Tree Hugger Book

A customer asked me to make a book illustrating Kimya Dawson's song "Tree Hugger". Though not in my usual repertoire, it was good fun giving it a go and led to many other ideas for future projects. Also it is always handy to have a use for my left over screenprinted papers! I am very fond of Kimya Dawson and her silly songs so this project had me singing for weeks!

The book was hardbacked and had a little pocket inside the cover for personal messages to hide inside. It was meant to be interactive, so something moved or opened on each page. Paper engineering can be a tricky old game!

The flower said, "I wish I was a tree".

The tree said, "I wish I could be a different kind of tree".
(My goodness I found this particular page tricky- it seemed so simple I thought it would take little time. I was very wrong about that!)

The cat wished that it was a bee!

The turtle wished that it could fly.
(despite owning a tortoise, which you would think would give me a head start; it appears I am incapable of drawing turtles!)

Really high into the sky. Over rooftops...

and then dive deep into the sea.

The song carries on for some time, but the book ends here. Initially I thought it was a shame not to complete the song, but once I considered that it has a verse in french and a fish that wished it was a cactus I felt rather lucky not to have to climb that mountain.
The customer was rather pleased with it, I hope the recipient of his gift was too!