starting to archive the yōkai

Planning for the arc of the paintings, art-making process, post-production

Written July 17th, 2023, covering art from May 2021 - July 2023

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･✧･ﾟ

I finished the 16 paintings that act as the Night Parade chapter headers in April 2022, a little over one year after initiating sketches.

selfie of me in a dark corner, smiling with 6 of the night parade paintings around me photo of the Night Parade chapter headers, loose on my work table

CONCEPTING

I had made a pretty aggressive painting schedule for myself back in 2021, wanting to finish all the chapter headers in 10 months, since at the time that would have aligned with jami's submission of the final manuscript. Jami and I agreed upon the 4-color, KI SHO TEN GETSU structure in our first meeting, but she had yet to determine the course of most of the memoir, and we only had about 1/3 of the yōkai selected.

In our first meeting I think I raised the idea of using our cousins and sister as the models for the humanoid yōkai, so when we were plotting the art the priorities we negotiated were:

what did jami's essay call for
creating a mix of familiar and new creatures
where could i fit our cousins???
balancing single figures with more detailed scenes/multiple figures

Early on it was really hard for me to adjust to the work-flow of a **book**, as most of my other work is short-term freelance illustration for clients, with client needs always outweighing my artistic choices. I remember repeatedly asking Jami "who is the decider??? are you the decider?? are **we** the deciders??" when making choices about content, style, and flow of visuals.

Jami thankfully is and was very on-board with my concepts and ideas for art. I have been making artwork for her writing since we were kids, so we had a pretty aligned vision for the work: dark, allegoric, fun, cute and creepy, mythic, very JA, very mixed, very diasporic. Whether it was all circular framed story-book esque illustrations, or a future portrait of myself with long aging boobs, J was down! (⁠ ⁠ꈍ⁠ᴗ⁠ꈍ⁠)

We did create a style sample early on to send to the HarperCollins team and book designer, but I didn't get feedback as much as a general thumbs up. I had made a 4 yokai series for an art show in Minneapolis in 2018 (Jami had helped me write a piece for it lol), and she had submitted that artwork as a part of her original manuscript, and we kept using them as examples, so already everyone was pretty clear on vibe.

Screenshot of 4 thumbnail images of yokai illustrations with colors scribbled on them

PAINTING PROCESS

So in May of 2021 I started researching and painting. Maybe it's residual self-motivation from being home-schooled, maybe it's a quality of being a Virgo, but once I make a plan and structure for myself i will **hold**myself**to**it**. My work self-structuring is one of my greatest strengths (yay, i can freelance!) and my greatest enemy (boo, i cannot self-care) (⁠〒⁠﹏⁠〒⁠)

Anyway I kept a pretty consistent process of discussing overall concept with jami -> doing visual research (books and online) -> sketching out different ways that other artists had rendered the spirit/beings -> thumbnailing a few versions -> creating a big final sketch -> getting feedback from jami/others -> painting.

Once I finished painting all 16 in April 2022, I cut them out with a scalpel and scanned them in. I then started working on all the OTHER pieces for the book: interior chapter header, ink washes, the lil lines of yōkai that walk through the book.

screenshot of pictures of the 8 of the chapter header paintings and scans

PRINT PRODUCTION

In August of 2022 the publishers said that they would help do scans of the artwork. I was soo relieved cause I am not a trained graphics person, so was really scared about anything pertaining to files that would potentially mess up the print quality. So packaged up the paintings and sent them to New York!

picture of 16 circular paintings wrapped in plastic, lying on a white bed

image of 3 paintings wrapped in plastic for shipping

I haven't seen my painting babies since then (⁠｡⁠ŏ⁠﹏⁠ŏ⁠) I am currently (july, 2023) waiting for them to be shipped back to me! The Advanced Reader Copies are currently out, but the interiors are black and white and with a different papertype, so it doesn't feel real yet. The am*zon preview of the memoir DOES have previews of the art! I keep sending that link to ppl (even tho it's fuck am*zon everyday) because they have 5 previews of the art in color!!

I decided recently (like last week) not to sell any of the paintings. I had seen how Fumi Nakamura sold some prints and the originals of the artwork she made for Aimee Nezhukumatathil's World of Wonders, and had thought about doing the same, framing and selling the pieces as fine art. But after laboring through the process to birth the paintings, I think I want them to stay in the family. Either giving the originals to my cousins who posed for them, or keeping all the originals together as a unit (and giving high quality prints to my cousins).

Also putting it out there: if museums or gallerys want to display the whole body of work together, I would love for them to reach larger audiences as a cohesive story.

thanks for reading!!

. (⁠｡⁠•̀⁠ᴗ⁠-⁠)⁠✧ cori