Coloring past the Lines

                     Slowly and surely this novel will be fully done. A few days ago I just sent all my pages to the printer, waiting for the watercolor paper prints to come out. So I have been thinking about how this story should be presented, what design of the cover page will fascinate the readers. 

                      Every cover is one of the strongest elements to a book is the imagery that depict the story. From simple icons spotted below the title or a fully illustrated scenes from the author's words. Usually the cover should feature a listing of these ideals: the main character(s), a hint to the story plot, a remembrance scene that will interest the possible readers, or a defined speculation of emotions in this narration. One of these tip or not were most of the reasons, or you were the ones who read the summaries on the back.    

  

This illustrations is of Rob smoking a cigarette as it release Katie's hair instead of smoke. This position is depicted in the beginning of the story. Even though I never smoked I do like abstractive flow of the smoke that I drawn. The smoke would be thick as sky clouds, that would bundle up or swirl infinity. I always thought of them as Rob's realm, a world that cut him off from reality and isolate his emotions within. And by having Katie emerge into his realm is what the story starts off about.

Next is a simple icon that stands for its title "Tails". This was the title I named this narrative my high school senior year and unfortunately don't have any other title for this story. Any ways image of the fish tail will be seen through the story so it makes sense to be illustrated on the title page. You could argue that it could have been any other type of animals tails however the setting place along a small town built along side the seashore, inspire by the Stonington Borough, Connecticut. Also, apparently, fish tails are an important symbol in our world's culture. Fish tails symbolize transformation from Roman and Greek myths, acknowledge wisdom from Celtic and fertility and creativity from African legends. Read this entry from the blog about the knowledge of the ocean spirits and the fish symbolisms in historical documents. http://newsonhistory.blogspot.com/2009/10/symbolic-meaning-of-fish.html 

                    Lastly these two illustrations are one of my favorite, they don't define a particular scene or characters but the atmospherical mood within the story. This design was inspired by the craftsmanship of the stain glass windows, where the colors and imagery are divided within the composition. Both these paintings depict Rob, shadowed in his recognizable attire, while the face of Katie is brightly above his horizon like the sun. I have Rob resigning in the darken town of the puffy smoke as Katie dropped in from above.
                 
The first one I did is the one on the left, with Katie's golden locks largely swirl around the sky. However, looking back upon this, the color pallet choices are a little too bright, especially in Rob's blue coat.
Then the painting on the right seems to be more colorful and filling in the composition a lot more than the first one. There is a lot more of a playful feel with Katie's golden-yellow strands with complement her characteristics. Also the pieces are more defined than be blurred by the darken colors.
                 

 Right now these two paintings could be the illustration cover for the graphic novel, as it introduces the main protagonists and the possible conflict in this story plot. Please let me know what you think of these pieces, the more feedback for this project would be great from my point of view. When appealing the rest of the viewers is a major purpose for an artist.