part 1, the cover
The past year I’ve been working on my 2 debut picture books. On my blog I’m giving you some insight into my process.
Zuhause auf der Klippe (Home high up on the Cliff) is a story I wrote and illustrated and have been working on for over 2 years. Herschel (The Ghost Dog) was written my Thomas Meyer and illustrated by me.
Both books will be out in DE, AU & CH middle of March in 2025. I will keep you updated if the books will be published internationally and/or translated!
In this blog post, I will be focusing on creating the Cover for Herschel, The Ghost Dog.
Intermezzo: quick story synopsis (the story is written by Thomas Meyer)From when Herschel was a little puppy, he lived with the Mick Family. Luise was a baby then, but now she's growing up and Herschel is very old. He's tired, and his body is aching. The family has to say goodbye to their beloved dog.
But Herschel is still here! He's feeling lighter, and full of energy again! He's a ghost dog now. Luise and her parents realize - even though they can't see Herschel anymore, he'll always be a part of their family.Even though I thought about the subject of Luise on the bike and Herschel next to her quite early on, the cover went through a couple of changes before what it is now.
I used to feel like the cover is the most important part of a book, it's what the people see first - so it needs to be done first. But I've learned, that when working on a book, the art goes through so much changes during the process. The characters might change, or your technique, or the color palette. Maybe at the end of the process, you need to re-paint the first couple of pages, because they lack what you've learned during the creation process. So maybe do the cover at the end?
You can't do that either, because the cover is normally the first thing you have to hand in - for me, this was one month before the deadline of the rest of the pages. But it was okay, I felt like I had found the "language" of the book, and I was ready to tackle the cover.
I showed my editor the sketch you can see above, and she really liked it. So I went ahead! I did most of the Character in Collage, painting the different elements and glueing them together.
As you can see, in this first scans of my drawing, Luise didn't yet have glasses, and she's looking a lot older.
I left this version of the cover for a couple of weeks. I liked the handwritten title, as well as the simplicity of it. But after a while, I started to feel like it looked too "grown up".
I wanted the cover to reflect the visual world of the book, which is not at all reduced, but very full, colorful and detailed. So, time to think again! I knew I liked the basic subject, but maybe... add a background?
maybe something like this?
During this time, I also worked again on the character of Luise. I felt like she was still too inconsistent. I also sketched her out many times, figuring out how I need to draw her, so that she looks her age.
So here's the finished cover - I made Luise's head bigger digitally, to make her look younger. And I added a helmet!! This was so important, and I the moment I had the thought how funny it was that no one realized the mistake until that point! So, helmet on, and safety first.
For the background I went with a couple of houses, in autumn colors. The colors compliment Luise & her bike, without taking away attention from the main characters. I think it looks so cozy, and it makes you curious about the flying dog! Also, does Luise see him? Or feel his presence?
oh, you thought we were finished? not quite! Because a book is a three-dimensional object, so in addition to the cover, we also need a back cover!
Here are some of the sketched I sent to my editor:
but I wasn’t really happy with either of them. So I decided to take a scene out of the book, and have Herschel fly by this gallery wall inside the family home, that will also show pictures from Herschel and Luise when they were both little.
the scene from the book
