Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezad-ie had a thousand tales

What can I say, I'm a sucker for slightly xenophobic depictions of foreign cultures and systems of belief, call me a traditionalist. In actuality this was not created in response to a recent viewing of the 1992 Disney flick, but rather due to a personal love of history, literature, and mythology; all of which the Arabian Nights holds in spades. And with those passions in mind I set myself upon redesigning the jacket for this lovely gem. I wanted to create a subtle yet striking image of Shahrazad veiled and slightly pensive (with a touch of fearfulness thrown in for good measure).

The story of the Arabian Nights is essentially this: Shahrazad (Female Protagonist) is wed to the king of Persia (Shahryar). Gum Drops and Rainbows right? Not really. See, Shahryar had a nasty habit of killing his wives after only one night of marriage. Shahrazad resolved to keep herself alive by telling stories that she began in the evening, told through the night, and always left the ending unresolved. In this way, so long as her stories held the king's interest through the night her life would be spared. And there's a happy ending too. What a strange story.

At any rate, I knew that I wanted to depict Shahrazad (spellings vary by the way but I'm staying faithful to the spelling found in this particular text) and include subtle allusions to arabesque design and architecture. After working digitally for the past few pieces I really wanted to explore the subtleties of physical media again, paint in particular.

And we're off! As usual, I started with a drawing that I scanned into the computer, lowered the opacity on, and printed out to resolve issues and create a finalized pencil drawing, which we find here:
I extended the hair for the wrap-around cover but didn't bother to place it in the final drawing because I wanted it to remain largely abstract so that it would begin to unravel as her stories do. This was painted in Watercolor first, then I laid a white acrylic wash over-top of the entire painting and blended the two paint layers together to create a hazy sense of sfumato. I wanted to make her seem faded and worn, seeing as she is perpetually in danger of being killed and all. I went back in with watercolor and added some more subtle detail in the face and hair and repainted the majority of the veil with gouache. This is the product of those efforts:

This was painted on a large format piece of paper so I had to scan it in as two parts and piece them together digitally, which I think is hardly noticeable in the final work (which is good, huzzah!). With subtlety in mind (notice a trend with this one?) I chose the colors, blocked out the areas of text, and reduced the opacity to allow for elements of the painting to show through. I also scanned in the barcode and publishing house logo to allow for more authenticity in the design. After playing around with the font quite a bit this is what resulted, the final cover once more:

I am pleased with the final product and think that I achieved most of the goals that I had set for myself for this piece, particularly with regards to the SUBTLETY. ahem, excuse me. This was fun to do and I really enjoyed working with the watercolor, acrylic, and gouache combo so expect more of that on the horizon. I plan on printing this out and putting it on the book itself so I can photograph the physical product, not just the digital plan. So that's just about it, with more struggle, triumph, strife, and joy mixed in of course. Hope you enjoy it, view happily, and in parting I will leave you with more words of wisdom from the masterful Alan Menken:

Arabian nights
Like Arabian days
More often than not
Are hotter than hot
In a lot of good ways.