Commissioning Illustrators

Some of the Artwork for the Book Cover

It's really lovely when some of your clients keep in touch and send you little snippets of information. I did a book cover for Janine Amos and she has written a blog post on working with illustrators. There's also a very useful link (from the AOI) for authors who are considering using an Illustrator.

Commissioning Illustrators Blog

Guide to Commissioning

Duke of Delhi Book Cover

The Duke of Delhi Book Cover

"Douglas, a little boy from England is evacuated to India together with his gran. There he quickly becomes part of a gang. This is no ordinary gang however, it cosists of an elephant, a street girl, two monkeys and a parrot. Join them on their unusual adventures around India, trying to reuinte their elephant friend with his family, whilst meeting tigers, rhinos and other creatures. Good friends are really all they need".

This was a project from an author who wanted a book cover using 3 illustrations which were provided. Unfortunately, I can't take credit for the beautiful Delhi artwork, but I can take credit for bringing it all together with design and additional illustration work. To create a more "Indian" feel and to combine the illustrations I used mehndi as my main inspiration.  This was created using the "frottage" method and Photoshop to finalise the design. There is quite a large bleed area on this image which was quite challenging but I think the end result worked well.

A link to the first draft chapters can be found at http://authonomy.com/books/49541/the-duke-of-delhi/read-book/?chapterid=470518#chapter.  The book is aimed at 5-7 year olds and I'm really looking forward to it being published so that I can see what happens next.

The Fox by D H Lawrence

The Fox Book Cover

I'm really enjoying putting together a portfolio of sample book covers and reading all these books.  This cover consists of acrylic paint, charcoal rubbings, hand rendered type and Photoshop to bring it all together.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Sample Book Cover

Norwegian Wood came up in a discussion about films whilst I was having a conversation with one of my lecturers. When my course came to an end, I bought the Kindle book version and was not disappointed. This is a good read that naturally invites you into the lives of the characters in this book. It is about friendship, love and frank honesty. Set in Tokyo, it details the complicated feelings that a young student encounters and the choices that he has to make. I designed the book cover by taking an overall view of the story. It is not a direct translation of a scene, instead, it includes the feel of the book and the path that one of the characters take. The image is made from charcoal rubbings of fennel and gypsophila, acrylic paint and my painted footsteps. Photoshop was used to finalise the artwork.

Others by James Herbert

Others by James Herbert
Sample Book Cover

I've just returned from a lovely week away in Italy, refreshed and full of optimism again. Having read a couple of books on holiday I chose to paint this book cover for "Others" by James Herbert. Great book by the way. Hope you like my interpretation. I'm a big James Herbert fan and love all the books I've read by him, so what better way to unleash my imagination.