Book Cover design, for a series of anthologies, published by SternenBlick (April 2016, and ongoing).
Scalpel Paper-cut. Approx 50 x 35 cm
March 2016.

The story behind the imagery:

I was asked to design a pure black and white silhouette wrap-around book cover for a new series of German anthologies, Dicht Kunst Schatz (Poetry-Art-Treasure), to be published by SternenBlick (for which I have done a number of previous illustration projects). The starting point was simply to include imagery relating to writing, literature and poetry, with a strong fairytale element, to suggest how books inspire the imagination.

Hence, I began with the unfurling pages of a book (forming the basis of the composition), and a fountain pen (with quasi "handwriting"). The fountain pen nib includes a tiny heart, to suggest the love and romance of writing.

The butterfly symbolises rebirth/metamorphosis, which the writer (or artist) achieves through his/her artform. The lotus flower represents how the writer's thoughts grow from murky depths, gradually forming something beautiful. The kite suggests how the imagination is caught by the wind of passion and flies free, high in the sky, yet remains tethered to our earthly existence.

The Moon appears in much of my work - a symbol of many things, including the divine feminine, the muse, the great cosmic magnet and mirror of the Sun's light (i.e. writing or art mirrors an artist's emotions, and also exerts huge gravitational pull of emotive language or imagery, etc). The Moon emerges from behind clouds, suggesting a gradual awakening to clarity (also another reference to previous SternenBlick anthology, Zwischen den Wolken (Between the Clouds)). The flowing lines on the front cover evoke water ripples, suggesting hidden depths of the creative mind.


On the back cover, there is a miniature version of Schloss Neuschwannstein, the quintessence of German romantic fairytale. The hot air balloons are a reference to previous SternenBlick publications, and also symbolise how the imagination floats serenely through the wide open sky of the mind.

The man on the horse and the lady standing to one side are a reference to one of my favourite poems, The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes, linking with the romance of traditional fairytale and also hinting at its darker side. A birdcage hanging in the tree symbolises the soul caged in the mortal body, which still sings. The tree (in which the birdcage hangs) is loosely based on a tree in a painting by Caspar David Friedrich (Zwei Männer den Mond betrachtend), again, evoking the era of quintessential German romanticism (n.b. it is flipped left to right, because of the nature of paper-cutting). To the other side of the tree, there is a fairy-door, with yew trees growing either side, and steps leading up to it. The other features of the design include flora and fauna: forests of trees, the weeping willow, play-fighting fox cubs, a pair of swans and a stag, all small references to fairytale and the beauty of Nature.