Blown Covers

The deadline for this contest is Thursday, August 23rd at 12pm New York City time. The winners will be posted on this site over the course of the following three weeks. 

Those final long days of summer are here. Time to look ahead to the changing seasons. It’s hard to leave vacation behind, but fall is a beautiful season all its own: the leaves turn red and orange, the stores fill their windows with cardigans and tall leather boots, the air is full of the smell of apple pie and cinnamon and hot cider. Seasonal covers have the luxury of being either quiet poetic meditations or sharp commentary. Play to your strengths, pull out your autumnal color palettes and start sketching. We can’t wait to dive into the pile. 

Here are some published covers for inspiration:

- By Benoit Van Inness

- By Eric Drooker

- By Edward Sorel 

This cover referred to the many catalogs that flooded mailboxes in the fall, in advance of the holiday gift buying season. 

- By Harry Bliss

- By Michael Roberts

To enter each month’s contest, please send sketches on this week’s theme. Use the submissions page and please include your name and email address. I prefer sketches to finished work and good ideas to good drawings. Please use the Blown Covers logo or send the image without a logo. Please send files in as jpegs under 1mb. The deadline is Thursday, August 23rd at noon (NYC time). The themes on the Blown Covers website closely mirror what I suggest to the New Yorker artists I already work with. This blog and contest are informal and not affiliated with the magazine but I’m always on the lookout for ideas. Please keep submissions confidential in case they are selected for later publication.  Winners will be posted over the course of the month, beginning one week after deadline.