Second Workshop

We were asked to produce a book cover for one of the following titles:

• Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
• On The Road - Jack Kerouac 
• Charlie and The Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
• To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf 
• Perfume – Patrick Suskind
• The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S Thompson
• Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
• The Color Purple – Alice Walker
• Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
• Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

Even though I have not read To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, I already had some ideas for what I wanted to create for the book cover. 

I quickly researched the book to get an idea of the main themes of the story so that I could use this and inspire me with what I wanted the book cover to give away about the story. Whilst researching I came across Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf’s sister, who illustrated the first cover. I cant say that i was overly inspired by her work, It was extremely simplistic and abstract.

The book cover I produced was something I was quite happy with. It was quite atmospheric which is definitely something that I wanted to get across with my piece of work. I worked entirely in black and white which added to the atmosphere of the piece. 

However, they’re definitely some problems and things I would change. Something I have learnt is that inks dry rather quickly. This caused problems when blending or fading the colour out, it left harsh lines that would then have to be layered upon with more ink and caused problems then to the paper. Also, one of the comments made on my work was that I could have created more depth and used darker shades. I agree with this, the tones to my work don’t really range to much, they're pretty muted. Another comment made was that my work needed another visual element rather than just the lighthouse itself.