White and Rose Red, a story about two sisters whose love for each other and the world around them gave them a happily ever after, I found myself marking more about the rose symbolism and the sister relationship than the handsome prince!

Simplicity was also key in this project. I tried to balance between the larger drawings and ones that were small and simple such as this snake! For extra detail, tiny dots for shading helped bring the drawings to life. I cannot stress how essential shading is in a drawing for added realism. It takes away the element of flatness and really makes your artwork stand out. Shading can take any form from pencil smudging, cross hatching with ink, and tiny dappled dots.

"No! No!" Beauty sobbed. "You shall not die, Beast. You shall live and be my husband, for now I know I love you."

Oh my heavenly days. I highlighted that line faster than I could blink. It was just so lovely and sweet.

Beauty and the Beast was one of my favorites in this collection of stories. There wasn't much room to illustrate, but a border of roses gave it a personal touch around the highlighted passages. Remember that it's not the art that always makes a story beautiful, but the words you love!

For many stories I used symbolism in the illustrations instead of drawing what was plainly stated. In the drawing on the right, the sun, moon, and stars were all used as inspiration for a princess requesting magnificent ballgowns before she would allow herself to be married. Eventually she used a golden ring to alert a prince she was secretly working in his castle, and they married in the end. Since sky symbolism was so prominent throughout the story, hands reached for each other from the night and

day sky seemed appropriate.

Embrace! Mistakes! Of course in a project this massive I was going to mess up. Twas inevitable. But instead of ignoring them or being sad about it, I had to sit back and try to figure out how to make it work.

In the drawing to the left I wanted to draw the magic pipe and the little blue guy who came out of it to grant wishes and beat people with sticks. But when I had finished the drawing I realized I hated it. The pipe looked clunky and it was decidedly boring. But extra thickness to the bottom lines and a few mushrooms sprinkled on top covered the eyesores and made it more magical and fantastical, making this one of my favorites.

You may have noticed I mostly put my illustrations at the end of stories where there is more room. But occasionally to shake things up I put tiny drawings in the blank spaces in the middle of stories. In the one to the right the girl was turned into a nightingale by a witch who turned into an owl. Beside their songs I drew both the girl and witch, making the witch scruffy and fierce and the girl pretty and delicate. It was a nice added detail since the space was perfect for a couple of little drawings.

Back to that symbolism! In The Six Swans I drew a swan surrounded by nettles. For some reason the swan looks very angry. Maybe it's because his sister couldn't finish his magic shirt in time and he's now stuck with a bird wing on his human body? Or maybe because the nettles are stinging him. I'd be upset either way.

In the story, the swan princes' little sister had to make six shirts of nettles to transform her brothers back into men. It was a touching tale much like Snow White and Rose Red, where romance took second place to the love of siblings.

Yes, I made two illustrations with hands reaching for each other. It won't be the last.

This piece of art was rather flat for a little while I worked on the rest of the book. At first I couldn't figure out what the problem was, but eventually I realized all the lines were the same thickness and there was no shading. I went back with a larger pen tip and lines in place of shadows, and the entire illustration turned out beautiful.

Detail can be everything sometimes. Scroll down for a close up of this fox illustration from The Golden Bird where I break down my process.

Keeeeep scrolling!

Almost there!!

Must! Fill! Blank space!

Here we are. Okay, notice the swish of the lines on Mr. Fox's tale, where the thicker ones indicate shadow. The moon was dappled with three different pen sizes to give it a more contrasting look. I purposely chose darker paper as a border since the moon gave it a more nighttime feel. I thought it would be cool to have stars dangling from and surrounding the moon, so I sketched them in with diamond shapes. All in all I think it turned out nice, especially since not using dapples to shade the fox made him contrast nicely with the moon.

See the dapples in the drawing from The Twelve Dancing Princesses? (Also kudos to the soldier for being a gentleman and not insisting on marrying a princess half his age. I absolutely loved that guy and hope the rest of his life was happy like he deserved)

I used dots as decoration on her skirt, but also shading on her shoes and the path. There's yet another moon at the back, so I guess I just really like drawing them.

Sometimes a page doesn't require a huge amount of decoration where a bit of paper and some mushrooms will go a long way. Also I discovered I really enjoyed highlighting my favorite stories and scribbling a little note about why I liked them. There's only one marked on the first page of stories, but I favorited a few more you can't see. Definitely will do again with any other books I annotate!

Finally, enjoy the process. That's the best bit of advice I want to give anyone who's reading this. Whether it was embracing my mistakes or letting my dog crash the photoshoot, every moment was enjoyable and fun no matter what I was working on. Take a book and make it yours, make it you, and try new things with multiple books. No matter where your adventures in the art of annotation take you, remember that it is indeed an adventure and you have no idea where you'll end up. So crack out those highlighters, grab your art supplies, and get busy annotating!

You've got this, readers!

Happy Writing!

-Serena Stellington