Kyle Ferrin
Cowardly Clyde by Bill Peet
This
is the cover image for the book “Cowardly Clyde”. It’s a children’s
book designed to be read aloud. It was written by Bill Peet, one of his
many self illustrated Children’s books. This particular illustration,
like much of Peet’s work, is done in ink and colored pencil. The message
of the image, because it is a cover, is an invitation to read the book,
with a special emphasis on the alliterative title and the question of
who “Cowardly Clyde” refers to. The expression on the face of the horse
is rendered in such a way that the conclusion can be made with a quick
look at the detail. The line-work is often angular, messy, or has an
unfinished look where you can see individual strokes of the pencil. This
influences the message of a scared horse in a scary forest by making
the background space feel cluttered and chaotic. Peet’s loose technique
serves to let parents and children know that the book can be expected to
be fun, and that even though it’s a book about being scared, the
comical expression on the horse and the exaggerated proportions of the
knight can hint at the fact that the story has a happy ending or a
moral, and that it is a children’s book. Speaking from personal
experience, books like “Cowardly Clyde” taught a younger me that a loose
technique can be better than perfection. Bill Peet’s emphasis seems to
be the importance of expression, and his style meets his needs in that
the exaggerated faces and body language of his characters give an
immediate first impression of the mood of each page. This meets Peet’s
needs of emotional story telling in a relatively short story. Very few
initial lines can be used to capture the mood of the narrative. This is
important for his audience because parents can glance at the pictures
and know what tone of voice to read the text, and children who can’t
read yet or who are focusing on the pictures can get a sense of how the
image works with the story.
