Cover Reveal for “The Colors Danced”

A few months ago, I polled my Facebook audience for their feedback about cover art as I moved toward completion of my first picture book, “The Colors Danced.” I received a surprising amount of commentary–thank you!–and tried lots of tweaks and changes based on the advice.

And then I went back to the drawing board. Which, for this paper-cutting artist, is really the “x-acto board.”

You see, I had been pursuing the full-color spread from the final page of the story as the cover art, because it is the most typical of a children’s book cover. But I just didn’t feel it represented the book well, artistically or thematically. Nothing in that final image showed the clay landscapes in subdued colors that form the backdrop for most of the story. Nothing in that final image hinted at dancing colors. And very importantly, nothing in that final image proclaimed the center-stage role of God’s hands at work shaping his creation. (Plus, I heard over and over again that it was just difficult to read the title, and none of our tweaking was fixing that.)

So I made a brand-new illustration just for the front cover. For me, this new cover solves all of the problems I had found with the cover image above. It brings the story together in a “He’s got the whole world in his hands” kind of way–and that hand? It is maybe the first hand I ever cut and assembled for the story, and I never ended up using it as an illustration. I couldn’t bear to throw it away, of course, and now I know why! Here is our brand-new front cover. And though it doesn’t look like it, the feedback you may have shared with me in a Facebook post last winter really is part of this remake. I appreciate everything you shared with me. We have a proof copy of the book headed toward our mailbox, and I am SO EXCITED for the day we can officially publish and share this gem with you!