Cover Cafe takes a look behind the scenes with an important player in the creation of book covers. The illustrator brings an author's words to life with artistic creations. Cover art is designed to catch the perspective buyer's eye and the right cover can attract a new reader to the author.

James Griffin is a perfect choice for investigating how an illustrator creates the magic of cover art because he has illustrated thousands of covers for a variety of publishers during his career.

James illustrated two of the ten finalists in the 2005 Two Image Cover Category and one of them was the winning cover, he illustrated one of the 2006 Series Finalist covers, he illustrated three of the ten finalists in the 2007 TIC Category, and he's also illustrated one of the 10 TIC finalists and one of the 10 AR finalists for our 2008 contest. Some of his more recent illustrations are showcased on either side of this article.

James Griffin was one of the aritsts participating in the Expressions In Color exhibit sponsored by Dabbert Gallery in Sarasota, Florida. The exhibit was in May and June of 2009.

I'm including a link to the Dabbert Gallery so visitors can view his work exhibted at the gallery.

Enjoy this edition of Cover Biography! Welcome to Cover Cafe James.

Thank you for inviting me to Cover Biography - Behind The Scenes at Cover Cafe. I am glad to be able to talk a bit about how I produce a typical James Griffin cover.

I started illustration in 1976, so it has been over 32 years. When I graduated from Pratt Institute I wanted to paint pure art, untouched by what I thought of as crass commercialism. It is a fantasy about art that a lot of art people carry around, the idea that the world will find and support you because your work is so good and so original that all you have to do is paint, paint, and paint! This legend has a life of its own and actually ruins a lot of careers. Back in the late 1970s it was alive in me, so I scratched out a living by helping to restore the old brownstones that line lovely Brooklyn avenues. I was doing paintings that were more realistic in style, which was a profoundly unpopular genre during the heyday of abstract art. Galleries were not interested at all in my work, and I began to re-think the pure art thing.

About that time I met Charlie Gehm, an experienced illustrator who was making a good living painting book cover illustrations. He thought I would be good at it and took me on as an apprentice for a short while, long enough to get me started in the business. It was a novel concept for me, - making a living by painting!

I used photography and models from the start, shooting in black & white. I did it as a one-man operation too, getting the costumes, setting up lights, directing and shooting and hoping it all looked good when the film was developed.

Midnight Waltz, Jennifer Blake 1981

My process then was to do little full color paintings in acrylic as sketches, which, when approved, would also be used as guides for the shoots and to help me when I painted the finish in oils. They were typically returned to me with plenty of comments written on a tracing paper sheet. I would draw up the pencil lines on gessoed Masonite using a slide projector and then paint the image. I often started in a splooshy way with acrylics, building up color foundations for the oil paint, because that paint takes longer to dry and I was always on a tight schedule. It usually took a week to paint the finish, unless it had a lot of figures or I ran into trouble. I used a special container, designed by my wife, Tabita, to safely ship the wet paintings to the publisher. Changes were fewer than today, because they involved shipping the thing back to me and lots of time delay while I repainted whatever they wanted altered.

Trust Me, Jeane Renick 1992

These days I work with a photographer, using digital cameras that show me instantly on a computer screen what I am getting. There is a person in charge of costumes, another assistant who books models, arranges schedules, sets up and breaks down the set and of course me, who sketches and plans it all and gets to direct the whole thing. One thing that has not changed in the passing of time is that we still have only an hour to do a shoot in, no matter how many scenes there are!

As with the earlier process, I use the sketch for the shoot and to work from. I will describe my digital process using the illustration I did for the book, The Dangerous Duke by Christine Wells, released by Berkley Publishers. In a departure from my usual practice, I discarded the sketch for this one because I did not like it and the art director was giving me wide latitude for the design. Just put them on a nice outside terrace or something, was the direction he gave me. So in the Shirley Green photo studio in New York City, I decided to see what my two experienced models would do with a garden bench mockup. I had Steven Muzzonigro sit comfortably, leaning against a big box that was being steadied by the assistant, and had Laura Williams pour herself into his arms, lounging on what would become a stone garden bench. I wanted the feeling to be sexy, but in a more romantic way than some of the explicit poses I do for some other books. We got the light to have a summer day look, by bouncing a strobe off the floor as reflected sunlight.

Once I had selected my shot later in my studio, in Photoshop I selected the figures and pasted them into the blank page. The background started to form in my mind while we were shooting. I recalled some pictures I had taken of a stone pergola in the garden of an historic house in Rhode Island. It had a wisteria vine growing on it, but not blooming at the time, so I used pictures of my own wisteria flowers, blending them in to the pergola.

The background was made up from several shots of skies and English countryside, made sunnier and hazier to contrast with the darker vines. I was after a clear delineation between foreground and background, almost like a frame. I did a lot of subtle fussing with the figures and pergola, adding shadows, more hair to the guy, shoes to the girl and many other small changes. The images was re-worked in Painter and brought back into Photoshop. I heightened the color of her dress and their skin tone was warmed up and voila! a cover is born.

What is missing in this description of course, is all the experimentation, mistakes and learning the hard way that comes from constantly trying new ways of working. Also missing is the art history that I carry around in me, but that is always there in my pictures, even at the beginning when I am doing the shoot.

Thanks again for having me on Cover Cafe.

Please visit my websites and blog:

www.james.griffin.org

www.jamesgriffin.mosaicglobe.com

www.paintlayers.blogspot.com

Cover Cafe thanks James Griffin for the glimpse inside cover illustration. We can not wait to see his next creations!

Linnae Crady () - April, 2009

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