Mask of the Hare: Creating a Book Cover
Creating a book cover the hands on way
There are some genuinely stunning book covers out there at the moment - there really are.
In my humble opinion, the best ones are made by a human being, by utilising a human’s creative gift, that which leaves part of that human being’s soul intrinsically blended into the image.
A book cover is so much more that just the outward facing part of a book. To me, the cover is part of the story itself.
I consider myself a multi-creative (sorry, I know that makes me sound like a total knob, but I’m going with it). I like to write, draw, paint, print, anything that I feel will allow me to exercise a new creative part of myself, whenever I have the time. Sometimes, the result is half-decent. Sometimes, it’s crap, but it really doesn’t matter. The point is in the doing. Every time you sit down to create something, whatever you end up with will have a part of you within it, no matter what your aesthetic opinion of the result ultimately is.
In a few days, my new folk horror novella Mask of the Hare will be released which includes my handmade lino-print image on the cover.
Like everything I create, I put a lot of myself into writing the story, and I did exactly the same with the cover. I wanted whatever I put out into the world to be an expression of me as a human being, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.
The Starting Point:
There were a couple of covers that really inspired me for this:
The first is the cover for A Song for Quiet by Cassandra Khaw which has a cover image by Jeffrey Alan Love.
The second inspiration is from Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley with this stunning cover image by Celia Hart.
Both of these covers use wonderfully evocative, simple images using a mix of painting (Love’s) and printing (Hart’s) techniques. I really enjoyed the simple colour contrasts of the images which pairs so well with the stories within these books. Andrew Michael Hurley has always been a particularly big influence for me and my writing, with the way he so expertly weaves an undercurrent of menace throughout his work, so this colour contrast on the cover does so much good work to emphasize what the reader will find in the book.
So, I set out trying to create my own version for Mask of the Hare, with a simple, concept sketch using some black paper and piece of white chalk (both of which I borrowed from my youngest son’s room - thanks Dax!) along with one of my white colouring pencils.
Lino printing is something I’ve wanted to try for a long time, and I spent some time online learning how the masters go about it. Initially, when I started experimenting, I thought it might get a little expensive in terms of the tools and materials I’d need, but I managed to pick up a starter set from Hobbycraft which gave me plenty to make my first attempts.
I learned that for lino printing, you need to change your mindset a little in order to visualise the composition as when you cut the block, you need a clear vision of what you want for positive and negative space within the final print. It took some time to work this out, and to get the image drawn on the lino block in the way I wanted it. Then, even longer get the right technique using the cutting tools, to remove the areas of lino you don’t want the ink to touch (spoiler: move your other hand away as it bloody hurts if you slip otherwise).
After a few failed attempts I came away with a block I was happy with and started to create some of my first prints.
As with all printing techniques, every print you make is subtly different due to the amount of ink you use, the pressure of the press etc. but that also creates a wonderfully repeatable, but also unique set of prints.
Once I had the print I was happy with, I then moved on to the digital part. I’ve experimented with digital art a number of times, using Procreate on my iPad and Photoshop on my laptop, and there are a number of other good digital tools you can use depending on your skill level, patience and budget, but the tool I mostly use now is Clip Studio Paint, along with my xpen graphics tablet. I started using Clip Studio recently for its amazing comic creation tools (more of that in a later post) but to make a book cover like this, you don’t need many features apart from the ability to make small amendments, resize and add text, so there wasn’t a lot of digital work to do here. I added my name and the book title, and that was pretty much it!
This cover was such a wonderfully joyous process to create and I can definitely see myself doing more printing in the future, as well as trying more of Jeffrey Alan Love’s block and painting style (if you haven’t seen his comic covers, please go check them out, they’re wonderful).
I’ve also worked on some extra special artwork to go with the special edition hardback coming in late October, so look out for a future post which will reveal all!
I hope I’ve managed to capture something of myself in this work but I’d love to hear what you think!
Alex
Mask of the Hare: A Folk-Horror Novella is released on October 1st 2026 available from all the usual platforms. Signed copies can be found at www.darkfellwrites.com
Look out for a special edition hardback, coming end of October 2026 only at www.darkfellwrites.com
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