My project in The Art of Record Covers: Illustration Meets Lettering course

My selected song was 'Lady Grinning Soul', an underappreciated Bowie song from the Aladdin Sane album. Above are some of my sketches based off the pinned images of my Pinterest board (https://pin.it/4OY1E4V) . I got 200+ images deep on Pinterest, but main things I wanted to evoke were trippy waves, but with an order to them - a structure of symmetry. I also wanted it to be distinctly feminine so you can see early on I was playing with silhouettes of the female form. My biggest challenge was trying to bring in the image of a grin, so naturally I looked to the Cheshire cat. We all must adventure to Wonderland at some point in our trippy journey!

I was looking at a lot of vulva-esque waves and patterns. The symmetry and femininity were coming together on this route. I also settled on the typeface, a little more classic and more British 60's/70's hippie design (think 'Rumours - Fleetwood Mac'). Again trying to figure out a way to bring a grinning face into the mix for my 'Lady Grinning' without overly drawing one.

This was the final sketch. I decided drapes, which I would colour accordingly were a more subtle solution than going full Sile Na Gig! And the grin would be formed out of a necklace/bracelet hanging between two silhouetted hands.

In the end I'm torn between three different final results! All completed with a mix of Procreate and Adobe Illustrator. This was my first. But I'm not entirely happy with the layout of the text as it reads more as "Lady Grinning" than "Lady Grinning Soul".

This is my second, I wanted to make the type "pop" more and tried to figure out a way to balance the title so it could be read. I extended the arms and added a frame.

And finally I decided to throw in some emerald earring eyes rather than the drawn cartoon eyes. And I flipped the arms to see if it would look better than floating in the centre. I created a more trippy frame and honestly? Between the three I'm not sure which one I like best. But this is certainly the most developed!