Evolution of an illustrator

I hope by the time I am 40 I can figure out my artistic niche? I hope that isn't too ambitious? I have quite awhile to go... but I feel rather lost as an illustrator. I have pretty high standards that my own work often seems to fall short of!

So my journey continues in a new direction, now that my thesis is done (from which I am still recovering) and I can work on anything I want, the hardest part is just pinning down a direction. In an effort to not spin my wheels I endeavor to start documenting my process (Hopefully this way I'll at least see where I've been).

So, Today's lesson: good research not only shows you where to start but also where to quit. My idea is to do a series of book covers that are at least reasonably well known- if not classics- to use as portfolio pieces. In researching Lolita covers I found that the ground has already been thoroughly covered- though often incorrectly.

According to 'Chasing Lolita' by Graham Vickers, Nobokov didn't even want an image of a girl on the novel, much less the overly sexualized versions that developed after the movies. I did find some great links/images along the way:

Here is an archive of Lolita covers, and a contest of designs which I found from a link on a new(to me) artist's blog.



Lastly, I remembered this video posted on Open Culture of Nobokov looking at various covers.

So, my quest for a subject/ novel to illustrate continues.