Q&A for my World Illustration Awards Shortlisted book cover, Paradise Lost
The project
The project was a brief I set myself for my BA Illustration course. It is a book cover for John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, which I created using soot.
How was it made?
I created the image using soot painting. I made a paper cutout of the dove and blu-tacked it to another piece of paper. Holding it above my head, I used my Zippo lighter to create soot trails around my stencil. I had to sit in my shower with the extractor fan on as at the time I was living in student flats with a smoke alarm in my room. I was terrified of setting the alarm off and getting 200 angry students out of bed - thankfully, that didn't happen!
The image was then scanned into Photoshop, where I used gradient maps and colour inverts to create the bold colour of the final piece.
Have a look at my Instagram @megan.evetts.illustration for a video of the soot painting process.
What was the inspiration?
I was searching for interesting articles one morning and I found an old news story on National Geographic. It was about the release of white doves by the Pope from the Apostolic Palace during the weekly Angelus Prayer. The doves (symbolising peace) were attacked by a crow, prompting much speculation about how it could be a terrible omen, or indeed the work of Satan. The image of the white dove being attacked by the black crow was beautifully symbolic, and suited the themes of conflict between Heaven and Hell within Paradise Lost perfectly. The image of the dove which I created for my book cover is inspired by these photographs. I recommend having a read of the article here:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/1/140127-white-peace-doves-attacked-birds-rome-vatican-pope/
What projects have you been working on since?
I’ve been busy! I worked with Studio Mutiny to create promotional art for their video game SAI, which is inspired by Celtic legend and confronts the issue of deforestation. This project also involved designing the artwork for the soundtrack CD. Please do check out @studiomutiny on Instagram, and you can listen to the beautiful soundtrack by Steven Coltart on Spotify - search for SAI (Music From the Video Game).
I’ve been working hard on my digital art skills as my dream is to design characters and environments for films & video games - maybe someday I’ll be creating weird and wacky new planets for Star Wars!