
Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep
In my poem book, I wanted to emphasize each adjective and visualization in the poem. Every time I read the poem, I have a mental picture in my head of what the poet is trying to convey. Therefore, I attempted to depict those visualizations by drawing them on illustrator and by manipulating the font. I chose a grave stone because I thought it suited the title of the poem. Although death is a sad and tragic thing, the author was trying to convey how she may have died, but her spirit still lives on through nature. Therefore, I thought it would be a nice contrast to have a grave stone as the main structure, but with the uplifting illustrations inside.
I did all of the illustrations on Illustrator, but I began by editing the grave stone on Photoshop. The actual photograph of the grave stone in which I found has a stained glass rose on it. I decided to used the actual grave as the front cover. Then, I manipulated the text in Photoshop to make the stone appear to be engraved. Then, I simply used the clone stamp tool to get rid of the rose for all of the other pages of the book. I also selected the grave so that the bottom foundation and the grassy background were not visible. I decided to use a type of grey poster board/ construction paper to give the book a sturdier and more textured quality. I cut the paper into 8.5” x 11” so that the grave would be around the same size. I then used a hole puncher to cut holes in the bottom for a green piece of pipe cleaner to go through, which was meant to symbolize grass or a vine.
Although I was initially very satisfied with my book, there were several things that I had to keep changing as I worked and after I printed the pages. For instance, I never realized that printers did not print white ink. Therefore, all of the white that I had on my pages turned out to be the grey of the paper I was using. Although I still like it, it does make some words a little difficult to distinguish. However, I still like that aspect of the book because it enables one to be able to see the actual color and texture of the paper I used. Another obstacle I overcame was that I had to go back into the odd number pages and select all of the imagery and text so that I could center it over the page after I rotated the grave 180 degrees. Although I used several fonts throughout the book, the main types face I used was Pristina. I like Pristina because I wanted some type of handwriting in order to make the book appear more personalized. For the word “not” in the poem I used Lucida Handwriting Italic. Other type faces I used to emphasize and relate to different words throughout the poem include Ar Berkley, Ocra Extended, Mistral, Edwardian Script ITC, Nueva Std, Eccentric Std, Ar Hermann, Ar Christy, Juice ITC, Giddyup Std, Freestyle Script, and the list goes on. The type face I used in Photoshop for the grave is called Trajan Pro.
In my poem book, I wanted to emphasize each adjective and visualization in the poem. Every time I read the poem, I have a mental picture in my head of what the poet is trying to convey. Therefore, I attempted to depict those visualizations by drawing them on illustrator and by manipulating the font. I chose a grave stone because I thought it suited the title of the poem. Although death is a sad and tragic thing, the author was trying to convey how she may have died, but her spirit still lives on through nature. Therefore, I thought it would be a nice contrast to have a grave stone as the main structure, but with the uplifting illustrations inside.
I did all of the illustrations on Illustrator, but I began by editing the grave stone on Photoshop. The actual photograph of the grave stone in which I found has a stained glass rose on it. I decided to used the actual grave as the front cover. Then, I manipulated the text in Photoshop to make the stone appear to be engraved. Then, I simply used the clone stamp tool to get rid of the rose for all of the other pages of the book. I also selected the grave so that the bottom foundation and the grassy background were not visible. I decided to use a type of grey poster board/ construction paper to give the book a sturdier and more textured quality. I cut the paper into 8.5” x 11” so that the grave would be around the same size. I then used a hole puncher to cut holes in the bottom for a green piece of pipe cleaner to go through, which was meant to symbolize grass or a vine.
Although I was initially very satisfied with my book, there were several things that I had to keep changing as I worked and after I printed the pages. For instance, I never realized that printers did not print white ink. Therefore, all of the white that I had on my pages turned out to be the grey of the paper I was using. Although I still like it, it does make some words a little difficult to distinguish. However, I still like that aspect of the book because it enables one to be able to see the actual color and texture of the paper I used. Another obstacle I overcame was that I had to go back into the odd number pages and select all of the imagery and text so that I could center it over the page after I rotated the grave 180 degrees. Although I used several fonts throughout the book, the main types face I used was Pristina. I like Pristina because I wanted some type of handwriting in order to make the book appear more personalized. For the word “not” in the poem I used Lucida Handwriting Italic. Other type faces I used to emphasize and relate to different words throughout the poem include Ar Berkley, Ocra Extended, Mistral, Edwardian Script ITC, Nueva Std, Eccentric Std, Ar Hermann, Ar Christy, Juice ITC, Giddyup Std, Freestyle Script, and the list goes on. The type face I used in Photoshop for the grave is called Trajan Pro.