Cover art

Ever wondered how a book cover got made and why it looks the way it does? All go through a process, a brief, different drafts and then the final art you see. The first sketch nailed down the foreground composition, what followed was a game of place the shark.

About my process, creating drafts and going through ideas is one of the enjoyable aspects on creating art. Illustrating a cover artwork and going through this process will always strengthen the look of the finished artwork. Ideas can be tried out with a few well placed marks from a pencil and discarded or developed accordingly. Having creating hundreds of cover artworks over my professional career I have a good instinct for what works and my first sketch will often be close to what is needed. What follows is a refinement of that with the clients input.

High Seas Adventure

Illustrating a children's story is a joy and a learning experience for me, the process of developing the visuals from character, concept layout to finished artwork creates opportunities to develop my existing techniques or learn new ones.  This process I hope ultimately rewards the reader and fully realises the author, publishers and my own vision.  

I think its very important not to get to caught up in my own style and allow flexibility in my approach as openness and the wiliness to try new ideas can also refresh what you can do as an artist. 

Below is a little example, this illustration was created to primary focus on the characters on board the pirate ship, giving space to each personality.  The children's book artwork was rendered in pencil, I played around with layers adding paper textures to give a watercolour style texture to the colour. 

  Please get in touch if you have any questions or would like to be sent samples.