Artist’s Art

Ive been looking for an artist to create the cover for my first book for a while now. I first had fancies of doing it myself, as I am an artist. I did attend art school in San Francisco albeit is was for Fashion Design and a lifetime ago. However from time to time I break out a pencil and paper and see if I still have the touch.

I suppose the idea of doing my own art for my book was stifled in part by three things:

1) The level of art I wanted to represent the work that I have created is pretty high. I imagine it would take as long as it takes to write a book just to learn the techniques and skills to properly complete a book cover. At least the one I envision.

2) It takes a long time to write a book. Especially the first one. Now I am only speaking from my experience, but I have had ideas that have been turning over in my head for decades. Space Operas and Prehistoric Tales and all that. At some point my spirit forced me to sit down and write. It has been almost three years since then and im still tweaking things. I mean if I was start learning how to create my own high fantasy art book cover now it would be another three years before the book saw light. Maybe that’s ok but I'm kinda done waiting.

Anyway…

3) I have no idea how to do it. this whole process has been a bit unnerving and I have tried to follow so many step by step guides. From Reedsy to the Hero’s Journey and nothing prepared me for what was the wildest trip I could have imagined.

I have been taking advantage of AI generated art to fill gaps and help me portray bits of the worlds that have created. A big part of me wants the reader to imagine what they want like I did, but some things like a book cover are necessary and iconic in my opinion.

I write like most, not in a specific genre. Well, it is all fantasy at its base but I love a great romance the cornier the better. I also love a good Thriller and I leave trails of that in my writing. Fantasy art (For books specifically) Really embodies the idea that a book you hold in your hands is taking you somewhere it also sets a tone for is to be in the world that you enter.

The idea of reading and periodically looking at the cover of a book at certain key moments is definitive to my early reader self. How the greats have accomplished this and continue to amaze is the definition of amazement itself.

Like the art of Darrell K Sweet for example. What an amazing feel for interpreting fantasy words into living art. Some of the versions of characters that he depicted are and will always be the definitive versions of those characters. The creatures that lurked in the shadows or the works beasts.

Or take the clean lines and vibrancy of the art work of Michael Whelan. The detail that goes into the scenery and light, I'm hard pressed to find a more attention grabbing cover these days. He also has perfected a thing that is important to me which is the human form in natural looking poses. It sounds crazy but, it is really hard to depict someone under great stress about to fire a flaming arrow at a missing scale underneath a dragon while holding a magical conch and have them look realistic and cool at the same time.

With that we must mention Boris Vallejo. I think that while imagining any kind of imagery in the ‘Barbarian’ subcategory all of my thoughts are heavily influenced by Boris. It was Beast Master. It was Red Sonya. It was Conan. These artists and countless others created things that I could have (and in some cases did) stare at for hours on end. revealing new details after every pass of the eyes. Feeling the emotion behind the work.

Now for obvious and various reasons I can’t work with some of the people I admire, but I am always looking to collaborate with all kinds of talent. I especially like to look locally. And by locally I mean where ever I am at, at that time. I have this sort of belief that when people only look to the ‘big brands’ they often miss out on some small gems.

So I went looking…

I reached out to several (like 20) artists and got various types of “No’s”. That being what it is, I know that somewhere there is a post or another step by step that outlines the way that you are supposed to go about finding an artist for your book, but I tend to rebel against rules. Just a bit. Also, none of those lists helped me too much while writing my first book. That may be a bit of a lie. It all helped me refine my method for getting things done.

So many rejections. I thought that some artist looking to make some cash would at least reply with a query on what the book was all about or even what I was willing to pay.

But alas… everything happens for a reason as the waves of the dream realm craft a universe from our gaze.

I went to my local tea lady. A Wisdom of my island if you will. (More on that in the future)

With a knowing eye and hands tediously rubbing thumbs to fingertips, she gave me a blend of dreaming teas that help to thin the veil between this world and what I call Seftime. I focused really hard on finding an artist fit for my book and drank the potion. I also have a lot of trouble sleeping. I am naturally a person who runs high on cortisol.

I dreamed that night. I dreamed of coffee. I’ll never forget it. There was a door high on a wall eye level at about 6 feet. it was a tiny door, I recall in the dream thinking ‘not big enough for a fox’. The frame of the door was painted with a muted orange you could see the ridges created from the brush strokes. While the door itself was a dark colored unstained wood. I was in a store and all the employee’s had conveniently fallen asleep in various positions around the store. It was impossible to see what they were selling. I approached the door and knocked.

The tiny aged silver door knob started to twist. There was a clicking and small voices discussing on the other side of the door. I stepped back not in fear but in anticipation of what might open the door.

The door opened inward. Whatever opened it had two kind deepest faintly glowing eyes. In the door was mostly darkness and the sweet aroma of fresh roasted coffee. Then coffee beans spilled out of the hole. Pinging and bouncing around the store. Even hitting the slumbered employees. The room filled with beans fairly quick and I found myself quite literally up to my neck in beans.

The dark figures scurried out from the door across the beans just fast enough to evade direct sight. They placed something over my right ear. It was soft like a scarf but small like a cup. Then I woke up.

There aren't many places where magic happens anymore. I feel like with the introduction of Behind the Scenes extras on DVDs they killed a lot of the magic in the world. Suddenly we went from watching a movie and running to the garage to try and bend a spoon with your mind to trying to build a rig for a broomstick so you could look like you playing a magical ball game.

The two places I often feel magic still exist are in dreams and at coffee shops. If you really take the time to look around in either of those places, you can always find something that seems a little bit off…

A few days later while watching YouTube, I had a thought. My local coffee shop always displays different artist’s art. It was the perfect place to go see if I could find not just any artist but a local artist. I went and to my surprise they had just recently updated the artwork on display. I had a brief conversation with the owner asking who the artist’s were who created the work. She told me and then invited me to the premier of their latest collection where she said that she would introduce me.

That premier is tonight. I am a bit nervous as I am socially awkward and I either talk too much or not enough. I have a lot of fears about if they will like me or my project or if they have the time to even look at what I want. I have been turning so many situations over in my head and using that ever-present cortisol to make myself crazier than normal. But I really want this. And I want that dream to mean something.

In the event that the little beings in my dream are just whips of my own imagination, I think I’ll double down on my search for an artist. Who knows I may never find one. I could have another episode like I did before I heard Beck’s new Album and never even see my first book published. But I hope that Tandem Painting is open to what I would like to do and I hope they create a book cover that is worthy to hang next to the great works that they have already created.

Either way. I’ll be back to say…