Anthony L Williams
JUST THINKING
"Just Thinking" by Maureen Cottonham is a compilation of books that includes a book of short stories titled, "Bird's Eye View". The story behind my illustration for "Bird's Eye View" of Mrs Rabbit which appears on the book cover was done on her glass covered cocktail table. In the illustration Mrs Rabbit who is sitting a pie out on her kitchen window sill is being closely watched by a bluebird perched high upon a nearby tree branch.
There is an interesting little ‘story behind the story’ of how and where the illustration for the cover for my mom’s children’s book came about. She had asked me to draw something or anything that I thought should be on the book cover before I returned home to Chicago from my visit with her in Louisiana. She had already decided she wanted the rabbit to be the central image in the scene, however we had to decide what particular scene and which additional details to include. All while Mom and I were going through this process of drawing the scene across paper on the cocktail table, her grandchildren slowly settled down from playing and darting from room to room all day. They wondered why the adults were paying so much attention and fussing over a few lines being drawn on a piece of paper. What added to the grandchildren's increasing interest was my use of a light source shinning upward underneath the glass table as I traced across a portion of the drawing. They asked a lot of questions. In fact they asked me and their grandmother a lot of very good questions. However it didn’t take long before they began offering their own opinions on the better ways of completing the task… More than two decades later, they're still exhibiting that same intense interest and drive. Each one of her grandchildren have successfully called on their own creative energies to build their own careers in businesses that include computers and the arts.
