My most recent project for The Writer’s Chronicle was an open ended assignment which was both a challenging and satisfying puzzle to solve.
The cover illustration was for an essay about the Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan which focused on the structure of the book: the way the chapters stand on their own as well as making up a larger story while moving back and forth through time.
I began by jotting down ideas as I read: time passing, relationships and looking back, for example. The theme of time stood out to me so I knew I wanted a clock face to feature. Another strong element was the way the individual chapters functioned as cells in a comic strip, or frames in a strip of film. After some experimentation I decided that to convey the feeling of nostalgia the piece evoked in me, I would represent time by creating a clock themed background wallpaper that had a vintage feel and over lay framed images that when seen together, created one larger image. I put this together digitally for the concept sketch using stock clock faces and sketched frames but for the final I hand painted the clock faces and the frames and layered them in Photoshop. The only change we made was to brighten the sepia toned palette of the sketch. I chose a soft color story inspired by vintage wallpaper. I love projects like this that stretch my imagination and give me total freedom to experiment.
