Challenge #83: A new Cover for your Favorite Book

Host: Sharon Robinson

Due: August 3, 2013

Theme:  The title or subject of your favorite book

Style: This can be a representational quilt that illustrates a person, place or thing from the book,  or an abstraction that captures the emotions and essence of the book.  It can be fiction or non-fictional, serious or humorous.  Imagine the latest edition on bookstore shelves, with your art on the cover!  Your piece can start out the size of a book, or you could do a large piece and assume it would be reduced in scale for the cover art.

Technique:  Any technique you choose

Design Element: Line – Optional.  If this topic seems too wide open to you, try also incorporating the design exercise of using the element of “line” to portray your subject or theme.  There are as many ways to use “line” as there are works of art:  http://tinyurl.com/googlemodernartline

Some ideas that came to mind for me are:  A portrait of Jane Eyre or the girls from Little Women, a landscape of the windswept mores of England…   You could use humor or a pun: A Catcher in a loaf of Rye Bread?

Non-fiction: One of my current favorite books is about Climate Change – so I could do a quilt depicting the melting ice in the Arctic.  I’m also reading about Joseph Albers and his color studies, so I might do a quilt based on his ideas:   http://tinyurl.com/Albersbook

If you don’t really have a favorite book, or are stuck on how to interpret it, just go to Amazon Books and browse the cover art shown, but don’t just copy it – look at how the illustrator chose to interpret  the book.  For example here are many different ideas on “To Kill a Mockingbird” http://tinyurl.com/Mockingbirdcoverart

You could select a favorite book from your childhood, or one you read to your grandchildren:

http://tinyurl.com/childbookillustrations  Again, don’t copy the illustrations, but be inspired by them.  You could do a piece inspired by the style of some of the great childrens’ book illustrators.   http://flavorwire.com/306958/the-20-most-beautiful-childrens-books-of-all-time/5 or http://tinyurl.com/kncf4oe

Abstract art lends itself to book covers easily. It can even make “Ductal Carcinoma in Situ” look interesting!  J   http://tinyurl.com/abstractcovers

A couple more links to book cover ideas:

http://tinyurl.com/bestbooksyear

http://tinyurl.com/googlebookcovers

And some art story quilts, showing how other quilt artists have told stories with their work.  But remember if your piece will be on the cover of a book, keep it simple and eye-catching!

http://tinyurl.com/googlestoryquilts

Don’t get stuck on which book to use, or how to interpret it “correctly.”  This is really just a prompt to get you brainstorming and inspired!   Most of all, have FUN!