As our collection of books continues to grow in our store, aromaG’s Botanica, I thought it would be great to design a bookmark to give to every customer who purchased a book. So, I’ve decided to send all of my current patrons (as of 05-16-21) one too!
First, I started with a scan from a 1930’s De Laurence Occult catalog showing a woman reading THE MASTER KEY by L. W. de Laurence. The next step was to remove the aged-brown coloring of the pages and turn it to white, leaving behind only the illustration. For the coloring, I wanted it to be reminiscent of the popular Witches Datebook by Llewellyn so I began by making her a redhead, putting in streaks of blondes, browns, and dark orange before coloring the rest of her hair. Then came her makeup with a touch of eyeshadow, red lips, blush, and a bit more eyelash.
My original thought was to make the book say, “aromaG’s Book of Shadows” but decided against it. Instead, I went with my own book PAPA GEE’S HOODOO HERBAL. The reason I chose this particular book out of my collection? Well, mainly because it’s cover was going to fit the color scheme of the bookmark! 🙂
My Photoshop layers began building up when I began adding more esoteric images to her: a vintage sun pattern on her blouse (which I’d already colored blue), a rabbit’s foot on the table, a triple goddess tattoo on her wrist, an aromaG’s logo and a mojo bag on the book spine, and finally a claddagh ring.
Next, it was time for the background. I went with the moon card from the Rider Waite tarot deck as the upper backdrop. It depicts a sun with a moon face inside, which I Photoshopped out, leaving me just the image of the sun. Next, I erased the dog and the wolf from the card and replaced their images with more grass using the clone stamp tool. For the bottom of the bookmark, I went with the same color as the sky above and added in stars from the Rider Waite Star card. Finally, came our company logo at the top and business information at the bottom. Once cropped, there will be enough space below our website address for you to write your name on the bookmark if you wish.
From start to finish, the project took around 6 hours. But, I believe it is some of my best Photoshop work to date. The bookmarks (some say bookmarker, others book marker) are ordered (10,000 of them) and should arrive in about 2 weeks.
