Hello everyone. I'd just like to take a moment to say a few words about my art and myself as an artist. I have been drawing for as long as I can remember, and when it came time for me to go off to college, I chose art as my area of study. I have a BA in Art Practice from the University of California at Berkeley, and took a wide range of fine arts classes while there. My preferred medium nowadays is pencil (mechanical and colored) and paper, though I have had experience in painting, sculpting and ceramics as well.
Currently I use my artistic skills mainly for bringing my own books and their covers to life, but I am very interested in taking on outside projects from fellow indie authors, especially those looking for illustrators for children's books. Feel free to browse through my images and if you think my style might fit your project, please send me an email at jejoescienne@yahoo.com and I'll be happy to discuss it with you and even draw up a few sample sketches if you'd like. All the best!
-J.E. Johnson
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The original pencil sketch of Jaax and Jahrra for the cover of my
fantasy novel, The Legend of Oescienne - The Finding. |
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And here is that same image after I've added color. I outlined it with a
good black pen then used a variety of colored pencils for the rest. |
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| Original sketch of the artwork for The Beginning book cover. |
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Here is the cover art after the color has been added.
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| The pencil sketch for the third Oescienne book, The Awakening. |
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| The Awakening with color. |
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| This is an illustration for a children's book project that seems to be perpetually on the back burner for me. One of these days I'll get it done. |
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| Another image from that children's book work in progress. This one is my favorite. |
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| My illustration of the Castle Guard Ruin, the place where Hroombra lives and where Jahrra spends most of her time in the first two books of the Oescienne series. |
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| A cartoon spider I did just for fun. I love the little guys (I know, I'm one of the only ones . . .) |
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| This is Jahrra, my protagonist, and her arch-nemesis, Eydeth. He challenges her to climb a canyon wall in a race in the first Oescienne book, The Finding, and I thought it would be fun to capture the moment before the event in this sketch. |
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| The Green Hooded Figure, a recurrent "character" in the Oescienne series. This was the original cover concept for The Finding. I had colored it in, but then played around with it in photoshop and thought that focusing the color only on the center looked rather stunning. |
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| The sketch for a set of bookmarks I designed. These are all animals that I've imagined live in the world for my Legend of Oescienne books. |
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| Here are those same bookmarks after I've added color. |
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| With this piece, I wanted to create a letter with holes worn or burnt away throughout. The letter itself is written in kruelt, the language I made up for my Oescienne books. The bloodrose vine I added for an extra dramatic touch, shadowing a little behind the stems and leaves. The bloodrose is very symbolic in the Legend of Oescienne. |
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| A sketch of the tiny cabin Jahrra grows up in. |
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That's it for now. I plan on adding artwork gradually as I create it, so keep checking back in the future if you want to see more :).
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