Amanda Quaid writes about the complexities of healing and self-discovery after being told she has cancer. No Obvious Distress explores trauma, mental health and finding the silver lining in life’s hardest challenges.  

As a John Murray’s competition to design the cover for the poems, I illustrated the moment she got the life changing news. A dark over growing tree resembling the cancer over growing in contrast with the blossoming flowers to provide the idea of hope. 

I designed the cover by using a reference image of a trees in my local park then to be followed by a sketch planning out the overgrowing branches and finally colouring the image by scanning coloured paper for added texture then digitally blocking in the flowers and the branches digitally.