The middle-grade novel, “Twenty Gold Falcons”, by Amy Gordon, is a fun read with lots of unusual characters and plot twists. A spunky twelve-year old girl and her two friends search for lost gold coins, and my art director, Claire Counihan, said she wanted the cover to convey “the thrill of the search”. There were many visual themes running through the book–gold coins, old clocks, opera, sumptuous wealth, along with actual falcons. There is also a scene with a flashlight, and I felt that depicting the protagonist shining a flashlight would be the best way to show the idea of a search.
Below are the sketches in the order I did them. Since I love birds, I wanted to include the image of a falcon along with the character shining the light (first sketch), but the concensus was that the image was confusing, so I replaced the falcon with “hidden” gold coins (second sketch). This was an improvement, but Claire suggested I make the character crawling towards to add drama, which seemed to do the trick (final revised sketch) . I also could not resist adding some red velvet curtains to suggest both wealth and the opera. Special thanks to Grace, my fine young model.
CLIENT: HOLIDAY HOUSE
ART DIRECTOR: CLAIRE COUNIHAN
