The friends at Foster Hill Road Cemetery in Bedford are working on a history book about the graveyard and the notable people who are buried there. The content will be selected articles that are already published on their website. Why bother producing a book if it’s already available to read online?
Yup! That’s what I thought too. Thing is, there is an older generation, who tend to be interested in local history, who aren’t comfortable with reading from screens or using the internet and prefer traditional paper pages. Hence a book.
There are 14 chapters and I’m producing an illustration for each of them. The sketches are done for most of them and I’m working them up into finished greyscale pieces. It’s a lot of work and the challenge is not to spend too much time on each one.
I’ve worked with the cemetery in the past, producing guided walks on trees and leaflets about what the volunteers do. It was work that’s a little out of my comfort zone. I’m an illustrator, not a graphic designer, but I needed the money and I enjoy trying new things. I also got to learn some local history and some new stuff about the tree species in the cemetery. I didn’t know we had Sequoias in Bedford!
Folk Style Linocuts By MStraccia Art 