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Nightwatch(From the book "Solar Wind Vol.1")By :
Deborah Susan Jones :
Editor The
cover art for Andrew M Stephenson's first novel
(provisionally titled
"The Nightwatchmen" but changed by editorial policy, or,
at least,
that's what the artist was told at the publisher) was
painted and
completed on 15th November 1976 and the art director's
scribbled note
on the back of the art is the 9th of March 1977, which
was probably the
production date when it was sent to or retrieved from
the printers (and
which illustrates how fast-moving the market was then in
that
lead-times from art to bookshop were otherwise typically
a year) and is
one of the classic 
"spaceship hardware"
covers Peter created in that era.The
design of the painting was born out of a discussion with
the art
director Patrick Mortemore about creating a dramatic
perspective layout
and to facilitate that idea the main spaceship was given
a "wine
glass" shape by Peter and the smaller spaceships
appear to fly
out from underneath and behind this bigger ship, thus
creating a deep
perspective both into the distance and from left to
right across the
cover, a double perspective.The
idea in Stephenson's novel is that of a someone building
a set of
artificially intelligent space fortifications meant to
guard against
alien invasion of Earth although the contact with aliens
turns out to
be benign and friendly.As
was common at the time, Peter's working method was that
of oil and
acrylic on hardboard and as mentioned elsewhere on this
site previously
works had been on stretched paper mounted on mount
board, the typical
of his
"art school training" method of the mid-1970s at St.
Martin's School of Art, but this was proving problematic
since the
illustrations, when sent through the "art director to
editor to
photographer to printer" pipeline, and back again to the
art director's
office, was often a potentially damaging one and indeed,
one painting
was cracked across the top half which triggered a need
to change the
creative and presentation process.Stephenson was Venezuelan-born
(1946 and of UK parents) and The Nightwatch was not only
his first
novel, but one the artist recalls with great affection
and the era in
which he created both this piece and other cover art for
Furura remains
a very special memory with him."Heady days . . . . .
. . . . . . "Deborah Susan Jones
q
