With the cover artist, Elena Betti.
Elena’s husband was her model, holding a Latin dictionary and wearing a soft and thick blanket arranged to create the drapes she had in mind. She then took several photos, selected some, cut them out, and worked them through various steps.
Here’s the photo of the Latin dictionary held in position (but at less than a tenth of the original bytes!) Note, the robes are still uncoloured.
The original dictionary features in the early draft below –
Later, a different book was brought in, more massive and antique, resting more heavily on Metatron’s hand – see the final cover below. Also, the sky behind his head was changed – in the draft, there are hundreds of tiny wings – Blessed Souls – ascending to Heaven. But scrub that! They’re too tiny to recognise.
The hand gesture was changed for a different reason – a single raised fingers looks very much like a jihadi salute! So Elena went back to her camera and husband, and took more photos, including the final one below –
Put it all together and you get this –
Easy? I don’t think!
INTERVIEW WITH THE ARTIST, ELENA BETTI
(conducted by Gerry Huntman of IFWG Publishing)
Thank you for being interviewed, Elena! Can you please provide us with an overview of your journey as an artist. Some readers might not be familiar with you and your work.
Hi Gerry, and thanks for this interview.
I am an Italian freelance illustrator, and I live in Tuscany. As far back as I can remember, I have always loved drawing. As a teenager, I ardently wanted to attend an Art high school, but the closest one was in another town, and it was impossible to do. So I started attending a scientific high school in my home town, which had a very interesting peculiarity: it was possible to combine, in the usual basic scientific education, various study paths: for example, linguistic and artistic with a sort of “Renaissance” method. Obviously, I chose the artistic path and graduated with honours. I started working immediately, but for a good few years, freehand drawing was only a pleasure reserved for free time. In fact, I started working in construction as a technical designer: I drew carpentry for construction sites and electrical systems; I also designed interiors and many graphics (logos, branding, etc.). I also loved this way of drawing, but the 2008 construction crisis led me to reinvent myself. So, I proposed one of my artworks to an American publishing house for a cover. The enthusiastic publisher purchased the work within two hours to win it immediately. Then I said to myself, “Wow! I can make it!” and I started working. I received several “no”‘s, but I didn’t give up, and little by little, I became an illustrator. I have also worked as a freelancer for Denmark’s second-largest publishing house for a few years, but my clients are mostly not European and English-speaking, like you, Gerry. Last but not least, I have been a BSFA finalist twice.
Do you like working with detailed briefs, or do you prefer to be given a lot of freedom? Are there pros and cons with each approach?
Over time, I have learned that I work best if I am left free to illustrate by following a well-defined path with the publisher and/or the author before starting. If I know what the essential things are for the client, we will all be happy in the end. Some will be more concise in their requests, others will prefer to detail them more, and that’s fine. It is crucial to agree on each step clearly: knowing what suggestion you want to give with a specific image, deciding on the number and extent of revisions, the deadline and other technical aspects with great clarity because they define a range of action for the illustrator. But after all, trust in the illustrator and his/her freedom to interpret the requests are fundamental ingredients for a successful final artwork. It’s more important to be evocative than descriptive unless you illustrate a technical manual. That’s why there are more cons in excess of control than in the artist’s freedom.
In the case of The Ferren Trilogy, can you give us some idea of what inspired you the most about rendering the art—what were the elements that were most important to you?
In The Ferren Trilogy, the essential element that guided me the most was the light. More precisely, the spiritual, mystical Light emanated by the different angels for each story has a different quality depending on the character. Each type of Light must evoke something different, which will then be up to the reader to discover, delving into the reading of Richard Harland’s fantastic books. Light is the true common thread of the three covers, whether dazzling white or multicoloured, but always otherworldly. Light is a fascinating element, both from a scientific and artistic point of view. It gives the measure of our world, in which nothing can exceed its speed, but it’s also evocative of transcendence and power.
Were there any challenges with any elements of composition in the three cover designs? What techniques did you use?
Of course, each cover presents challenges to overcome. The first has to do with light and is a technical challenge. When working with digital art, as I do, you must remember that the brightness and saturation of colours will change with printing on paper. It is inevitable.
No material support can ever have the brightness of a backlit screen. I had to do several tests to ensure that the light emitted by the three angles in RGB was not diminished by the four-colour printing so as to adequately compensate to maintain a certain brightness of the colours unchanged because that was the main characteristic and strength of the three covers. In addition, there were other challenges, such as the face of the angel on the first cover(made by hand) or the hands of the angel on the third cover, which are pictures of my husband’s hands. In fact, I mix different techniques. Sometimes, I draw freehand, take pictures or purchase other’s photos, then put all these elements in an artwork harmonised with photomanipulation. Work goes through various steps and revisions, sometimes very challenging. [Editor’s note: we see examples of some of Elena’s work in a recent post]
Some people think using graphics programs is “easier” than using a freehand technique, but it is not. I don’t use AI’s prompts (that copy someone’s style without permission and, sorry, but I think it’s wrong), so the photomanipulation is not a shortcut but a tool like paper and pencil. In fact, sometimes it’s even harder to do things with
graphics programs than by hand!
What types of commissions do you enjoy most doing, such as book covers, book content, single art pieces, and so on?
I like covers where I can also design the texts because they are part of the composition in all respects, and I find that often, someone thinks they are a secondary element, which is not. Apart from this, one of the commissions I loved the most was a microfiction book: I illustrated the cover and did all the internal illustrations, one for each microfiction. [Editor’s note: this is IFWG’s Black Moon by Eugen Bacon]
I loved it, not only because I had a lot of interpretative freedom but because it is a unique and rare format, truly atypical and exciting, in which texts and images blend almost like in a graphic novel. However, it is not a graphic novel but rather an anthology of very short texts with accompanying images in which words and illustrations enhance each other. It is a winning format that I hope becomes more and more widespread and that is based a lot on the alchemy between author and illustrator.
Do you have any art commissions you are currently working on, or are about to do, that you are allowed to talk about?
I’m currently experimenting outside of illustration; this could lead to interesting developments, but not as an alternative to illustration itself.
Do you have any future goals or aspirations in the art field that you have not yet had the opportunity to realize? Why are they important to you?
Yes, I aim to refine my artistic skills in every possible way, constantly renewing my skills for a higher purpose. At this moment in which AI is really being abused to produce impactful material at zero cost, we do not realise that artworks born already worn out, ordinary, made for a superficial embellishment that empties of meaning everything it accompanies. What we need, instead, is something authentic. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against technology, but against its unknowing and unregulated use, which harms both artists and users, contributing to the shaping of an artificial and mediocre sense of Beauty.
I’m also a pranic healer, and as such, I feel art needs to be brought back to its ancient sacred function. Art uses shapes and colours to convey meanings; it’s not just a decoration. For this purpose, I’ve recently been working with acrylic paint on canvas, using archetypal language signs for meditation and healing. Well, they work, so exploring this field is a great goal.
