picture book illustration / layout design
tích chu
Vietnamese folklore Tích Chu tells the story of a little boy who abandoned his sick granny, leading to her transformation into a bird. Tích Chu was deeply remorseful, therefore he continued to look for the holy water to turn his grandmother back into a human. My take on this story changed completely when I reread it as a grown-up. It seemed that Tích Chu did not survive during his search for the holy water, and the joyful ending was just a figment of his imagination.
In keeping with my new interpretation of the story, I include the tragic reality in a twist that has two meanings. The deeper color composition in dramatic situations, like when Tích Chu struggled to climb the mountain and met with his granny in the sky, was also impacted by the new conception.
The two terms ‘a glass of water’ and ‘bird’ were related to the two occasions that led to his grandma’s passing and Tích Chu’s sadness. I purposefully used them again and again throughout the series. When developing characters, I created a phoenix instead of a sparrow. By adding a tad of surrealism to the series using magical elements like the phoenix, the smooth flow of water, fairy smoke, starry sky, etc. I wanted to heighten the mystic nature of the tale.
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