Cover artwork for Sarah Hall’s stunning new YA novel, about an artist in lockdown at her immense studio Burntcoat whilst the world around her burns. Tasked with creating something that captured the drama of the story, with added depth and using a warm palette, my artwork was inspired by the book’s narrative of fire, flames and burning wood, featuring a lit match at the centre, radiating with a gradient of warm, energetic and graphic handcrafted paper flames.

Once the sketches were approved the final design was drawn up in Adobe Illustrator and then each layer of the design cutout of individual sheets of coloured paper, using a variety of stocks to add a nice range of textures. The final artwork was assemble using pieces of foamboard to add depth, bringing the artwork to life, and the finished artwork was shot in my studio using natural light, to give nice soft shadows helping to add to the depth of the piece. I then retouched and cleaned up the final images in Adobe Photoshop to be supplied to the client.