This summer, I’ve enrolled in the book design class at the University of Baltimore. Since UB’s summer session is a short eight weeks, the class instruction (and time to complete a project) is a whirlwind. The first project is to design a book for the Rudyard Kipling short story, “The Elephant’s Child”. After several revisions, I feel I’m close to being happy with my cover design.

Since I am not an illustrator by any stretch of the imagination, obtaining art for a project is always a challenge for me. Especially when there is no client to bill for the work. I found some exceptional paintings from artist Aria Eden which I used to create a rough mock-up to present to class. After attempting the first cover, I was told that artwork created for the story itself could not be used-even unpublished artwork. D’oh!