You may be wondering how the front covers to both books were possible to do...
Well, the answer is collage.
Both covers were done in collage, and then they were touched up on the computer.
I remember learning how to do collage in an art course during my undergraduate years at the University of the Incarnate Word. The teacher had us make renditions of artwork in collage--in other words, recreate the work with anything, from paper to scrapings to whatever else can go on a canvas. I had a lot of fun with the collage, but I didn't pick it back up until this past summer (2018), when I was designing the front cover of Book 1.
What I did was sketch out what I wanted the cover to have. The first thing that popped into my head was the villain Ivor.
Next, I envisioned Ivor curling, twisting all snake-like, while grabbing onto his crystal ball to keep his eyes on the prize--Princess Silhouette. And then, I figured: "Hey! Maybe he's watching his crystal ball from his underwater cave. That makes sense!"
So, I had the outline drawn. Then, there was the task of what type of medium this was going to be. A simple drawing, in this case, wouldn't suffice, because I wanted to stand out--This was my front cover, so I had to let it stand out.
Ultimately, I thought back at how I had enjoyed doing collage from my art class. So, I had that chance of reviving my collage skills.
What I did was gather up my Vogue and Allure magazines, tear out any page that had any colors I could use, cut it up into "puzzle" pieces, and glue them onto my drawing. That was how I gave my picture, was use collage instead of paint, markers, crayons, or even construction paper!
(the cover before the touch-up)
As soon as I had my collage done, I touched it up on my computer using the Microsoft Paint app.
And that was where I added the text for both the title and the author name (a.k.a. my name).
And yes, I did the same with my second book,
was create a collage for the front cover,
and touched it up on the computer.
Now, I was especially surprised how I was able to pull off Book 2's front cover, because, as you can totally see here, this was a daring front cover.
(before the touch-up)
Even my little sister was like: "I had a dream like that." It's weird though; for Book 2, I had this vision of Silhouette and her Mary Beth swimming to escape the jaws of Ivor, as they make off with Queen Valeria's crown (hence Book 2's title).
Long-story short: I was able to use my creative collage skills to pull off both covers. Who would've thought that collage would be so useful when designing a cover!
Anyways, when the pre-ordering for Book 2 goes live, I'll let you guys know. In the meantime...
Veronica Gonzalez
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