Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

This cover was completed in one frantic night of painting and editing in January of 2025. I read Flowers for Algernon shortly beforehand, and the story had a great effect on me. I was particularly affected Algernon's character, both as a tool in Keyes's masterful storytelling and as an individual skirting the lines between human and animal. His simple funeral scene was perhaps the most poignant, and what I chose to depict on the cover:
“I put Algernon's body into a small metal container and took him home with me. I wasn't going to let them dump him into the incinerator. It's foolish and sentimental, but late last night I buried him in the backyard. I wept as I put a bunch of wild flowers on the grave."
The cover illustration was completed in acrylics on a 8"x10" wood panel. The cover was arranged digitally in Adobe Illustrator, freaturing the fonts Owen Hand by Owen Ingarfield and Futura PT Light.