Why Gertrude Stein & I Bought the Pink House Together

My grandmother, Tree, is a poet, and was thrilled when a friend wanted to use one of her poems as inspiration for a set of watercolor paintings. Tree was overjoyed to dive back into poems from 20 years ago, but wasn’t sure what to do with the 8 freshly watercolored paintings now in her possession. I took the two artistic expressions and blended them to create a “poetry picture book”, allowing the different mediums to work together to tell their story in tandem.

I utilized photoshop to break down the paintings into smaller pieces and played with creative typography to explore different levels of emphasis within the stanzas. During the printing process, I wanted the book to also add to the story, so searched for paper stock that would feel like the thick watercolor paper originally painted on.