I revisited the Rooster illustration and turned it into a cover piece. The composition has been tweaked and the trim size has been adjusted to work with the title placement and landscape gradations. I kept the orange stripes on the left because of the way it makes the tongue/interior of the mouth pop. Theoretically the stripes would wrap around and decorate the spine. The pattern in the green (on the first version) was fighting the rooster for attention so it was deleted. I rounded the corners of the eyes on the sun (to create warmth) and enlarged the smile so the sun was not overshadowed by the rooster. The wave of musical notes was pretty flat in the original so I wrapped it behind the title. This (thankfully) helps lead the eye smoothly from the rooster to the sun to the title and around again. I love strong composition. There are two other pieces that I plan on working on—yep, you will see a few screaming/singing cows and pigs soon. I will pretend that they are a spread inside this really silly book that I have yet to write. Labels: CHILDREN'S ILLUSTRATION