Each cover begins as a small sketch in a notebook. It is redrawn, refined, scanned, cleaned, and laid down on a coloured page. Below is a short walk through how it happens — not as a tutorial, but as a window into the slow, tangible work of making.
Every cover is hand-drawn — brush pen and ink on paper, single line-weight, no fills, no shading. I am not trying to draw beautifully. I am trying to draw simply, so the image reads at a glance. The mirror for So I Ask Myself went through several rounds before the proportions settled.
The symbol on every spine and on the back of every book is the wind and the sail — a small triangular sail with a few curves of wind flowing past it. It comes from John 3:8: the wind blows wherever it pleases. We do not make the wind; we raise the sail. Drawing it again and again is part of the practice — every book in the series carries the same mark.
Most drawings move through three stages. Small sketches in a notebook, where the idea is tried in different ways. A larger pencil drawing, where the proportions are worked out and the lines are committed. And a final ink version, where the line-weight is set and the cluttered details fall away. The bread on the cover of At the Table with Jesus is a good example.
The middle stage — pencil — is where most of the work happens. Ink does not forgive much, so the shape has to be settled before a brush touches paper. The pencil is where lines are tried and erased, where proportions are tested, and where the idea is given room to fail before it earns its way to ink.
Twenty-two books. Twenty-two drawings. Each one points to the heart of the book it sits on. A hand mirror. A loaf of bread on a table. An open door with light. A steaming cup beside a book and a pen. A closed Bible with light spilling out. A dove descending. Two hands open in worship. The drawings sit alongside each other in the same line and the same hand, so the shelf reads as one body of work.
The finished ink drawings are scanned, then cleaned up so the white of the paper falls away and the black line is left on its own. From there, each drawing is laid down on a single muted colour, with the title above and the author's name below. The wind and the sail go on the spine. Generous whitespace around everything. The whole composition is meant to feel quiet. Made by a person, not a brand.
The same cover composition is laid out twice — once for the paperback wraparound and once for the case-laminate hardcover. KDP's printer sets a different bleed and a slightly different spine width for each, so the two are generated from the same source but trimmed to different dimensions. Below are the two finished covers for So I Ask Myself and At the Table with Jesus.
We do not make the wind. We raise the sail.