Jen Sheckels

"Howl's Moving Castle," © 2016 Jen Sheckels. Illustration created using mixed media on illustration board. Graduate work, final illustration—created in conjunction with the ILLU721-OL course at SCAD. Design prototype for displaying the cover illustration.

"Hogfather," © 2016 Jen Sheckels. Cover illustration created with pastels on sand-coated paper. Graduate work, final illustration—created in conjunction with the ILLU503-OL course at SCAD. Book cover illustration project: "Hogfather" by Terry Pratchett.

Cover illustration and design by Jen Sheckels © Recorded Books Custom illustration, pastel on sand-coated paper.

Cover design by Jen Sheckels © 2013 Recorded Books This book was SO challenging. Every online description confused me. Reading the book itself in order to create a piece that fit ... well it helped. But I've never read a book that was so engaging, but so confusing all at the same time! In the end, I think the piece really did come together though. Composite of several different stock images, combined with a number of effects in PS.

Cover design by Jen Sheckels © Recorded Books Playing with color and filters got me so far. But when I chose to try inverting the color, I got a really unexpected, but beautiful result. Stock image with various PS effects.

Cover design by Jen Sheckels © 2012 Recorded Books I'm so proud of this one. I knew exactly how I wanted it to look—the problem, of course, was finding the right set of images. Composite of several stock images, combined with PS elements and effects.

Cover design by Jen Sheckels © 2013 Recorded Books Volume 1: I've been a fan of LeGuin's for many years. So when this two-part project came up, I jumped at the chance. I knew immediately that it was important to play on the title "The Unreal and the Real" because a lot of her work, and certainly that in the collection is just that—believable life, with an otherworldly or ethereal quality. After discovering the image for Volume 2, this one was very close behind. A little color tweaking later and I think it relates perfectly to Volume 2's cover.

Cover design by Jen Sheckels © 2013 Recorded Books Volume 2: I actually found the image for Volume 2 first—I think the image itself is a real embodiment of the title and thus the theme of the collection.

Cover design by Jen Sheckels © Recorded Books Received glowing praise from the author on the cover art for "The Silver Kiss." Made all the prep work (reading the novel, researching photos, and transforming the one character into a vampire) well-worth it. Composite of several stock images, combined with effects in PS.

Cover design by Jen Sheckels © Recorded Books A case where concept was executed quickly - I saw the image and knew it was perfect. Ilove how the image and type work together here. Stock image with some PS tweaks.

Cover design by Jen Sheckels ©Recorded Books This cover took some work - good deal of photo manipulation. But in the end, I think creates a sense of mystery and intrigue that works well with the title.

Cover illustration and design by Jen Sheckels © Recorded Books Custom illustration - pastel on sand-coated paper, digitally enhanced.

Cover illustration and design by Jen Sheckels © Recorded Books Custom illustration - pastel on sand-coated paper, digitally enhanced. The turnaround time on these was so tight, but I was lucky to get the chance to illustrate this series. The covers were used on the library editions for about a year until we reached an agreement with Random House on the rights to the original cover art.

Cover illustration and design by Jen Sheckels © Recorded Books Custom illustration - pastel on sand-coated paper. Learning about Neil Waldman and his art was integral to the piece. I created the original artwork, including the portrait of Waldman.

Cover design by Jen Sheckels © Recorded Books This was one of my earlier pieces. Combining the two separate stock images and adding in digital effects and filters through Photoshop was a fun challenge and I was really proud of how it turned out.