Illustration for Paraxis

I was really thrilled to do this illustration for a online fiction publishing website, Paraxis. The theme for this issue was "the Library"- all the writers have written stories around that. In David Rose's story, which I was asked to illustrate, he speaks as a librarian who does a bit of a Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, and mixes up the pages in books a little to broaden the reader's reading experiences, which oddly enough has been in the news again, in the last few days. Something for which Joe Orton spent 6 months in prison, I believe. I really enjoyed reading it. It starts with a vivid description of the various smells of a library, the smell of books and copydex being identified as the "proper". right, smells, so I felt had to include them in the illustration, also because the glue and books come very much into play whilst the "literary defacement" (enhancement some might say) takes place. He mentions the banana skin smells too, and as what he is doing is kind of peeeling apart the books and uncovering and consuming, to an extent, their contents, like a banana, in a place (the depository) where otherwise the books would be left to rot, I thought it was a very appropriate visual metaphor too to include the rotting banana skin itself. And here it is. Do have a read of the other stories and check out the other illustrations.

http://www.paraxis.org/pages/p02/pastoral.html