# Watercolor Tale

An open picture book painted in transparent watercolour: each spread is painted as it is read, wet colour spreading and drying with a hard edge, one colour glazed over another, a pencil line under the paint and a pencilled note beside it. The page turns between chapters.

## Essence, and what it is not

- An open book on a linen table: two pages of cold-press paper at a soft fold, the narration read on the table below like the book's text.
- Every thing is a transparent wash: it spreads wet from the brush, pools at its bottom, granulates and dries with a thin darker edge. White is the paper, never paint.
- Colours mix on the page by glazing (blue over yellow reads green), and a glaze can be lifted off again.
- A pencil underdrawing shows under the paint; short notes are pencilled beside what they name.
- A new idea is a new spread: the right page lifts and turns over.

Not ink-scroll (colour, not ink tones; hard dried edges, not feathered ink; a book, not a scroll), not lab-notebook (no grid or ruled diagram; pencil only underdraws and notes), not depth-stage (no silhouettes, no camera), not flat vector (no solid fills, no outlines on top).

## Ground and material

The picture book (`react/parts/book.tsx`) is the ground of every scene. Its paper is a lit relief of cold-press tooth, shaded into the fold; paint is trimmed at the page edges, so a sky may run off the page. `parts/wash.tsx` is the paint: one SVG filter builds the wandering edge, the drying line and rim, granulation, uneven wet-in-wet, the pooled bottom, blooms and lifts, multiplied onto the paper. `parts/pencil.tsx` is graphite on the tooth.

## Colour roles

- `panel` the paper, the only white; `panel2` paper in shade; `bg` the linen; `border` the page block.
- `text` printed ink: title and read-aloud text only. `muted` graphite: underdrawing, arrows, notes.
- Pigments, mixed by glazing: `warn` lemon yellow, `data` cerulean, `good` sap green, `op` burnt sienna, `grad` cadmium red (the story's warm accent), `bad` alizarin. Five or fewer on a spread; skies and hills at 0.3–0.6 strength, the subject at 0.7–0.9.
- Never a pigment on a word, a computer gradient, or black paint.

## Type and captions

The title and the text are Fraunces with its soft, wonky storybook shapes (`SOFT` 100), 88 to 130 px for a title, set in `text`. Notes are Patrick Hand in graphite, 40 to 60 px, written left to right. Chinese uses LXGW WenKai for both. The caption is the book's text read aloud: Fraunces 46 px, weight 500, printed ink on the linen below the book, no box and no shadow, because the table is calm and the paint never reaches it.

## Motion

Things are painted, never slid or scaled in: a wash spreads in 1.2 to 1.8 s (ease-out) and dries over the same time, its edge hardening and its colour paling as wet paint does. A glaze sweeps across in 1.4 to 1.8 s (ease-in-out); a lift clears from one point. Pencil draws at a hand's pace (about 1 s a line); notes are written letter by letter. The page curls over in 1.2 to 1.4 s, outer edge first, after the spread's last line. While wet, paint shines and a bead of pigment rides the front. A falling thing swings gently; nothing bounces, spins or flashes.

## Composition and framing

The frame is the open book: pages from x 44 to 1876, y 24 to 862, the fold at x 960, the caption below. A spread holds one picture: a subject on one page with its context on the other, or a landscape across both. Nothing that must be read, and no face, sits on the fold. A third or more of the paper stays unpainted. Notes sit in the paper beside what they name, never on dark paint. The page turns between ideas; the camera never moves. A lesson's board is the swatch card, a global part above the book that outlives the turns.

## Sound

Optional: a page turning, a brush, a pencil; at most a soft celesta under the voice.

## Components

- **compare** — Glaze (`react/parts/glaze.tsx`): A second transparent colour swept over a dried wash so the two mix on the paper, or lifted off to show the colour beneath. Fits: a thing that changes: green to gold, day to dusk; what was hidden underneath
- **ground** — Picture book (`react/parts/book.tsx`): An open picture book on a linen table, two pages of cold-press paper at a soft fold; the right page turns to the next spread. Fits: every scene: one spread per idea; a page turn between chapters or steps
- **link** — Pencil line (`react/parts/pencil.tsx`): A soft graphite line drawn as it is named: the underdrawing a wash is laid over, or an arrow between two things. Fits: an outline before the paint; the sun's path; light falling on a leaf
- **mark** — Wash (`react/parts/wash.tsx`): A shape in transparent watercolour: wet colour spreads from the brush, pools at the bottom and dries with a hard, darker edge. Fits: anything painted: a tree, a hill, the sun, a house; a pale sky behind them
- **steps** — Swatch card (`react/parts/swatches.tsx`): A swatch card on the book, a brushed patch named in pencil per stage; it stays through the page turns. Fits: the stages of a change; the ingredients of a thing; a summing-up
- **term** — Pencilled note (`react/parts/note.tsx`): A few words pencilled by hand beside the picture, with a small curved arrow to what they name. Fits: the name of a part; a word the lesson teaches; a quiet aside
- **title** — Storybook title (`react/parts/title.tsx`): The title in a soft, round serif over a stroke of wash, printed letter by letter, a pencilled line beneath. Fits: the cover; a chapter's first spread; the moral at the end
- **transition** — Spatter (`react/parts/spatter.tsx`): A loaded brush flicked: drops fly on an arc, land and spread into small wet spots. Fits: many small things arriving at once: seeds, rain, the first red; a flourish

## Native moves

- **The wash spreads and dries.** Wet colour spreads from one touch of the brush, then its edge dries into a dark line. *Fits content like:* sunrise; a pond filling; a town on a map.
- **One colour glazed over another.** A second colour swept over the first mixes with it; lifted off, it shows what was underneath. *Fits content like:* green to gold; day to dusk; ripening fruit.
- **Pencil first, paint after.** The underdrawing is pencilled as the thing is named; the wash goes over it a beat later. *Fits content like:* a house before it is built; a creature before its colour; a route before the journey.
- **The page turns.** The right page curls over to a fresh spread, light sliding across the paper.
- **The flick.** A loaded brush is flicked and drops fly, land and spread. *Fits content like:* seeds scattering; first rain; the first red in a crown. *Fits content like:* the next season; the next day of a journey; the next step of a lesson.
- **The swatch card.** A loose card on the book gains a brushed swatch, named in pencil, at each stage; it stays through the page turns and is laid open for the summing-up. *Fits content like:* the colours of a year; the ingredients of a recipe; the stages of a life cycle.

## Avoid: pitfalls

- A straight side inside the page reads as a cut-out → run skies and hills off the page; draw every visible edge as a curve.
- A glaze shaped unlike its wash reads as a patch → glaze the same shape from a point with `reach` below 1.
- A bloom under a glaze shows as a target ring → bloom only unglazed washes.
- Graphite on mid-tone paint is lost in a compressed video → write notes on bare paper, at 40 px or more.

## Freedom in each work

Each film decides its story, its spreads, which pigments, which moves and how it opens and ends; the book, the paint and the pencil stay. Three far-apart structures:

- **Season by season**: one place per spread, a glaze changing it.
- **A gentle lesson**: one subject large, notes pencilled as each part is named, the card filling.
- **A life told simply**: three spreads, the last left half-painted.