On Friday morning there was a knock at the door. When I opened it, there stood a man with a box. I was a little perplexed, thinking it must be some kind of mistake as I hadn't ordered anything. As I signed for the parcel, I looked at the sender's address on the box. It said 'Random House Mondadori', and it had come all the way from Spain. In a split second I realised that the box contained copies of the five books Random House had used my artwork for! I knew they were due to be released in March 2010, and the designer who worked on the book covers back in September 2009 had kindly offered to send some copies when the books were published, but such a long time had passed that I didn't know if he'd even remember, and I had no idea that they were just going to turn up. So it was a completely wonderful surprise!
Inside were two copies of each book and a lovely handwritten note from Ferran Lopez. I can't tell you how exciting it is to see my artwork on actual books! I keep holding them, looking at them, and it almost feels as if it's happening to someone else; it's like a dream. The books are in Spanish so I can't read them, but that doesn't matter! I know that my work is going to be out there: that people will sit in their house, on a train, a park bench or wherever, in another country, reading a book with my paintings on the cover. It's an unbelievable feeling.
I will be forever grateful to the lovely designer Ferran Lopez for finding me/my work on the internet and liking it enough to want to use it on Jorge Bucay's books. He was delightful to work with and he did a brilliant job of the cover design/typography, as you can see from the images below...
[Please click on the images to view slightly larger versions.]
Artwork © Natasha Newton
Design © Ferran Lopez / Random House
P.S. I now have a desire to design more book covers. I really hope I'm given the opportunity to do this at some point in the future...
:)
