Covers.
Posted on November 17, 2011
Hoping to have found a key or two that has allowed me at last to move forward with the artwork for East of the Sun and West of the Moon. With a picture book, for me, the cover comes late in the production of artwork ( usually, not always. I have already done the front cover art for The Panda’s Child.) I now have three or four ideas, based on conversations with my publisher.
With this book the words came first. The size of the book is small. It is a book for adults, young and older adults, shamelessly romantic, a fairy tale with a difference. It isn’t a picture book and yet there are images in it. I have been working in picture books for long enough for the children who read my first books to have grown up now. This book is for them.
What a wonderful gift. I genuinely believe that you never grow out of picture books. Dickens and Conan Doyle had illustrations for their novels! I am really looking forward to seeing and owning the finished book.
Of course, what a wonderful cover idea… is this painting to be the chosen cover? Personally I think this one has more feeling, more soul and intimacy than the riding through the city ideas although they do have a great sense of adventure and excitement…
I think the picture books you read as a young child always stay with you, I know mine certainly did, I still have some of them that I now read to my children. It will be lovely for older children to continue to grow with your images in a book like this 🙂