"If you look at your hands closely, what do you see? I see the whole universe."

"Traces" is an experience of discovery.

In a suggestive way, it shows us landscapes and ecosystems that share a creative aspect with us: our traces.
From the largest to the smallest, it raises a question about our origins and how everything is connected.
It is an invitation to wonder and to contemplate.

This book was born from a small observation that is completely universal, and that is that our fingerprints share their design with many elements of nature. An idea that undoubtedly leads us to reflection and awakens our curiosity.

The main concept of the book is to unveil, and I wanted this to be noticeable in both the physical and narrative aspects of the story, which is why clear overlays are incorporated as a material, covering and revealing the texts, generating a pause and a rhythm that increases the space for reflection.

In terms of technique, the illustrations were created with oil pastels, watercolor crayons, polychrome pencils and digital retouching.

The structure of the book is simple and the illustrations are somewhat abstract to be interpreted by readers of different levels and ages. In that sense, there are different layers of understanding in the book, which makes it a book with a fairly large target audience.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that there are 10 traces in the narrative, one for each finger of our hands, and it is a journey that starts from a galaxy and ends at the tip of our finger; from the largest to the smallest.

We have in our hands traces of the creative power of nature, because as we will discover while reading “Traces”, we ourselves are nature.

(This book is the author's project in the Diploma Course of Editorial Illustration at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC), 2022).

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https://issuu.com/catalinamartinez654/docs/portafolio_catalina_mart_nez_2023
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