It you've looked at the covers for my books, you may have noticed they aren't like other ebook covers. The oldest, FIRE DANCE, is the artwork of a marvelous artist named Ron Chironna. But the last three are my own design.
But I'm not an artist, and have never really thought of myself as having a lot of artistic talent. But once started down that road, I've found it too fascinating to give up. How did that happen?
|
|
Back when my first book was due to come out, there was a scheduling glitch, and the cover was needed early, but Ron didn't have it done. I had to come up with something in a hurry, and the only thing I knew that came close to representing the books was an old wood engraving by a man named J. Boot of Smailholm Hall in flames. If colorized, it would do temporarily until the official cover arrived. But I knew nothing whatsoever about how to do that. Well, it took almost to the last second to make it work, but I did come up with something. It looks pretty good for what it is, but if you look closely, you'll see it's pretty crude. But I was hooked. I started playing around with Photoshop and old engravings, and eventually began learning how to take a photo, strip it of all but its essential lines, then make a sketch from it. |
|
|
Thus, by manipulating its parts and changing almost everything but the positions of the figures, I could make the design my own. I learned then to sketch electronically, to color and use other techniques to make my figures look more realistic. |
|
This is one of the first men I attempted to draw. I thought he was wonderful then, but now I see he needs lots of improvement. |
|
|
I learned to use backgrounds, to alter them, to make my own. I learned about fonts and how to mix many different elements to make the design I wanted. With time and effort, my people started to look real. This wonderful chandelier came from a photo of the Pump Room in Bath, given a motion blur to create the effect of two lovers dancing in a crowded room, utterly alone. The hero and heroine were inspired by a set of dancers from West Side Story. I discovered I'm still not a "real" artist in the traditional sense, but I do have a talent for composition and color. And I discovered it's tons of fun.
|
|
Occasionally I make books covers for other authors, but I like to keep those simple.
|
The cover I made for Dorothy Compton for THE FIERY MISS FAIRCHILD, was made to her specifications, with a good deal of trial and error |
|
|
|
|
For myself, I just have fun. When I'm writing a book, having a "cover" is an incentive to keep writing. This one has no heroine yet, but I'm sure to find her soon, and it will become my third design for my current work in progress, LADY SCANDALOUS. I might do several designs for a books such as this one before it's finished. And I know darn well no editor is going to buy my cover designs. But my purpose has been self-inspiration, not sale of artwork. | |
| But do I stop there? Noooo. Photographs I took in England inspired some silly and rather quickly done designs for books that don't yet even have plots, like this one taken of the old castle at Warwick, from atop Guy's Tower |
|
|
|
I do like long titles, you can tell, but how can they fit on a book cover? This one is set against a beautiful painting by E. Adveno Brooke, done in the mid 19th Century, but I've used various Photoshop techniques to give it a soft, misty look. |
| |
|
|
Engravings of marvelous quality from the early 1800s have inspired a number of marvelous heroines who simply demand a cover of their own. This one is Rose Bradwardine from Sir Walter Scott's Waverly, but to me, she's my feisty Amalie. I've tried her in several different designs. Some engravings have provoked titles and have caused me to change titles of books already written. These two just came to me while developing the design. ABOUT THAT NIGHT will become the new title for HIS MAJESTY, THE PRINCE OF TOADS, the 2003 Golden Heart winner, and ANYTHING BUT LOVE will re-title the next book I plan to write, which was originally REVENGE OF THE APE LEADERS. (You'd have to be a Regency Romance afficionado to get that one, so it needed to be changed anyway.) |
|
|
|
These two came from one photo my brother shot in Malaysia. These two very different effects inspired two different specific scenes in LADY SCANDALOUS, the story I'm writing now. UPON A SILVER SEA became a setting for a love scene, and NIGHTWIND gave me the name of the smuggler's boat. These also are experiments in different font effects. |
|
| It's mostly fun, and inspiration, often just pure silliness, thrown together swiftly to investigate an idea or technique. |
|
This again comes from one of E. Adveno Brooke's famous garden paintings. |
To make anything really worthwhile from my fun stuff would require many hours more work, but it all develops skill and excites my imagination. And who knows? Maybe if I go broke writing, I can keep from starving by designing covers for other starving authors.