Speculation, Fact and Fiction

Readers and writers alike are - rightly - fascinated by cover art. The conversation crops up often enough at conventions and library gigs and such that I often take along a display book with my various book-jackets in it. I can talk about the input I have, advising my cover artists in the UK and the US on visual references I've used in the writing and I have some preliminary sketches that offer more insights.

I have been fantastically lucky in my US and UK covers, thanks to talented artists like Geoff Taylor,Edward Miller and David Palumbo.

What I absolutely cannnot offer any insight into, is how these folk turn the pictures in their heads into pictures on the page. My medium is words. I cannot, to quote my trained-as-a-draughtsman husband, draw three views of a football. Thus I am in total awe of the visual arts community.

Which makes the posts by Irene Gallo, over at Tor.com so fascinating. She is Tor's award-winning art director, with the most superb eye for, and understanding of, illustration.

One of her recent posts featured the cover of Dragon in Chains by Daniel Fox, as illustrated by the artist Robert Hunt. Read Robert's own elucidation of his artistic process. And be amazed!