Chilling Embrace

We've enjoyed some Spring weather here and there. Here, today, we are in the chilling embrace of the Snow Queen once again. Brrr.

Mary Engelbreit has such lovely charm in her graphics.

 All images this post © copyright Mary Engelbreit

The Circus is Coming

Speaking of circuses and designs, these are lovely illustrations by Hilary Knight, graphically designed to a magazine format . . .

 Hilary Knight — The Circus is Coming — 1979

front & back covers for Cricket Magazine

©1979 Cricket Magazine

 Hilary Knight — contents page border

© 1979 Cricket Magazine

Hilary Knight — spot illustration 

© 1979 Cricket Magazine

The Early Bird

Another scene from the world of the Tennie Weenies. Really, it was an honest mistake of the early bird.

William Donahey — The Teenie Weenies — ca 1940s

Art and Storytelling

How many of you enjoyed the over 200 books of Tomie de Paola when you were a kid, or read them with your kids now? Tomie has a real gift for reaching the hearts of loving children everywhere with his art and storytelling.

I had firsthand experience of seeing just how much kids love his stories. You can read about that over at Snippets and Bibbets, by clicking here.

Haller-Buchanan — portrait of Tomie de Paola and his work, ca 1998

New Blog

51 weeks ago, in May of last year, I created a new blog that only now have I had time to jumpstart, called Snippets and Bibbets. The blog will showcase all manner of artwork that our studio has created for kids. While art for kids is only a portion of what our studio gets involved in, I'm somewhat amazed at how many kids projects we've created, and how many art files we've stockpiled.

Much of that work has been large-scale art, for installations of all sorts, which we will be showcasing in the months ahead.

Just this month though, a book that we illustrated has been published and is being distributed. We are going to start the blog out by sharing some of the process of the book's development (it took three years on our part, though only a fraction of that was spent on actual artwork). We will show much of our preliminary work leading up to finishes, and discuss candidly the trials and tribulations of our experiences.

You can jump over there by clicking here, and I hope you will consider 'following' us as we pull open some old art files.

Haller and Buchanan — CinderSilly — Published May, 2012

© Dramatic Adventures, Inc.

As the Story Goes

Once again, a little something for Pat Ann and Larry:

Wallace Tripp — St. Dunstan — um, 1970s?

Autumnal Winds

The Autumnal winds were really kicking up around here today. I saw a large flock of blackbirds tossed all across the sky. Mmm, really, my favorite time of year.

Eric Kincaid — Scarecrow Weather

Self Promotional

There are literally hundreds more kids' books I want to share, and given enough time I probably will, but I think it's time to change channels.

But before we do, I wanted you to see this intriguing self promotional piece by H.B. 'Buck' Lewis, a wonderful illustrator for children's books and other media, along with a lot of inspirational and character development art for animated movies.

Artwork and design © HB Lewis

Adventurous Voyages

These are a few illustrations from Sindbad's Secret, the third book of Ludmila Zeman's retold tales of the adventures of Sindbad the Sailor, continuing to weave details of the lure of travel.

Map of many lands

City of Baghdad

Port of a new land

Manlike Creature

Text and illustrations ©2003 by Ludmila Zeman

Tundra Books

Tapestry of Enchantment

The book Sinbad, lovingly retold and illustrated by Ludmila Zeman, is a tapestry of enchantment.

Above, "It was Shahrazad's knowledge and wit that softened King Shahriyar's cruelty and eventually defeated him."

Above, magical landscapes and dogs that have no respect for the displaced. On the other hand, what has he been eating, anyway?

Below, as I first skimmed through the book, this illustration forced me to stop and read the text to see why blood erupted from 'wooden fruit'. Ah, an illustration doing its job!

Text and artwork ©1999 Ludmila Zeman

Tundra Books

Alluring & Intriguing

Just when you thought you didn't want to go back in the water with The Little Mermaid, Charles Santore freshens up the old story by Hans Christian Andersen with alluring design and illustrations, making it an intriguing book for all ages.

Images & text © Charles Santore/JellyBean Press

Children of Soldiers

Moonpowder, with story and pictures by John Rocco, is a book 'dedicated to the children of soldiers everwhere'.

'I never have sweet dreams. Never.'

Desperately searching

Working on his helio-rocket-copter

Moonpowder — Text & pictures ©2008 John Rocco

Published by Hyperion Books for Children

People Whom We Cannot See

"I believe when I am in the mood that all nature is full of people whom we cannot see, and that some of these are ugly or grotesque, and some wicked or foolish, but very many beautiful beyond any one we have ever seen, and that these are not far away . . . . the simple of all times and the wise men of ancient times have seen them and even spoken to them."

—W.B. Yeats, The Celtic Twilight

Tony DiTerlizzi — Deep-Forest Sprites

Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You

Tony DiTerlizzi — Perrault's Ogre

Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You

Tony DiTerlizzi — Wood Elf

Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You

Images and text ©2005 Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black

Enduring and Endearing

The two most enduring and endearing genres of illustration, kid's book art and fantasy art, go together like pb & j. Some of the best of children's books utilize fantasy to the point that both kids and adults can enjoy the same books together. Among a plethora of such books, is The Voyage of the Basset, illustrated by James C. Christensen.

As she was growing up, my daughter and I read this book, one of her favorites, together a number of times—each of us taking turns reading with funny voices for the characters, and lingering over each illustration with loving attention, pointing out details to each other.

James C. Christensen — "Believing is Seeing"

Frontispiece from The Voyage of the Basset

©1996 by The Greenwich Workshop, Inc.

Here's what one of my favorite fellow bloggers, Annie, had to say:

There are so many fine artists illustrating children's books today, that I encourage all artists to explore the medium, by visiting a large library collection, where children’s picture books have been selected based on favorable reviews.

Some illustrators are writing the books; and others are in collaboration with their long time friends or spouses, or they have been selected and hired through author and publisher recommendations.

Styles range from watercolor and pastel, with the quality of professional portraits- far from static, expressing movement, scene, setting, characterization, and emotion- to pure graphic design, or an almost cartoon-like quality. These are the illustrated stories written for pre-school through about third or fourth grade. Graphic novels are another medium to explore.

There are so many artists, in a myriad of styles, these are just a handful, in no particular order: Jan Brett, James Ransome, David Diaz, Trina Schart Hyman, Janet Stevens, Allen Say, Jerry Pinkney, Rachel Isadora, Marilee Heyer, Steven Kellogg, Audrey Wood, Marianna Mayer, Chris Van Allsburg, David Weisner, Denise Fleming, Kinuko Y. Craft, and Robert D. San Souci. Michael Hague and Tony DiTerlizzi credit Arthur Rackham as a direct influence.

Over the next few posts I will be showing random individual illustrations from contemporary children's books (from the last 20 years or so) that might be inspirational.

Continuous Golden Age

I know I've been oversimplifying in the last few rants about the need for a new golden age of illustration. Oh, I still stand behind the notion that modern graphic design principles need to be reestablished. Yet I know that lots of great design, integrating great illustration, is ongoing. But in order for it to be a golden age, it needs to be ubiquitous, constantly encountered—not just rare finds. Though rare finds are obviously still a delight.

In a comment to the last post, Annie delivers a positive note (as she always does) that reminds me, as it should remind us all, that children's books have been in a continuous golden age since books were first published for children. For over a hundred years, children's literature has remained magical, entertaining, and ever delightful—resulting from illustrators and authors given nearly free rein to leap and cavort and shed inhibitions through an ever twisting and tumbling literary universe.

Demonstrating that is a random, serendipitous, example I pulled blindly from my digital archives of children's books—illustrations by Eric Kincaid:

Above and below: Eric Kincaid — A Children's Book of Verse

I need to drop the subject of a new golden age—for now—only because my deadlines are demanding my attention again. But I will be returning to my rants, and I won't just be yakking about it, I plan to do something about it. I have some plans for this year that I'm looking forward to telling you about soon enough.

Until then, for the time being, I'm back to posting random images here and there, with minimal text. That's more like it, sez you.