Artists For Hire

From the very beginning of the BryonySeries, the art has been a very important part of the story concept.

To execute it, I always use local and/or independent artists.

Like local and indie authors, visual and musical artists struggle to to share their talents with the wider world.

All of these artists (except one) are taking commissions. 

So feel free to check out their work and the style of their works. And reach out to them if you'd like to collaborate.

Rebekah Baran

My youngest daughter designs custom websites, formats books for print and Kindle, and can design covers.

She's currently working on a separate website for me, a cover for my first non-fiction book, and recently designed the cover for Lycanthropic Summer.

Message her at dmbaranunland@gmail.com.

Matt Coundiff

This former Will County Illinois resident did the cover art and interior illustrations for Visage.

He also created the interior art for Memories in the Kitchen: Bites and Nibbles from "Bryony."

Matt is also a tattoo artist.

Message him at mattcoundiff on Instagram.

Terri Ellinger

This Will County resident sketched illustrations of Bryony and Anna for several of the Bertrand the Mouse books.

To see more of her work and to message her, visit sites.google.com/view/terriellingerfineart.

Topher Gleason

This Will County, Illinois resident created the cover art for Snowbell, the cover art and interior illustrations for Staked! and the frontispieces for all five installments of Before The Blood: John Simons, Kellen Wechsler, Bryony Marseilles, Henry Matthews, and Bryony Simons.

To see more of his work, visit imagekind.com/artists/Artworkbytopher/all/fine-art-prints.

To message him, email Topher@ArtWorkbyTopher.com.

Sue Midlock 

This Will County, Illinois resident is a local author. She also does photography and works in several mediums.

Sue has created all of the cover and interior artwork for The Adventures of Cornell Dyer series.

To see more of her work and to message her, visit suemydliak.wordpress.com.

James Onohan

An Indiana police officer, James writes romantic piano music and plays live music (covers and original) at events.

James also created all the music for the BryonySeries CD: "The Best-Loved Compositions of John Simons," which includes the Bryony theme song referenced through many of the books.

To hear more of his music, to buy individual songs or entire CDs, and to message him, jamesonohan.com.

Jennifer Wainwright

A former Illinois resident, Jennifer created the frontispiece for Lycanthropic Summer and the illustration of Main Street for the BryonySeries website.

Message her at jenniboom94@gmail.com.

Meet BryonySeries Artist Jennifer Wainwright

A new artist has joined the BryonySeries creative team.

Her name is Jennifer Wainwright, and she is formerly from Southern Illinois.

She is Jasmine's sister, and Jasmine recommended her to us for the creation of our "Welcome to Munsonville" illustration of "Main Street" that greets visitors to the BryonySeries website.

I fell in love with Jennifer's work from the first samples I saw, but I really became impressed when I saw her rendition of Main Street.

So I asked Jennifer to create an illustration for the upcoming BryonySeries novel, Lycanthropic Summer.

Jennifer is available for work (as are all but one of the other BryonySeries artists), in case you need a project done.

Message her at jenniboom94@gmail.com or through me at bryonyseries@gmail.com.

Here then are ten questions to help you get to know Jennifer and her artistic style.

1) When did you start drawing?

I've always drawn. My mother is pretty talented in anything artsy or musical and she passed that on to me. I even have an old composition book with my scribbles in it that I have gone back and redrawn for fun.

2) Did you ever take lessons or are you self-taught?

Starting out I was self taught but really came into my own in junior high art class when I learned proper shading and my teacher really challenged us to think outside the box.

3)  What are your favorite mediums?

I'm really a jack-of-all-trades when I comes to art dabbling: everything from photography to paints to charcoals to pottery, but if I had to pick a favorite media to work with it would probably be a tie between ink of any kind and pastels followed closely by clay.

4) Why do you like them?

I've always loved the contrast of black and white and the depth you can get with shading (I used to love making optical illusions) and pastels are a fairly new adventure for me that I'm enjoying getting the hang of. 

And as for the clay I LOVE the Greek/Roman statues carved from marble and had always thought to sculpt would be fun. In high school I took a pottery class where my teacher loved my ideas and really supported me trying new things and I've been hooked ever since.

5) What types of subject matter do you like to draw?

I love drawing art that invokes feeling, usually by being creepy or dark in meaning. I like drawing landscapes and animals secondly although water and some fur tends to give me a bit of trouble so it takes me longer to finish.

Editor's note: I have her finished illustration and you would never know fur gives her "a bit of trouble."

6) Is there a technique you’d like to learn that you haven’t tried yet?

I've tried quite the variety of techniques through different school projects or commissions for friends but pointillism is one I've been meaning to get to and I have only barely scratched the surface of different paints and I would very much like to get more into those.

Editor's note: pointillism is a nineteenth century technique where tiny dots of paint are used to form images.

7) Tell us about your favorite piece of artwork that you created.

Sadly I can't really give a straight answer as far as my favorite piece of art because I don't really have just one. In fact I seem to have a favorite piece for every different media I use; from a horse fashioned out of clay that stands on only three feet that won me an award to multiple tattoos I have designed for myself and friends.

8) What artist do you admire?

Just about any of the Renaissance artists I have admired and on occasion tried to draw inspiration from.

9) And why?

They were revered as masters of their crafts and made a living making the art they loved which is hard to do then and now.

10) What’s the most fulfilling part about creating art?

I would say I live to create art for others. I love to turn their vision into a tangible piece. I've always been a people pleaser and in fact I enjoy making art for others so much I often have multiple projects of my own in the works that I drop immediately at the chance to make something for someone else whether it be a drawing, a tattoo design, an embroidered hat, or a crocheted afghan.

The Artwork in my Room

Ever since we moved again last October, I've had room to hang some of my artwork.

And during the last few weeks, Timothy has been gradually hanging it for me. Here's what's up so far.

Directly above my desk are all five frontispieces Christopher Gleason created for Before the Blood and the view of Main Street as one enters Munsonville, which was created by Jasmine's sister,w hom I only know as Jenni.

Lake Munson is a fictitious lake in Munsonville in the BryonySeries. it's show to the right of Main Street in the center photo.

This is my miscellaneous BryonySeries all to my left. At the top left is a promo print my mother framed for events after we released the first book in The Adventures of Cornell Dyer series.

Going clockwise, Sue Midlock, the artist for the Cornell Dyer series, gave me this found piece of art because she thought it looked very "Bryony."

Beneath that, is a concept piece for Visage that Christopher Gleason created as a gift. We actually used it as a cover for a special holiday edition of Visage when Matt Coundiff had back surgery and couldn't finish the artwork in time.

Finally, the last piece Cindy created "with" Bertrand the Mouse in honor of last year's birthday. Below this photo is a close-up of the note Cindy helped Bertrand to write.

This is a copy of "Lake Munson," which hangs directly over my large closet, which I can see to my left when lying in bed reading.

This painting and the one below this one were Christmas gifts from Timothy

This last copy of "Lake Munson" is very heavy and won't stay hung because it's heavy and because this wall actually has brick behind it. So for now, it's just sitting on my grandmother's old dresser.

The painting to the right is from my "paint afternoon" with Rebekah. The candle stand on the blue jar is from Lucas.

The photo bomb at the far left is Larry the Llama from the Adventures of Cornell Dyer series. Because that's, well, Larry, and he wants you to know it. Rebekah actually brought him home for me earlier this year.

Unwinding Some Fun

A couple weeks ago, BryonySeries artist Sue Midlock pitched an intriguing idea.

She sent me some pictures of giant wooden spools where artists had wound long paper around it (like a giant scroll), and then wrote on the scroll and decorated it.

Sue was planning to make one of these giant scrolls as a companion piece of art to one of her books and asked if I'd like to make one with a BryonySeries theme. Naturally, I agreed, even though I don't have a clue how this works.

I'm also not very creative. So this should be interesting.

Fortunately, Sue also invited Rebekah to join is. So now I can play artist understudy to Rebekah and Sue simply follow their directions. We are planning to make the scrolls this weekend.

This is the spool Sue's husband, a woodworker, made for her. His making one for me, too, she said.

Next week, I'll update with the completed projects. I'm sure with Sue's guidance and Rebekah's talent, mine will turn out all right.