«Di mano in mano» is an artist’s book that reflects the intersection of my mother’s passion for gardening and my love for illustration. I created natural colours by extracting pigments from the flowers and fruits in her garden, and then used these colours to depict her plants. The semi-transparent pages in the center of the book symbolize both the hard manual effort involved in caring for a garden and the creative process of making art. Between each pair of illustrated pages, there is a double-page spread featuring handwritten diary entries: on the left, my mother shares her love and thoughts about the specific plant, while on the right, I describe my experiments and discoveries in producing natural colours from it. The book embodies a virtuous cycle: my mother’s passion allowed me to gather plants from her garden, experiment with them, and turn them into colours, which I then used to illustrate their beauty. 2024 | ISIA Urbino
