Maisie’s drawings haven’t gone unnoticed, and as of today, the artist has over 600K followers on Instagram and 1 million on TikTok. Maisie draws on all the sides of the books and showcases the final result in a video format. Her detailed illustrations represent famous scenes, characters, or quotes that true fans will recognize in a heartbeat. More info: Instagram | Etsy | tiktok.com “My name is Maisie Matilda, I am from the UK and I am a fore-edge painter. I have always loved art and painting, and I have a degree in History of Art.” Maisie continued by explaining what initially drew her to the world of fore-edge painting. “I had come across fore-edge painting when studying medieval art for my degree, often seeing religious depictions on bibles. But during lockdown, I saw another fore-edge painter called BriMariePaints, who painted a scene on Pride and Prejudice and immediately felt drawn to it. I have always loved Tolkien so I decided to give it a go on an old copy of The Hobbit.” “Creating a fore-edge painting is actually not as daunting as it looks. Although you do have to get used to the surface that you are painting on, once you come to understand the techniques, it’s really quite easy! One of the challenges is, of course, the size of the surface you are working on. I was used to painting complex landscapes on big canvases, however, I always found myself obsessing over tiny details, so being able to work on a smaller scale and get really invested in miniaturism was very liberating. Using scenes from my favorite books also works very well for me, as I have ADHD so to be able to have so many things that I love amalgamated into one craft satisfies my scatterbrain.” Maisie wrote: “Fore-edge painting has a rich history, but it is a dying craft. It is currently on the Red List of Critically Endangered Crafts as deemed by the Heritage Crafts Association UK. That’s another reason why I use recognizable and well-loved media so that I can get people interested and then bring the craft back into popular culture. It’s sort of like a cheat code. People love books, and they love films. Why not combine them into one?! One of the reasons why fore-edge painting died out is because it is expensive and it takes time, so with the rise of consumerism and mass production, handmade crafts can fall behind. I try to combat this problem by using secondhand books to give old things a new life and reduce waste, even if only in a small way.” Thank goodness I’m stubborn by nature, so I refused to comply with that at the frustration of my tutors. So I kept painting my traditional Bierstadt-esque landscapes. And now, here I am doing just that, only instead it’s on the side of a book rather than a canvas. I know they’re not avant-garde, and I won’t be getting a place in any London galleries, but I use social media instead where I have connected with lots of fellow fantasy nerds and book fanatics.” Follow Bored Panda on Google News! Follow us on Flipboard.com/@boredpanda! Please use high-res photos without watermarks Ooops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.
