Do You Judge A Book By Its Cover?

Image: Secretsof7scribes.wordpress.com

I don’t know about you, but I DO judge a book by its cover – literally.  When at a bookstore or library, I look at the books displayed predominantly and I’ll always pick up a book because I like the look of its cover.  Whether or not I walk out the door with it, is a different story, but I will spend some time admiring the cover.  I often wonder about the thought process behind each one.  Whose vision was it?  Was it true to the story line?  Was it true to the author’s vision?  How much time was put into it?  What was truly vested in its creation?

When I began writing my upcoming novel, Souled, I knew what I wanted on the cover, but I’m art-challenged and what happens in my head short circuits on its way to my hands.  I did make an attempt, though, albeit pathetic, and I just wasn’t happy with it.

One day, after I had gotten my quill tattoo, I really started thinking about it (well, not really because there was never a question in my mind after the seed was planted) and decided who I would ask to design the book cover.  I had walked into Crystalyn Abercrombie’s tattoo studio and asked if she would be interested in taking on the project.  I don’t think I actually got the words out before she said yes.  The connection was made.  We both knew the Universe ignited.  Yeah, it was that awesome.

The result?  Perfection.  Exactly what I had envisioned.  She nailed it.  In fact, it’s my next tattoo.

So what did she do to make me her #1 fan?  I put some questions to her and now I share them with you…..

Crystalyn Abercrombie – Damn! This girl knows her stuff!

1.         Tell us a little bit about your background in art. 

I’ve enjoyed drawing for as long as I can remember. My Uncle Nick is an artist as well and would always send me drawing materials for birthdays or holidays. In 5th grade a local artist came into class and taught us how to duplicate photographs with graphite pencils. My mom signed me up for lessons with that artist, and that’s when I started to take art seriously. I fell in love with drawing the human body and portraits of people and animals. Since then I entered every art contest I could. I would always place in the top three and have my art picked by the class to be featured in projects like yearbooks or choir t-shirts. I took various art classes that were offered in high school and some in Spokane, and worked with different mediums like acrylic paints, wire, clay, found objects, stained glass and tile for mosaics, photography, calligraphy & graphic art.

2.         What is your preferred medium and why?

That’s a tough question! I really enjoy making mixed media art, using a little of this and a little of that, usually involving some sort of natural element and acrylic paint. I like to create art with dimension. Currently in my spare time I like  to string and paint native American style hand-held drums with pagan inspired goddess images.

3.         When did you begin to draw?  What was one of the first things you drew?  What makes it memorable?
I’ve pretty much had a crayon in my hand since day one! We never had a lot of money growing up, but we could afford paper and crayons, so art was always my favorite form of entertainment. In first grade my dad was a construction worker, and addicted to yard sales, so he would pick up oil paints from garage sales for me, and I would paint flowers with butterflies and big yellow suns on his scrap pieces of 2 x 4′s I’d find around the yard. I can also remember doing a pencil and crayon drawing of a family portrait. Memorable because I had put a heart polka-dot pattern on my mom’s shirt, and my parents smirked at the two hearts that were drawn right where nipples should go.  I have been censored on my human figure drawings several times in middle and high school, and it makes me laugh to remember it started way back in first grade!

4.         What is the process you went through to create the cover for Souled?

Step 1:  Consulting with the author, Diana Murdock.  She told me she wanted a symbol to represent the Egyptian clan that some of the book’s characters were involved with.

Step 2:  Reading the novel to completely understand where she was coming from, and get the artwork to really resonate with it.

Step 3:  Hitting my symbol books to learn more about what symbols Egyptians typically used and what meanings they associated with them.  From there I gathered symbols I felt appropriately represented aspects of the novel from the Egyptian and old world cultures.

Step 4:  Putting together a rough draft of my idea along with pages of symbol explanations for Diana to look at.  This way she was able to see why I chose to draw the symbol as I had.  I gave her time to think it over and decide on any changes she wanted me to make.  This step went back and forth only twice with the actual symbol before we nailed it down, and then once more for the style of the novel’s cover as a whole. We seemed to be on the same page at every step of the way.

Step 5:  Sketching a rough layout, deciding on what medium would be best, and gather what supplies were needed.  Of course I chose to do a mixed medium piece, and photograph it when finished so it would look as realistic as possible.  I purchased a brown piece of scrapbooking paper as a base to give it the old bound leather book feeling, some antiquing silver stuff to give the look of old metal embellishments, and a red rhinestone for the snake’s eye because drawing or painting it on wouldn’t have achieved the effect I wanted.

Step 6:  Printing my layout onto my scrapbook paper.

Step 7:  Using graphite pencils to draw in the snake completely

Step 8:  Metal embellishments with the silver antiquing liquid.

Step 9:  Using graphite pencils to draw details onto the metallic areas, and around the cover to give it some depth and shadows for a more realistic sort of feel.

Step 10:  Another consultation to make sure Diana was happy with the results.

Step 11:  Photographing the final piece with the rhinestone eye in place.

Step 12:  Computer graphics stuff which involves uploading the photograph into my graphic design program, having a consultation with Diana to choose font type and where she wanted to see the title and her name, saving that project as a high resolution JPEG file, and voila! Diana received it in her email’s inbox.

5.         Did you read the novel before creating the artwork? 

Of course. It was really the only way for me to feel like I could understand what my art needed to represent. I’ve always loved anything paranormal and magical so I was all over it! Being from the same town as in the book and having gone to high school here really made it fun to read as well, I felt like I was right there with the characters at every turn. I really loved it, and I can’t wait for the sequel!

6.         Where did the inspiration come from? 

The passages from the sorceress and the element manipulation magic.  There’s a line early on about flames twisting together like snakes in the hands of one character, that is what sparked inspiration initially.

7.         The symbol is very Egyptian.  Do you typically lean in this style in your artistic work or was this a special direction for this book?

This is actually my first ever Egyptian style piece. I knew we wanted to represent an old world magic clan and I initially thought Celtic or Pagan because that is what I lean toward heavily in my personal symbolic art, but Diana mentioned Egyptian so I had to hit my symbols books in order to pick out the right symbols to resonate with the novel.

8.         Where else has your work been published?

Down There, The Wise Woman’s Way by Susan Weed in 2011

9.         Have you ever designed any artwork for an author?

This cover is the first author I have worked with during the design process. My other published illustrations were submitted into an open illustration call, so I designed them completely and sent them off to New York to compete against whoever else had submitted illustrations as well.  As a tattoo artist I’m constantly designing various things for clients.  Sometimes it’s fitting multiple images into one design or creating something from scratch.

10.       Would you be interested in designing more book covers?  If so, do you have a favorite genre you’d like to design for?
I would absolutely love to do this again! Fantasy and Paranormal are probably my favorite to read, but as far as what I like designing for best, I have yet to find out.  I’d love to try everything and see if I can eventually answer that, so bring on your ideas!

11.       Besides this book cover, where do you gather most of the inspiration for your tattoo designs and artwork?
My personal inspiration comes from the beauty of nature and my spirituality.  I resonate with aspects of Paganism, Wiccanism, and some Native American cultures.  I love to involve symbolism, balance and simplicity in my personal designs, but when designing for clients I really try to understand where their inspirations are coming from, so my art will vary greatly from piece to piece.

12.       Where can others reach you if they are interested in commissioning you for their projects?
ouchiemamatattooandpiercing@gmail.com, 208-610-6527.

13.       Where we can view your work?

My biggest portfolio is on my Ouchie Mama Tattoo & Piercing page on Facebook.  Unfortunately it’s all tattoo work at the moment, but a lot of it is my own design work.  Now that I know people might be interested in seeing more of my work, I will start adding some different stuff to it.

~~~

Thank you so much, Crystalyn, for taking the time to share this process.  I’m thrilled we connected and I look forward to having you on board for other projects!

Please be on the lookout for the release of Souled this spring!

Okay, I Give Up

Us...NOT Photo: burtness.net

The life I give my boys is an outside-of-the-box kind of normal.  Our house is lovingly referred to as “The Pit Stop” as we are rarely there and when we are, it’s to sleep and grab a shower and perhaps a few Z’s before we head out the door again.  My erratic work and writing hours revolve around the boys’ equally erratic hours, shaped by their activities and sports.  And the time that we actually spend at home, we spend together, yet apart.  We have vastly different interests and temperments – I’m a hummingbird on speed, my oldest a little faster than a snail, and my youngest, somewhere in between.

I love reading, writing, exercising, yardwork…my boys don’t.

They adore Skyrim and Zelda…I don’t.

My oldest enjoys making decadent desserts.  My youngest enjoys eating decadent desserts…I don’t, on either count.

My oldest and I love watching movies…my youngest doesn’t.

My youngest and I love hiking…my oldest doesn’t.

That being said, I’ve tried to reverse things a bit and make it “normal,” but failed miserably every time, ignoring the fact that when I’d tried to do what other mothers and fathers did with their family lives, it felt wrong for me, felt wrong for us.

I’ve pushed the boys on eating habits, on school, teen-tude behavior, and all I got was a big shove back.  Not fun for either party involved.

Although rules and regulations are set in place, I gave up on trying to “be normal.”  And it was freeing, because I didn’t have to pretend anymore.  But skipping not too far behind that freedom was its annoying friend – guilt.  I thought I had it all figured out when I wrote the Girl Power post, but I still found myself looking at all of my friends, wondering if I was off base.  Shouldn’t I be playing board games or something?

I realized that trying to do what is “right”, for me anyway, is a lot like being a kite.  Flying freely, yet anchored by the shoulds of the string, I’d feel “normal” and “accepted.”

Photo: howtomakeandflykites.com

But when the kite string is released, the more visible my free falling or “different” behavior is. While it’s kind of cool to do the rebel yell thing, there is a moment of ahh…damn…should I really be doing this?

Billy Idol photo: licklibrary.com

I’ve come to the conclusion certain things aren’t going to happen – it just doesn’t work for us, no matter how hard I try.   So one day after sweeping up the pieces of my latest attempts, I sat the boys down and said, “Listen.  There is no ‘normal’ here.  Our routine is just what happens as the day unfolds.  We may not bond over playing catch, but we can bond while we do the Warrior Dash.  I may not bake at Christmas time, but I’ll share a box of Oreo cookies with you.  I’ll even be there for you if you want a tattoo.  You know how completely unorthodox I am…”

My oldest had stopped me and said, “We know, Mom.  We like you that way.”

*Happy dance*  They know I love them, and that is the glue that keeps us together.  But then again, it could have been the Double Stuff Oreo cookies…

An Open Letter To My Son

It’s been pretty intense around here, with all the soul cleansing and growth, the changes inside and out.  Like finding seashells along the shifting tides, I was too wrapped up in my discoveries to see the signs.

Still, I knew something was off.  I felt the shift in his manner, his voice, and the way he looked (or rather the way he didn’t look) at me.  The realization hit me like a 2 x 4 yesterday morning and gave me a raging headache.  I couldn’t let this sit and stew.  I had to do damage control – and fast.  Please bear with me as I get this out in words, because apparently my verbal skills need some work.

Dear Jesse,

I woke up this morning and felt really, really awful.  Sick, but not physically.  It was more like my heart and soul had collapsed.  I didn’t have it in me to get out of bed, and for me, that’s pretty bad.

I panicked because I realized I had forgotten something very, very important.  What made this oversight even worse, was that I couldn’t remember how long ago that I had begun to forget.

Sometime between the ages of 15 and 16, I would guess.  Maybe even before then.  Perhaps it was it when you started with the teen-tude or buried yourself under texting and Facebook.  Maybe it was when you started rolling your eyes or put your emotions on permanent lockdown when I went off on my “informative lectures.”

My love started to fall under the guise of teaching you the “rights” and “wrongs” of life and somehow I made you feel less than the perfect person you are.  You did things your way, but it wasn’t enough.  I wanted more from you, but I didn’t take into account that you had your own issues to process – issues you came into this world with, along with the normal, everyday teenager stuff.

The only difference between the issues you and I are processing is that yours are new and mine are old.  Yeah.  Mine go waaaay back, but I’ve been flinging them at you when something set me off, and I didn’t realize that until just now.  I reacted with anger when you showed me lack of respect.   Feelings of worthlessness screamed when you ignored me when I talked.  I felt inadequate when, even though I gave you 200%, you complained about it and still wanted more.  That’s all recycled stuff from a different decade, bleeding from my past into your present.

Whether intentional or not, I had ignored the distinct sound of disconnection when you tuned me out.  I fought hard to pull you close when you fought hard to push me away.

During that battle for control, I believe that is when I forgot to show you that I love you.  As a writer, I should know this one.  I could tell you I love you until I’m blue in the face, but it won’t have the same impact unless I put action in place of those words.  When you stand four inches taller than me, I see the man you are becoming, but forget that you still respond better to hugs than to words.

Today you take your pretest in Tang Soo Do, and after that you are only a few months away from your black belt.  You could never have gotten this far had you not been determined, focused, and talented.  You are a force to be reckoned with, and I couldn’t be prouder of you.

So now I will start once again to build the bridge between us.  I’ll teach my lessons through examples and laugh a heck of a lot more.   I’ll be sure to draw the line between my issues and yours.  I’ll untie the cord around your waist and give you room to stretch your wings.  Not that this gives you a carte blanche to do whatever you want, but this will allow you express yourself and be who you need to be without my issues holding you down.

I hope that by letting you go, you’ll find your way back to me.

And I promise…I’ll remember to never forget.

Your biggest fan,

Mom