Book Cover Thumbnails

These are my quick ideas for the book cover project. I chose to do To Kill a Mockingbird. Several of my ideas have to do with the contrasting views and the prejudices that come up in the book, primarily those issues between the black and white communities. That's why I chose to do the ying-yang ideas with the man's silhouette and the bird shadow because several of the characters throughout the book are supposed to represent innocent mockingbirds.
Two of the other sketches illustrate the gifts that Boo Radely leaves behind in the knot hole in the tree for the kids. And the last one is sort of silly...a mockingbird being squashed by a judge's gavel. This is supposed to be symbolic, not literal of course. In the book when the court rules Tom Robinson guilty, it was like the judge taking his gavel and killing the mockingbird...does that make sense...?
Anyways I think I'm going to work on the one with the tree and the knot hole with the ball of twine draping down into the shape of a bird. I need to wiggle the compostion around a little to create a better focal point and really think about where the title will go. I might add a few more the the little "gifts' that Boo leaves behind to the knot hole. I also want the bird shape to look looser, maybe by adding small nails to the tree and make it look like the strig is draped over the nails in the shape of the bird.
After I figure all that out, I'll move onto color. Right now I'm picturing sort of a whimsical color scheme I guess you would say. I think I want the background to be pretty dark like a dark navy and then the tree to be brown obviously, and then have the twine be a purpleish white and I also want there to be some gree so I migh add some leaves some how...