I've made this book cover for "The Masque of the Read Death", a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1842.
My inspiration comes from the excerpt below:
"These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue – and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange – the fifth with white – the sixth with violet. (...) It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony."
P R O C E S S
The challenge was keeping the color scheme harmonious while adding seven distinct colors as described in the scene. These colors do not necessarily all link to each other in the color wheel, so I had to choose the dominant color carefully. That's the reason why the illustration is mostly in black and white.
I used watercolor paper cut-outs for the windows, coloring them afterward in Photoshop.
Poe's deep, bound stories emerged of a troubled mind that questioned its own sanity. He was the experimenter of genres: renovator of fantastic literature, landmark in horror literature, creator of the detective-style, and inventor of science fiction.
