Tags
book cover, composition, Cover Art, design, golden ratio, illustration, Keith Draws, kindle, Kobo, layout, Lulu, typography
Mike had a very strong idea for this image and
Walking away from the King cover art © Keith Draws
went as far as giving me a diagram showing me what elements would be involved.
I’ll be honest, it was quite a scary brief. I’d never done anything like this before and converting a diagram into an interesting and hopefully captivating image seemed very daunting.
Alan Moore once said (and I’m paraphrasing because I’m too lazy to look up his actual words):
“Push the boundaries of your skills, always try to work outside of your comfort zone and in that way you will continue to grow as an artist.”
So with that in mind I got stuck in.
The composition was a challenge. I thought about those old Chinese landscape paintings guó huà and the way they are almost in layers from top to bottom achieving great depth (though with unusual perspective).
Source: By Anonymous (National Palace Museum) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
I decided to try something similar but rather than create a weird perspective I simply changed the curvature of the earth so we can see much further. Using layers of content I built up the depth and of course, I continued to use golden ratios to help with the balance of shape, color, and contrast.
Prints and poster of this image are available here
keithdraws 