Silver Lake book cover
This piece was made as a reimagining of the cover of the Laura Ingalls Wilder book By the Shores of Silver Lake. In that story Laura loves to sit near the lake among the wildflowers of the prairie, and to me that was the most striking image of the story. I grew up in the Midwest, and have always found prairie wildflowers to be absolutely striking.
This cover was made using Windsor & Newton watercolor pans for most of the color washes in the background, and for the color details I used a combination of Derwent Inktense water soluble peremanent ink pencils and Carbothello pastel pencils with water washed over them. To write the letters I used a Speedball calligraphy dip pen with a left-handed nib and Dr. Ph. Martin's Bombay India ink in blue.
This book is set in South Dakota, so I looked up typical wildflowers that bloom in South Dakota during late May and early June. My thinking was that season would be the most appropriate one for wearing the outfit that I chose for Laura, with an average temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Earlier than May it snows, and later than June the temperatures can get as high as 90 degrees.