WORKING ON A BOOK COVER: The color purple
Here’s the process on how I decided to approach a new little challenge: illustrating the cover of the book The color Purple by Alice Walker to add variety to my portfolio.
RESEARCH
First of all, you read the book, or watch the movie (the move has the same name “The Color Purple 1985”); Did you know The Color Purple was banned in schools all over USA since1984? Due to its graphic sexual content and situations of violence and rape, but that’s not all, it also contains homosexuality, religion, drug abuse, incest, African history, and it even deals with racism. This book has it all, and in the movie you can get some of that too.
The movie follows the book, it skips some of its lesbian aspect, and the relationship between Shug and Celie is important, but nonetheless, just watching the movie would give you the whole toughness of the era and the story. It is not a fun ride, it is quite hard and it makes you burst in anger inside for so many injustices happening in story, but at the end, as all Hollywood movies, there’s a happy ending and you smile.
From reading and watching, I have decided that the story is full of so many things inside, but almost everything happens “at home”, in the rural tiny house of the Jhonson’s. The color purple is a nice metaphor that shall be added on the whole cover.
SKetch ideas
The whole set of the sketches I did are gone, (can’t find on which sketchbook I did them, lol, I have sketchbooks as people have socks! SO many and sometimes I loose them!) but mostly , on my sketches I had different house designs, trying to achieve the look and feel of the time of the story, and some girls of course, writing letters, some letters, and mailboxes. But Celie is more than a girl, so I didn’t want her to stay as a “girl”. She found at the end her strength in her womanhood.
PAINTING EXPLORATION
I love to start painting right away. I approached this painting as a landscape painting.
I changed and adjusted the colors of the original painting to get more in tune with the purple hues and the feelings conveyed.
I ended up adding a tittle and the Author’s name. In this image my name is on the side temporarily.
I decided to go on with the challenge, and do the whole front and back cover together, by extending the painted area. I didn’t want to imply anything else, as I said, there are many things in the story that are important.
At first I thought on adding a mailbox, and I did it and remove it, it was a bit too distracting, and the classical American mailbox in other countries won’t be understood as such, besides, I believe that one of the important steps for Celie to eventually gain self worth was learning to read, something her sister Nettie did by using pieces of cooking paper and sticking them around the house. I have done this exercise when teaching a second language to kids and adults, and it is definitely a proven working technique.
I personally value stories where a person regains self confidence and finds the strength to overcome difficulties and stand up for themselves. The mailbox was a “guarded” area thus out of her reach, while it is something important, I think learning to read, by her sister’s hand was even more significant, and shows their bond.
Once, the whole image was completed, I decided to arrange the areas for the text, you know, the book jacket copy or back cover copy or blurb; the text on the spine of the book (title and author), and a brief synopsis or book description on the back, plus some fantastic reviews! and my copyright. Here also should come the barcode and sometimes the price, no worries, I left enough space for that.
Now that the spaces and places where the text should go are set, I copied some texts from some actual book covers and added them to my design.
FINAL RESULT
This is the final result of the cover, front, back and the spine. :) I put it all nice and tiny on a few mock-ups. I can totally see myself finding this book on a library or a book store. Hello agency, publisher, I am available for projects :D !
Now my dear friend, stay curious and happy painting! 🎨
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