Pouring My Art Out

Let’s make a cover for my new novel; a step-by-step blog series, and I want your input!… part 8…

Posted on April 19, 2019 by pouringmyartout

c 4

Okay, I do love the font… but I need to trim those bushes back. Gray sky would be better to show off the text.

c 4 2

#4-A

Same background, but I reversed it, left to right. Remember, the pointy rock will be on the back cover of the book. I am still doing these in pairs, with the backgrounds facing opposite directions.

c 5

Our princess looks a little too bright for the overcast sky, but I can fix that.

c 5 2

#5-A

Still playing with the font layout. Can’t decide whether to do it as one line or up and down stack.

c 6

Yeah, I need to do a quick version of the foreground with less foliage.

c 6 2

#6-A

Well, since we have ten backgrounds to pick from, I will do a quick and dirty foreground with less plants, and use that on our final mock-ups.

Some weird pictures I took of birds and flowers, for those of you who are bored to death by the posts about my new novel cover…

Posted on April 18, 2019 by pouringmyartout

a 1

My orchids are blooming… again…

a 2

I am still seeing how much better the camera is on my new phone than my old phone, so I take a lot of sunset, bird and flower pictures at work.

a 3

I like flowers.

a 4

Fuzzy flowers!

a 5

Flowers that look like bananas!

a 6

Purpleicious!

a 7

Okay, that one was left over from when me and my daughter went to see the super-blooms of flowers and the snow.

a 8

We had a mourning dove lay two little eggs in a hanging plant basket in our backyard.

a 9

The basket is below the level of my head, which is how I got such a good photo of the little mother… unfortunately, something ate the eggs. Like my mom always says; “Nature in the wild is seldom mild”.

a 10

A mockingbird messing with a red tail hawk, at the top of a eucalyptus tree at work.

a 11

The hawk was not enjoying it.

a 12

I see hawks at work all the time, because the place I work is right above a big green valley, perfect for hunting for small mammals.

a 13

I like the hawks.

a 14

I am not going to explain that one… but it is, technically, a bird… and I am not climbing on it.

Posted in flowers | Tagged art, birds, doves, flowers, hawks, humor, nature, orchids, photography | Leave a comment

Let’s make a cover for my new novel; a step-by-step blog series, and I want your input!… part 7…

Posted on April 17, 2019 by pouringmyartout

Okay, I did some mock-ups of the first of the background photos I took, with our princess in front of them. The white line in the center of each version is to remind us that the cover will be a wrap-around, and extend onto the back cover, so the place to the right of that line is our main work space.

#1-A

You may also notice that I took the trouble of flipping each background over, to see if it works better in one direction or the other. These are posted in pairs, with the flipped background being the ‘A’ version that follows the original background.

I also used different fonts and colors of fonts, and played with the placement of the fonts. My main problem now is that I think that some of the foliage I left in the foreground picture obscures the title. A good gray sea or sky would make the title pop.

#2-A

Maybe I am overthinking this?

#3-A

Okay, I have more of these coming. I like the font in #1 best so far. All of these have some good points. The size and placement of the title and my name can be changed any way we want them. I can remove some more of the plants. Let me know what you think of these.

Posted in fiction, My art | Tagged art, authors, book cover, books, current-events, novels, photography, Photoshop, photoshop art, princess, social-media, writers, writing | Leave a comment

Let’s make a cover for my new novel; a step-by-step blog series, and I want your input!… part 6…

Posted on April 16, 2019 by pouringmyartout

Okay, I have picked out ten photos to choose between as the main background for the novel cover art. The advantage with these photos is that I took them myself, so I don’t need to worry about stealing an image. The downside is that the photos, taken on the coast of Northern California, are a little foggy. But they might work. I will post the pictures here, now, and then add the foreground image of our soldier-princess in the next post, and we can figure out which is best, or if we need a brighter background, or whatever.

Don’t forget I am doing a wrap-around cover, so these backgrounds will extend from the front cover to the back.

b 1 copy

b 2 copy

b 3 copy

b 4 copy

b 5 copy

b 6 copy

b 7 copy

b 8 copy

b 9 copy

b 10 copy

That last one might be best. I love the mysterious blue color of the water in the foreground. Remember that I can always darken our princess when I add her in front of one of these backgrounds, to match the overcast sky. And I still might add some black sailing ships to the image.

Another good thing is that the gray of the water and the sky will make the text on the cover stand out. Okay, back soon with some more mock-ups!

Posted in fiction, My art | Tagged art, beaches, books, california, fog, humor, nature, Northern California, novels, photography, writers, writing | 6 Comments

My heart breaks for Paris…

Posted on April 15, 2019 by pouringmyartout

I have been to Notre Dame a few times.

I have been there with both my daughters, but not on the same trip.

I was there with my mom and Mollie, just a few years ago.

Yeah, the people of Paris love the tower. They love the art museum.

But Notre Dame is the spiritual and cultural and historical center of the city.

It survived wars and rebellions, storms and floods.

So much history lost to what might end up being a stupid accident of some sort.

Posted in My travels | Tagged current-events, France, history, news, notre dame, paris, photography, social-media, travel | 2 Comments

Let’s make a cover for my new novel; a step-by-step blog series, and I want your input!… part 5…

Posted on April 14, 2019 by pouringmyartout

a 1

Oh yeah, now our model… my younger daughter, Mollie… is looking more like a princess leading a desperate rebellion against an evil empire! It sure helps that I replaced the plastic PVC pipe she was holding with a spear. I have removed more of the bushes in the background. It will make more sense when I pick the perfect beach picture to put that in front of. Oooooh… I need to look through all those photos of the Northern California coast I took on my way back from Santa Cruz, where I visited my cousin and her kids. I bet I can find some good ocean shots.

You may also have noticed that I have begun working on the uniform. That is because Mollie was wearing some of my stuff for the photo shoot, but the uniform isn’t supposed to be a modern military one. More like home-made, dye-splashed soldier gear appropriate for a made-up world where there is basically a world war going on… with spears and slings… and our princess is more or less Eisenhower, leading the war against the Axis powers. So I am removing the pockets and lapels and changing the camouflage.

Hey, I told you, this ain’t no Disney fairy tale princess story.