Observation Journal: 20 ways with gold foil

Let’s get back to the making things type of Observation Journal page. The first half of this post is about the approach to an exercise, the second half of it is the resulting list of some possibilities to use foil on book covers.

Twenty Things

I’m a fan of the twenty things exercise, either starting with an object and working out twenty uses for it (my dad used to make us do this on long car trips); or starting with a question and listing twenty answers.

I think it’s fun, and it’s also interesting to watch the process of ideas being pushed through different barriers — for example:

• with the “twenty uses” version there’s often a point where the obvious gives way to the interesting and then to the ludicrous and then circles back to the intriguing;
• with the “twenty problems” variant it loosens my grip on the first/obvious choice I imprinted on (even if that turns out to be the final choice, it’s usually stronger for a bit of objectivity).

This is also why I’ve kept the self-reflection panels on the observation journal pages. Not just to do the exercise, but to step back and watch myself doing it, and learn. You’ll see here I noted on the side that “20 really is the magic number. 11 is where I had to look further/do more research.”

“Twenty things” has shown up in the observation journal before, when I was working out the colour treatment for Lauren Dixon’s cover: Observation journal — werewolf conferences and colour treatments.

This page was also for a cover — in this case for Juliet Marillier’s Mother Thorn, for which we had the opportunity to use foil on the cover of the special edition (out in April). But I hadn’t designed specifically for foil combined with a silhouette before. So I made this list of 20 WAYS WITH FOIL TREATMENTS. (The activity is also great for tricking yourself into working on something.)

Here’s the list (excluding the running commentary to myself alongside). It’s project-specific and non-exhaustive:

1. GOLD on BLACK (or colour)
2. BLACK on GOLD
3. Gold-limned silhouette on coloured ground (almost calligraphic)
4. Gold base/border on coloured ground
5. Foil highlights in silhouette design
6. Above plus gold background (2)
7. 5 plus flyaway bits in foils
8. Fine foil pattern supporting coloured silhouettes
9. Black on colour, gold lettering
10. Gold support/background for lettering
11. Colourised/textured silhouette with foil ornament bits
12. 1 but with many cut-out details
13. Multi-silhouettes, different foils
14. Silhouette (black on colour) surrounded by drawn foil pattern
15. Gold effect on blue texture
16. Gold silhouettes, deeper-coloured shadow
17. Black on colour. Only important details picked out in foil (e.g. figures, coins, birds).
18. Border in one foil, title in another
19. Foil silhouette on coloured ground with overlapping white title square
20. Spot gloss blacks with foil lettering background

You’ll see that my terminology here is not particularly technical! That’s one reason for accompanying it with sketches. Ballpoint drawings aren’t hugely informative for foil/colour treatments but did help me to think through the practicalities, and whether an idea reminded me of something I’ve seen elsewhere, or made me feel (to quote) “ugh”, at least for this project.

The next step (square box on the side) was to do a test version, to run through a few of these.

The final cover used approach C, which was a combination of 11 and 5, although there was briefly a 19 in the running.

Writing/art exercises

• 20 Things: Pick a handy object (or something you’ve seen today). Come up with twenty uses for it.
  • This could be as light-hearted as 20 Uses for a Plastic Fork.
  • It’s good for car trips and working out how your friends think, but it’s also good practice for just thinking sideways.
  • Afterwards, it can be useful to note where the ideas got more difficult, or sillier, or if you know where some of them came from. This is interesting, but you
  • It can also be useful for turning objects in a story into plot (or other things).
  • It could even become a project on its own.
• 20 Ways: Think of an aspect of a project that you are stuck on, or something you’d like to play with but haven’t quite managed to, and list 20 Ways To Deal With It.
  • I find this more useful when the initial problem is narrower — 20 Ways to Tell A Short Story is fine, but I can get past 100 without breaking a sweat. 20 Ways to Tell A Short Story In An 8-Page Accordion Booklet forces more invention. (These examples are from current pages of the observation journal, and I’ll get to them in time!)
  • Like Ten Terrible Things, I find this lets me have fun exploring options without feeling like I have to commit to any of them, or abandon my early ideas. The list is the point.
  • Sometimes your first instinct will still have been right, but you’ll be more certain of it (and have stress-tested it, and maybe come up with some new ideas for future projects), and you’ll have released your stranglehold on it a little, too.

Mother Thorn — book trailer

From A Licence to Quill comes this book trailer for Juliet Marillier’s Mother Thorn, and other tales of courage and kindness, illustrated by me.

The Serenity Press hardcover special edition is out now, and the trade release of the linen cover is in April 2021. More on that as the date approaches!

Cover art: Arcanos Unraveled

Meet Anya Winter, junior professor of magical textiles at Arcanos Hall. She spends her days designing invisibility cloaks and teaching reluctant sophomores to knit. If she can avoid her conniving ex-boyfriend and steer clear of campus politics, that’s a plus. But everything changes when her secret university is unshielded by a saboteur, placing the entire magical community at risk. Joining forces with a rebellious princess and a mysterious engineer, Anya must save her school—and her reputation—before it’s too late. But can she really change the world with just a ball of yarn?

This are the covers (e- and print) which I illustrated and Stewart Williams designed for Jonna Gjevre‘s novel of magic, knitting and computers, Arcanos Unraveled. (Print, Kindle).

Stewart did a splendid job, and if any of you are looking for a cover designer (and you should be, they are worth their weight in gold), his website is: Stewart A. Williams Design.

Every so often a project comes along which forces me to dust off my needles and knit a swatch for art-reference. I couldn’t find the needles this time, so ended up knitting with a pencil and the handle of a paintbrush.

In the end it was decided to do a design that could function as two covers or a wraparound – there was some refinement, with boots.

And sheep were cut out. They have these beautifully, misleadingly patrician faces. For scale, those are half-inch squares on the cutting board.

I cut the illustrations out as two separate images which could be joined over the spine if so decided (although in the end they were framed by blue).

Then I tidied these up, and sent the files away to be turned by Stewart Williams into something marvellous and blue.

And if you want to get early sneak-peeks and process details on projects like this, I post those for supporters on Patreon.

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Three Australian fairytale artists

Leife Shallcross has written a lovely article on Hodderscape about Spike Deane, Lorena Carrington and me!: Three Australian Artists Creating Fairytale Artwork That’ll Take Your Breath Away.

And while you’re at it, check out the cover for Leife’s own novel, coming out next year! The cover is by Daren Newman (illustrator) and Jo Myler (designer):

Cover illustration by Daren Newman, design by Jo Myler

Ditmars!

First of all, congratulations to all the winners and finalists for this year’s Ditmar Awards!

If you were following the ballot announcements, you might have seen that I was shortlisted for “Best Fan Artist”, but that no award was given. This is because I asked the committee if I could be withdrawn from eligibility – it’s been such an honour to receive several Ditmars in this category, but there are so many wonderful and committed fan artists who should be promoted and considered, and as most of my illustration work is professional now I wanted to make sure attention goes where it should. Always happy to accept nominations in other categories, though!

However, I was a bit conflicted about withdrawing this year – because I designed the Ditmars, and I kind of wanted one!

My part of the design was a cut paper silhouette – so much fun with the swirly bits!

But the awards were cut and constructed by Allan Carey of the marvellous Type40 – your source for all your themed shield and weapon needs (check out the Wonder Woman shield!)

 

Type 40

 

 

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Christmas mice

Some tiny cut-paper mice I put together as printable gift tags for my Patreon supporters as thank-you gift for helping make art like this happen (the full set is for $3+ patrons, and one is available for all patrons).

 

 

Tremontaine cover reveal

On Tor.com, there is a cover reveal for the first three episodes of Tremontaine, the serialised prequel to Ellen Kushner’s Riverside novels, to be published by Serial Box Publishing beginning at the end of October 2015. It is written by written by Ellen Kushner, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Malinda Lo, Joel Derfner, Racheline Maltese, and Patty Bryant, with covers by me.

The Tor.com post also has lots of behind-the-scenes pictures, but here is a quick time-lapse of the sketching process to whet your appetite (if I can get the video to work):

Middlemarch illustration, for Litographs!

George Eliot’s Middlemarch is a very large book. I know this because I speed-read it last month, and that isn’t actually possible. It is also a very wonderful book: all the summaries, while strictly accurate, make it sound depressing but it isn’t – once you commit to the 1000 pages of it, everything becomes inevitable and deserved and in character. It’s a very tender, human novel. I like it so much.

I am not the only person to feel this way! Due to the machinations of master-conspirator Ellen Kushner, I met Danny Fein and Benjy Brooke of Litographs, and was commissioned to illustrate Middlemarch.

A lot happens in 1000 pages, and the novel has an ensemble-cast, so the process of finding an iconic image was complex. In the end, I simmered the ideas down to a focus on Dorothea’s story (since she begins and ends the novel), and the idea of how the choices we make, the context in which we live and the passage of time all limit the options available to us (I’ve been told that sounds depressing, but spread over 1000 pages it’s almost reassuring). So the sketches featured Dorothea, her husband the elderly, academic Casaubon, Highly Symbolic Trees (TM), and passionate, unsettled Will Ladislaw.

Who lost out in the final design. I listened to many episodes of 99% Invisible in the process of cutting out the final illustration.

 

The 1830s did not have the best sleeves.

I then scanned the silhouette in and moved a few elements around – detached the bird, extended the line of hills, and so forth – before adding colour, converting it to an appropriate vectorised image and sending it off to Litographs, to be overlaid on text and printed (here is a video of their process).

 

It can be produced in black and white or other colourways, on posters, wall-clings, tote bags and t-shirts – all through the Litographs website. They also have lots of other books, and are reprinting Alice in Wonderland on people using temporary tattoos, so have a look around while you’re there!

Black-Winged Angels – cover and illustrations

I’m a huge fan of Angela Slatter‘s work (which just keeps getting better and seriously, you should read The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings and put it on all the award lists, and of Angela, so I was thrilled to illustrate Black-Winged Angels,  Ticonderoga Publications’ limited edition of some of her earlier dark fairy tales.

Angela had seen some illustrations I was working on for an art show, and asked if several of these could be illustrations for the stories in this collection. We discussed the others and I put together very rough digital sketches.

I then sketched the final pieces loosely on the back of some black paper and cut them out. Silhouettes don’t have quite as many stages as other art styles.

This is for “Light as Mist, Heavy as Hope,” a story of lost parents and Rumpelstiltskin-bargains:

“Bone Mother”, a Baba Yaga tale:

And “The Girl with No Hands”, whom I gave hands in the original paper piece, because I could only bear to cut them off digitally (painlessly, reversibly):

Altogether, I made 16 illustrations for this book, but I’m not posting the rest until it’s sold out!