UPDATE: I just received word that my 2012 cover was voted the winner of The Horn Book Magazine’s Cover Madness contest in the January/February category! As part of this year’s centennial celebration of the magazine’s founding, this “very-subjective, not-serious event” will continue with more contests to pick covers from previous issues published in March/Aril, May/June, etc. By the end of Cover Madness, 6 different covers will “emerge as winners”.

What a wonderful surprise this is! Even though the children’s book community has always been very supportive, I sometimes feel like an imposter because of my singular vision and nontraditional illustration medium. So, I’m especially honored to have my work recognized this way. Of all the groups my work is lumped into, from embroidery to doll making, the storytelling genre of children’s books is where I feel most at home. I hope that you enjoy this account from 2012 about how I made the cover!

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This is an edited and republished version of a post that was first written in 2012.

In this post, I share the process of making The Horn Book cover illustration, which I worked on for about 6 weeks this past summer. The original size of the scene is about 12″ wide and 18″ high. The original piece was purchased by an art collector who is connected to the children’s book world.

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THE TREE
I first found a twisted vine to use as the central tree and made a sketch with the Horn Book logo and child characters. I then drilled holes on the vine where wire branches would go.  

To form the branches, I covered wire with felt and embroidered them to match the real vine/tree trunk. This coiled branch has thread-wrapped wire thorns attached.

The Horn Book logo was rendered in wire branches and found objects. For one of the O’s, I sawed the back of a walnut-shell, so that it would lay flat and not stick out too much.  The O in the word Horn is a nest-like acorn cap from an oak tree in Iowa and the B’s spiky acorn caps are from northern California.

THE FELT BACKGROUND
I thought that a solid color background would looked too plain, so I stitched together scraps of naturally dyed wool felt to make a more interesting field for the action.

I made a little fairy to fit in the walnut-shell.

THE CHILDREN
I didn’t want the characters to be animals, but children dressed in animal costumes. So, I made every effort to make them look like children by giving them bangs, ponytails, hands and shoes. These figures are made with similar techniques found in my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk.

During the process, I changed some of the characters in the original sketch and substituted a boy in a dinosaur costume pulling an acorn cap wheeled wagon full of books.

I printed out the words on acetate, so that I’d be sure to leave enough room at the bottom edge. I then embroidered plants and leaves to the felt background.

This little child/mouse is getting red shoes.

The Horn Book staff suggested I include a reading child, so I made a felt book for the face-painted mouse.

All of the parts piled up as I worked. It’s a miracle nothing got lost!

It was really fun thinking up costumes to make for these kids. I wanted to create a scene of children immersed in imaginary play and story.

I added a sun to the upper left corner and embroidered a wavy chain-stitched border. Then, I sewed the felt background to a sheet of foam core board, pulling it flat and straight.

Then, I stitched the tree, characters and other props in place, right through the foam core board. After everything was in place, I took it to the photographer, so he could take its picture. After that, I removed it from the foam core board and remounted the felt background and all of the parts on a cloth-covered stretcher. It is now framed behind glass and was recently bought by a collector. It was a joy to work on this project with Lolly Robinson at the Horn Book Magazine! Having my illustration on the cover will be a great opportunity for many people to discover my work for the first time.

Here I am with Roger Sutton, editor in chief of The Horn Book.

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