Una Esquinita Rota en el Cielo Book

Una esquinita rota en el cielo is a poetic and unsettling story about grief, innocence, and the emotional disorientation that follows loss. Set in a small, warm town, the narrative moves through the inner worlds of its characters as they struggle to make sense of absence—where love, despair, tenderness, and a quiet form of madness coexist.

Grief in this story is not linear or calm. It distorts perception, language, and reality itself, creating moments where emotions overflow and reason fractures. The story embraces this instability, allowing sorrow to appear raw, confusing, and deeply human.

This illustration series was created for the book written by Pablo Lemus Valencia and published by Editorial Boyante. The images are not meant to narrate the story literally, but to accompany its emotional landscape—holding both innocence and grief, care and emotional collapse.

Throughout the illustrations, I used clouds as a recurring visual element—a symbol that transforms alongside the emotional states of the characters. The clouds act as emotional vessels: at times protective, at times heavy or overwhelming. They carry tenderness, sorrow, confusion, and the silent weight of loss.

The color palette is intentionally vibrant and warm, inspired by the climate and atmosphere of the town where the story unfolds. These warm tones contrast with feelings of sadness and nostalgia, reflecting how grief exists within life rather than outside of it. Color becomes a way to express emotional contradiction: beauty alongside pain.

Visually, the illustrations inhabit a surreal and dreamlike space, where emotions bend reality and figures feel suspended between inner and outer worlds. This language allows grief to be expressed not as a clear narrative, but as an experience—fragmented, symbolic, and deeply felt.

This project was an exploration of how illustration can hold complex emotional states, giving form to loss, tenderness, and the quiet madness that grief can bring.