The Root Children: Spring Awakening

My model shows this magical spring parade - based on the beautiful children's book "The Story of the Root Children" (German original: "Etwas von den Wurzelkindern") by Sibylle von Olfers, which tells the story of nature's seasons in a simple anthropomorphic way with a lovely & comforting tone.

A book using very few - if rhyming - words but really it's the way the story unfolds through the gorgeous pictures that make this work stand out and kept it in print for more than a 100 years since its first publication in 1906 ( I just got a new hardcover copy!).

Olfers' illustrations are done in a simple ink & watercolour Art Nouveau style drawing on German Romanticism and their calming yet captive appeal and the magnificent composition lend themselves well to daydreaming and home decoration!

I've always loved that book and I have long thought about creating a brick-build version of it as not only did it seem like that could be beautiful to build and look at but I also find that there are similarities between the idea of little creatures bringing spring into the world as a source of colour, liveliness and inspiration & the continuing cycle of the seasons and the ever revolving process of brick-building, where new worlds spring from colourful bricks and minifigures and inspire stories before they are disassembled again into a dormant pile of plastic.

The challenge when working from graphic source material is always to achieve balance between capturing key features of the original and accounting for the different medium with its limits & opportunities to create something new that can hold its own.

The transition to bricks first faced the issue of the unique colour pallettes and the question the softer shapes & thin lines of the illustrations and I quickly abandoned the idea of exact recreation and decided on designing a model that would use the three-dimensional advantage of bricks to lift the illustration of the page, bring some depth into it and create a display piece using actual minifigures as Root Children.

I chose the beginning of spring, the central scene of the book, an image printed as a two-page spread** as the main subject of my build (and added a little extra scene as well as a well hidden underground bedroom for context - and fun!).

While I focussed on the lines and movement that the roots bring to the original composition I wanted to create a rather organic appearance for the story's setting (I took some artistic liberty there) and apply the more artificial geometric elements of the books Art Nouveau appeal to the overall shape of the model:

the symmetrical stylised trees branching up "holding" the background and merging with the rounded floral edge to enframe the scene like a window reminiscent of Art Nouveau prints.

The top part can be detached from the bottom to better access the "underground" and if the title sign is removed it reveals a little scene which depicts what is happening on the book's previous page: the painting of the bugs!

It took some time and frustration but I'm thrilled that I got it done. This is it now:

Whether you know & like the source material as much as I do or not - I really think it it would make for a fantastic build and a beautiful display piece that cherishes nature & art alike as key elements of live and imagination. It brings a colourful & hopeful vibe which I hope many of you can appreciate.

It would be truly amazing for this project to get the chance to become a real set.