"Un jour je me suis rendu compte que je n'avais pas vraiment de couleur préférée. Ce que je sais, c'est que si le monde était sans couleurs, il ne serait pas noir et blanc, comme dans les vieux films."* these are a couple of sentences from the foreword of this new book by Régis Lejoinc.
Published by Thierry Magnier Publishing House at the end of 2009, Quelles Couleurs, is a really surprising book, full of evocations and unusual matchings. It's a lively and poetic book, fun, full of life and little things, as if the content of a kid's secret box were emptied on the page and a whole little world, made of simple though precious things, had been printed on it.
In a very interesting interview appeared on the blog of the Magazine La Citrouille, Lejoinc tells how the idea of the book came along. The author explains that it all begun with an observation regarding his work as illustrator: he in fact explains that he realized being more an illustrator-story-teller that an illustrator-decorator, that all his creative efforts were better when instinctive much more than rational, that for him the atmosphere of illustrations was more central than their purely graphic quality, that as he likes several styles when drawing he is led more by text's evocations than by a stylistically univocal interpretation.
Not having limits for what matters style, and having the ability to undertake them, made it possible for R. Lejoinc to produce this heterogeneous and amusing treasure. As you will see from the examples here below, the author is in fact confronting several techniques...
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The twelve colors to which the book is devoted are introduced by pages where their nuances are named in the most different ways, a few examples: nymph-thigh pink or hind-belly white or goose-poo yellow and many others.
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If you're interested in getting more information on this subject, the colors' names have been taken from this site: http://www.pourpre.com/
But fun is not over yet: Quelles Couleurs is in fact an interactive book as well, kids could play with it by coloring, solving little problems, learning new things...
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A whole universe, where Fantomas meets James Brown and Hulk could go arm in arm with the members of the Addams family, is narrated in two-hundred pages that capture attention without leaving space to the smallest yielding. A book to leaf through until its pages fall apart!
* "One day I realized that I had no real favourite color. What I know is that, if the world were without colors, it would not be in black and white like in old moovies."
For more information on the Publisher Thierry Magnier, please go to: http://www.editions-thierry-magnier.com/
Images have been reproduced with permission of the Publishing HouseThierry Magnier.
Copyright images and texts Ed. Thierry Magnier © 2009
Thank you for reviewing this book. I looked through it several times but I was always in a hurry and was never able to give it its due. I wish I'd bought a copy when I was in France. It's a book that needs to be lingered after and played with.
ReplyDeleteHi Rob! Thanks to you for your appreciation, I am glad you liked this review... there will be more books from the Salon soon. As for the copy I'm sure you'll be able to get it at the next Salon. Will you attend? :-)
ReplyDeleteI hope to attend next year. We'll see what happens in the next few months, then I'll decide.
ReplyDeleteI hope you were able to get nice contacts in France. I wish you all the best and, who knows we might meet there if you're going! If you have anything to say comments are more than welcome!
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