2026 Bookplate

Every year since 2012 I do a new Mouse Guard bookplate I make available at conventions and in my online store. The idea is that this mini-print can be pasted/taped into your book(s), you can write your name in to identify it as yours to borrowers, and since the bookplates are signed, it means you now have a signed book. I try and make each year's bookplate art some medium the mice would/could use. I've done stained glass, relief printing, stone & wood carving, mosaic, etc in past years––this year I was inspired to revisit embroidery.

The bookplate debut at Emerald City Comic Con and is in my online store now. Below is the process for making the art for the bookplate.

Back in 2014 I'd done an embroidered bookplate––well, I emulated the look of embroidery I should say. And It was one of the artistically crafted mediums I thought I could go back to and do a better job with this time.

I hoarded image examples of medieval embroidery and tapestry before beginning, and narrowed it down to these two as my main inspirations. I liked the dark background with light/metallic figures (Opus Anglicanum) like the Chasuble in the lower right, but I also really likes seeing the individual stitches and that border pattern on the German embroideries with Allegorical Scenes on the top. It reminded me of a Norwegian snow motif I used on the 2019 Teasel print.

I penciled a simplified pencil drawn version of the mouse from the Teasel print, and a moth (based on an owl moth photo I referenced) scanned them into Photoshop and composed an image using the border pattern of the German embroidery I mentioned earlier. Instead of a dark red velvet, I thought it would be nice to do a muted royal blue (which would echo back to the Teasel palette) 

To fill the space I digitally drew in some teasel silhouettes and blocked in color ideas going more for a cream colored embroidery thread rather than the metallic silver I'd originally assumed I'd use. I have to say that at this point, I still wasn't sure HOW I wanted to execute this––pencil rendering, ink, digital painting, traditional paining?...

Go with what you know, I guess, right? I inked the main image still considering doing some kind of pencil rendering for the cloth texture spaces. The digital composite layout was printed out and taped to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol and on a lightpad I inked the main stitching with a Copic Multiliner SP pen (the 0.7 nib). Then, I used a smaller scrap of bristol to ink a 'stitch texture pattern' I could use digitally to mimic the effect of the final piece being embroidery while also still being my own lineart instead of photo-texture.

Scanning in the inks I was still unsure about this method for emulating embroidery and nearly gave up to restart after I blocked in the color. 

This first step of coloring is called 'fatting' because it's just about dropping in flat color with no shading or texture just to establish the color choices and placement. I also added color holds (areas where I wanted the inklines to be a color other than black) to everything except the outer boarder. 

The worry with at this stage was how to get the embroidered look correctly without it looking like a bad trick or painstaikingly digitally painting over this with individual stitch/weave texture.

That's when the hand inked stitch texture pattern came in handy. I lightened it a great deal and set it to layer mode 'multiply' to get it over everything (I had to tile it several times over since I made it small to save on it's tedious creation). That also made a great guide for me to go in and shade individual areas between the texture lines to highlight as stitches standing proud or with a slightly lighter thread. In the end I also added some subtle gradients to the top and bottom to shade and highlight it to look more like a photograph of a real object instead of a drawing of one.

The bookplate will be available at all my convention appearances this year and also in my online store

--ALSO--

Here are all the past years Bookplates––many of which are available in my online store as a bundle (http://mouseguard.bigcartel.com/product/set-of-mouse-guard-bookplates). Below are the blogposts about the process of making each:

Blogposts:
2012 – Lino Print
2013 – Stained Glass
2014 – Embroidery
2015 – Mosaic
2016 – Pencil Rendering
2017 – Engraving
2018 – Wood Painting
2019 – Gouache Painting
2020 – Wood Carving
2021 – Lino Registration Print
2022 –– Stained Glass
2023 –– Gouache Painting on Canvas

2024 –– Encaustic Tile

2025 –– Stone Relief