I was quite busy over Christmas and New Year's Eve. It seems there are some advantages to living alone after all.

The cover for Mat Coward's collection of short stories was one of two designs to be completed. It is a wonderful collection and the second time I have worked for Mat. And an honour it is! This is not the cover I had in mind, but after several weeks working on the original idea it just wasn't coming together. Then I had a moment of inspiration and came up with the following which, as it turned out, we both preferred to the original. Phew!

This is the second. It is a cover illustration for Indian Hill 2 by Mark Tufo, and again the second time we have worked together. It's always a great feeling when an author comes back to me for another design, and is a great vote of confidence in my work. Means more to me than I can say.

The following is still a work in progress but I'm quite pleased with how it is going, and all being well will be the first of three book cover designs I will be doing for Stewart Arkass. It needs some tweaking, and I am hoping to add some furniture to the room over the next couple of days.

This next one has a way to go yet, but I am loving the striking quality the image has - it will make a great thumbnail, something that has become more and more important in my work due to how books are promoted and viewed these days. I've removed the author's name as they don't want their followers to know about it just yet. Luckily I don't think any of them read my blog, but then again, who does? ;-)

I have another commission on the go but not at a stage yet worth sharing. It's a challenging one that will require a lot of work using at least two paintings, one layered over the top of the other.

So it's busy, busy, busy for the next few weeks at least. And somewhere in there I need to find the time to drum up more work so there isn't a long period of nothing happening, which is always a worry.

I love working with writers and their efforts in promoting their work is slowly rubbing off on me. It is amazing just how supportive so many of the authors I've come to know can be, and I enjoy just as much supporting and promoting them. It is a wonderfully creative process to be a part of, so here's wishing us all well for 2012 - I think it is a year full of potential for a great many people. Let's make it a memorable time!

Ah, so WIP stands for 'work in progress'! I knew that!

For the past couple of weeks I've been working on a character illustration and background illustration for an upcoming trilogy of books. Each cover will be a variation on a theme and involve the two main characters.

Yet again I've used the children of friends as models - something I love to do, and it is often my first thought, when I get a new commission, to figure out which of my friends and family are the right age, gender and shape for the work in hand. This current series of illustrations will involve two sisters, which is a nice touch, I think.

My oldest friend's daughter is perfect for this character and fits the author's description almost exactly, so it was an easy decision about who to use. I've known Anna since she was born, and her older sisters too. She is young, pretty and very slim, and as the trilogy of books are Sci-Fi it is no surprise that the author wanted her boobs enlarged somewhat. It is an odd thing to have to 'sex-up' the teenage daughter of an old friend, especially when you've know them since birth. But hey, we do what we must, and I've heard that she is quite pleased with the results herself, so that's a relief!

I started off, as I often do, with a photo-shoot session. Then a rough draft in pencil which I send off to the client for approval, and adjust in further drafts until they are happy with how it's looking.

At this stage I paint over the drawing with gesso

Then comes the painting

There is still much to do before I can digitally use this character illustration to go on the screen in the illustration below, which itself has yet to be painted.

Of course one could probably save a lot of time by doing all this digitally but then I wouldn't have a brush in my hand, would I?

This is the space I have to work in over Winter as the studio has no light nor heat. It's a bit limiting but hey, we work with what we've got, and this is more than I've managed with in the past.

So there you have it - that's my current Work In Progress. Or at least one of them, as I have two other cover designs half done, plus a couple of greeting cards, and other projects of my own work on the go too.

Life is just too damned short!

Indifferent light, seen by a mindless eye.
A hundredth of a second's worth returned
from you and burned itself unconsciously
into a milky film, emulsified
to keep forgotten memories.  It fades
untouchable yet clearly portrays all
that I lost.  You bleed into the background
as you never did in life.

 

   © Dean Harkness 2011

This Is a Love Poem.
This poem is a love.
A love is this poem.
This is a poem, love.

A love this poem is.
A poem is this love.
A poem this love is.
Is this a poem, love?

Love, a poem, this is
this poem.  Is love, a
love this poem? Is a
poem a, 'Is love this?'

Love, is this poem a
love?  Is a poem this
poem?  Is this love a
poem? Love a is this.

 

by D Harkness © 2011

 

Hello bloggy-heads!

Thanks to DC for her generosity and efforts in managing and hosting these spotlight opportunities - another great aspect to blogging that I am only just becoming aware of. And thanks too to Kelly Gamble for her support and encouragement. And to all the wonderfully positive and creative people I have met on Twitter – they are an inspiration in themselves!

So where to begin? Well that's easy: Books! Books! Books! And of course, books!

And why books? Well that's easy too: Words! Language! Meaning! Invention, description, explanation, emotion and understanding.

We are words. Language is what defines us as a species, a race and as individuals. Words can separate us, but more importantly, they can connect us. I am a groupie for words. I don't have a favourite genre of writing - Rudyard Kipling and Jeff Noon blow my mind in equal measure, as can a biography or book on maths or history. If I do have a favourite genre then it's the genre of books that comes under the heading of 'well written'.

A book, or even a sentence, can turn your world upside-down and inside out. It can confirm all you ever suspected or make you doubt all you thought you knew.

One day I may write a book, which isn't something I thought I'd ever be able to say, but seeing as I've had a very unconventional life and have a lot to draw on, from living in a house with 10 lesbians for 3 years to being a roadie with the Rolling Stones to tearing around with an outlaw motorcycle gang for the best part of a decade, I feel that the starting of that book is getting closer all the time. But until then I'll stick to what I know and love, and that's book covers and illustrations, which keep me in good proximity to the writing process and have led me to writing more now than ever. I have always dabbled with writing, poetry mostly, and diaries too, but these days, what with social networks, I seem to be always writing!

One ambition I have is to illustrate an entire book, rather than just doing one or two illustrations to accompany a story. One of my earliest inspirations for that genre of art was the illustrations by Mervyn Peake, who did the original drawings for Alice In Wonderland, and for Treasure Island, which are more often than not, not what people remember or know of those stories. His visions are striking, compelling and superbly executed. He also wrote The Gormenghast Trilogy, an amazing novel full of rich description and wonderfully clear characterisations of the most idiosyncratic personalities.

This is the first cover I ever made

The cost of materials was £75 and it took between 200 and 300 hours to complete. I was paid the princely sum of £75 for the work and so made nothing doing it. But it was an amazing learning experience and a foot in the door so-to-speak. I had never done any woodwork but the first thing I had to do was construct the display case. After that I modelled and sculpted many of the items within it. Then came the photography, and finally the layout. That was about 7 years ago, and since then I try to make at least a little profit on the work I do ;-)

I have always worked for small presses and indie authors and I love the personal touch that tends to come with each project and the friendships that often develop out of them. I get the impression that with the bigger publishing companies, the author often has no say at all about what goes on the cover, and I have heard of many examples where they are not exactly pleased with what the publishers decided upon. I think that authors should indeed have some say about what their book ends up looking like and I love the fact that for the most part it is the authors themselves that I work with. Really, what could be better!

Here are my latest two illustrations

So keep those thoughts whirring and pens scribbling and keyboards clacking.

I'll be ready and waiting!

Every now and then a film is made that has a central premise that is so important that, if it is well made, becomes what many would call essential viewing.

Last night I watched a movie that, because of its central theme and the way it was handled, instantly became a film of significance for me. It's called Pontypool, and is one of those movies that you can't believe you've never heard of and quite glad you know nothing about when seeing it for the first time as then it just unfolds in front of you. And in that sense you could consider this entire blog post as a spoiler. Not that I think this would genuinely diminish your enjoyment of it, should you choose to seek it out.

It's based on the book Pontypool Changes Everything. I don't doubt for a second that the idea has been done before and probably even better, but I've yet to come across it, so this was a nice surprise indeed.

Looking at the trailers you'd think it was a zombie movie, and it definitely uses the tropes of that genre to structure its message. I would say it is a movie that writers would really enjoy as its main subject is words, language and most importantly, meaning. It very cleverly gets across the idea that language itself, how it is used and misused, can carry with it an infection, and in the movie it has the rather nicely added little touch that it is only English that has become contagious, and only certain words, but only when those words are understood.

The cure for the decease is to un-understand words, change their meaning, but at the same time to not understand their new meaning either.

In a way I could say that this is one of the most important films I have ever seen. And I've seen tens of thousands of films. But this is a film about, what to me, is the most important thing we have: Language.

And if you believe as I do that all language is code, then I think you will 'get' this movie.

We all silently agree to accept that certain words have commonly agreed upon, or even inherent meanings. But we so rarely define what those meanings are. And without defining what a word can mean in any given context we are, to a certain extent, merely making noise. The meaning and significance we give the noise is more reliant on what the hearer decides rather than what the speaker intended.

So, do you wreck-a-nice-beach, or do you think it's in-con-sea-quench-shall?

"Sample is a colour. The sky is a person. Laughter is walking. Yellow is crowded. Friends are verbs."

In a forest that on the dead feeds

flakes of names fall and are forgotten.

The place they marked, now covered by weeds;

The dead supped through soil when rotten.

Swallowed by root, exhaled by leaves:

carbon, oxygen, hydrogen returned.

And so it is this solemn place breathes

with those we've buried and those we've burned.

The reasons I chose to make book covers are both separate and inseparable.

I didn't learn to read until I was quite old so never had a relationship with literature and yet, even as an illiterate child I would hear things that moved me deeply, and all I knew about them was that they came from a book or a play or a poem etc. Eventually I learnt to read and in my early 20's began reading in earnest. Being a terminally slow reader always hindered me but I just got on with it and always read by recommendation and so read a lot of great books that I now consider to be directly connected to the person I am.

Until then I had of course developed the habit of flicking through books looking for the illustrations and the first books I bought were art books of all kinds, and for the most part I ignored the pages with writing on them.

I never thought I would read a great deal and much less write, and although I had no innate ability at art I stuck at it and over the years developed skill and talent at several techniques of art, starting with drawing, slowly moving on to colour, and eventually progressing to painting and lastly sculpture.

I had no real hope of making a living with these skills, not because they weren't good enough, but more because I was not wired in the right way to think in those terms. I just did for the sake of doing.

After many, many years of keeping up with these practices and at the same time doing numerous day jobs I eventually decided to bite the bullet and try to make a living with my artistic abilities, and in a way that could keep my interest and so be sustainable - in an intellectual and emotional sense. I had spent years doing portraits etc and I found that that was not enough on its own to keep me focused and motivated.

After much thought it came to me that I could combine art with literature and in so doing kill many birds with one stone: I wouldn't have to think of what to create in isolation - there would be a starting point, sometimes a very specific starting point. I would be working with writers who are by nature people who think, which is not something to be dismissed. My art would have an audience and that audience would also more likely be people with certain sensibilities. I would inevitably read more, as even now I often need an external motivation to read. And all this turned out to be true.

As much as I have to constantly struggle to get work I can honestly say that that decision to design covers for books, which to date has involved sculpture, painting, illustration, model making, photography and a bunch of other hands-on methods, as being one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Of course some bum-head then invented the Kindle and as much as I'd like to push them in a ditch for doing so, I still want one.

OMG! I just had this brilliant idea for a movie! Or maybe a TV series… sitcom perhaps! It could even be a documentary….

Basically it would be about this man and this woman who meet, or know each other or whatever and they would like each other, but maybe not at first, although at some point they would definitely be in love, like really, really in love. But some stuff would happen showing up the differences between men and women, cos men and women are different, and the things they do and say, which just go to show how different men and women are, would makes things worse, and other people would be in the film and say things to try to help, but they probably wouldn’t help cos they don’t understand just how much in love they are with each other because theirs is a really special kind of love. But eventually they would realise how special they are and how much they love each other cos they like the same things like being healthy and clever and sensitive. The guy would definitely find it harder to deal with his emotions and how to show them cos men aren’t very good at that, even though he would be really deep and sensitive and have a really amazing job that made the world a better place in some way. He could do something like design cars that have extra safety features that mean that even if you were in a really bad accident where other people were hurt or even killed you would be ok because of his design, or maybe an architect or something. Either way it would be important. And he would also do something manly and physical like mountain climbing or ride a motorbike at the weekends.  And she would work in fashion or with kids to show how creative and sensitive and caring she is, and in her spare time she would do ballet or something like that to show that being really fit and healthy is important too. And they would see that they are just meant to be together and how the world would be a better place if they were a couple and had some kids of their own.

It could be set somewhere really cool like London or New York and their friends would be really good looking too and successful but one of them would be a bit weird and quirky and not really understand, even more than the others don’t understand. There would be a really sexy love scene, but not too sleazy, just enough to show that they are actually open minded and not narrow minded or self obsessed at all, and it would have some awesome soundtrack to it by Damien Rice or someone like that, nothing too mainstream, cos they are clever and not just following the herd and can think for themselves and be original and everything.

Most of the film would be quite funny but at some point it would get really serious and maybe even make people cry a little because of how difficult love can sometimes be and how things can go wrong even when you don’t want or mean them to and there would be a bit where it looks like they really aren’t going to get back together just to keep people on the edge of their seats for a bit.

I really don’t think anything like this has ever been done and I’m sure people would love it and go and see it and get the poster and that, and it could make loads of money and have a sequel where they do it all again but even more. Can you imagine? It’d be amazing!

I thought it would be really good to have Jennifer Aniston and Matthew McConaughey in the lead roles but someone said they’ve already made a film together so it should probably be someone else, but definitely not Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie cos even though they are good actors they are a bit too perfect and I think it should be with actors that are good looking but in a believable way.

I really think I’m going to start working on a script because the world needs a film like this and it could be entertaining but also help people who are in relationships, and show them that it is always better to fight for what you really care about if you want to be happy and that there’s nothing wrong with wanting nice things so long as you’re a good person really.