Wow. It’s Thursday already, huh? How’d your week go?
In celebration of his upcoming birthday (Monday), this week’s illustrator is Dr. Seuss. I have to assume that you have read some of his books or, at the very least, seen some of the movies made from his stories. So instead of reviewing a bunch of his books, I’m going to tell you a few fun facts about him, and then say a little about two books that will be used for the projects I’ll post tomorrow.
Dr. Seuss wasn’t always Dr. Seuss. He was born Theodor Seuss Geisel. In 1921 he went to Dartmouth College, where he wrote for the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern, the College’s humor magazine. He got into some trouble and, as punishment, the school told him that he could no longer work on the magazine. Well, Theodor didn’t like that option. He continued to write for the magazine under a new pen name—Seuss. The “Dr.” was added after he graduated.
In 1954, a study showed that children weren’t learning to read in school because they thought the books they were reading were boring. Dr. Seuss and his editor came up with a list of the most important words for kids to know how to read and Dr. Seuss wrote a rhyming story using only those words. He had written quite a few books that were well-liked and popular before this, but The Cat in the Hat was special. And kids liked it. It was a book they wanted to read again and again.
Interestingly, Dr. Seuss, though one of the most-beloved and well-known children’s book authors, never won a Caldecott Medal. Three of his books—McElligot’s Pool, Bartholomew and the Oobleck, and If I Ran the Zoo—were runners up, what we now call Caldecott Honor books.
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Since Monday is Dr. Seuss’ birthday, is there really a better book to read than his Happy Birthday to You!? This is the story of a place called Katroo where people can do as they wish on their birthdays. The Great Birthday Bird swoops into your home and takes you on a full-day birthday adventure. In Katroo, on your birthday, you can do anything you want. You can eat any food, make a mess, take home an exotic pet, and stay up all night at your birthday party where there are fireworks and a boat-sized birthday cake. Sounds like a great birthday to me!
The second project tomorrow will feature The Cat in the Hat. The story begins with two bored children on a rainy day. When the Cat in the Hat strolls into their home, he turns a boring day into a fun-filled adventure. But the cat’s antics create a huge mess that the children worry will never be cleaned up before their mom gets home.
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Thursday, February 26, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Create Your Own Graeme Base Creature
Yesterday you read about a few of Graeme Base’s picture books. Hopefully you’re read at least a few.
Graeme Base does a lot of research for each of his illustrations. He learns about the direction a zebras stripes run, the way a toucan’s beak is colored, the way a rhino’s legs bend. He takes that information and adds his own ideas to create illustrations that are full of fun and fantasy.
Today, create your own imaginary animal (without all the research!). This is simple project but you’ll need a big imagination to complete it.
(You should know that Graeme Base doesn’t use oil pastels to create his illustrations. He uses paint and sometimes colored pencils on top. He does use tracing paper to make different versions of his drawings before painting the final product, though.)
Supplies Needed:
Thin Paper (such as sketch paper)
Pencil
Oil Pastels
Q-Tips
It’s completely up to you what you want to draw. Maybe you want to combine a hippo with a canary. Maybe you want to draw a dog that can breathe underwater. Maybe you’ll create something completely new that no one has ever heard of before. It’s completely up to you.
Start by sketching your creature. When you’re completely happy with it, trace over the lines so they’re nice and dark. Lay another sheet of thin paper over your sketch and tape the two sheets together.
Now color your drawing using oil pastels. Because oil pastel smears pencil, your artwork will come out much cleaner if you don’t color straight onto the pencil drawing.
Remember that you can blend oil pastels together by rubbing over them with a Q-Tip. Experiment with the pastels by blending different colors together. Your imaginary animal can be any colors you want so you can’t make a mistake with color.
Continue to play with the pastels until you are happy with your creation. If you and several of your friends are all creating imaginary creatures, you might think about cutting out your animals and using a glue stick to attach them to one background page. Then you’ll have a forest full of creatures!
When you’ve finished, name your creature and write a story about it. This would be especially fun if you and a group of friends worked together on a story starring all of your creatures.
Return to main page.
Graeme Base does a lot of research for each of his illustrations. He learns about the direction a zebras stripes run, the way a toucan’s beak is colored, the way a rhino’s legs bend. He takes that information and adds his own ideas to create illustrations that are full of fun and fantasy.
Today, create your own imaginary animal (without all the research!). This is simple project but you’ll need a big imagination to complete it.
(You should know that Graeme Base doesn’t use oil pastels to create his illustrations. He uses paint and sometimes colored pencils on top. He does use tracing paper to make different versions of his drawings before painting the final product, though.)
Supplies Needed:
Thin Paper (such as sketch paper)
Pencil
Oil Pastels
Q-Tips
It’s completely up to you what you want to draw. Maybe you want to combine a hippo with a canary. Maybe you want to draw a dog that can breathe underwater. Maybe you’ll create something completely new that no one has ever heard of before. It’s completely up to you.Start by sketching your creature. When you’re completely happy with it, trace over the lines so they’re nice and dark. Lay another sheet of thin paper over your sketch and tape the two sheets together.
Now color your drawing using oil pastels. Because oil pastel smears pencil, your artwork will come out much cleaner if you don’t color straight onto the pencil drawing.Remember that you can blend oil pastels together by rubbing over them with a Q-Tip. Experiment with the pastels by blending different colors together. Your imaginary animal can be any colors you want so you can’t make a mistake with color.
Continue to play with the pastels until you are happy with your creation. If you and several of your friends are all creating imaginary creatures, you might think about cutting out your animals and using a glue stick to attach them to one background page. Then you’ll have a forest full of creatures!When you’ve finished, name your creature and write a story about it. This would be especially fun if you and a group of friends worked together on a story starring all of your creatures.
Return to main page.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Graeme Base
Graeme Base is one of those illustrators who covers every millimeter of page with color. Every time you read a book by Graeme Base you will discover something new in the illustrations. I have not, unfortunately, had the pleasure of reading every book Graeme Base has ever written, but I have read quite a few. Today, I’d like to share a few of my favorites.
Uno’s Garden tells the story of a man named Uno who moves into the forest and builds a small house. When he arrives, there are all kinds of amazing animals, created and named by Graeme Base. There are Moopaloops, and Lumpybums, Snagglebites and Flipperflaps, and one completely ordinary Snortlepig. But over time, people move into the forest and put up buildings. The plants and animals slowly disappear until there are none left. Eventually the people realize their mistake—they have thrown off the balance between humans and nature. Over generations, they put the forest back in order so the plants and animals can return.
Not only is this a wonderful story with fantastic illustrations, but it teaches about environmental issues as well as natural and manmade resources. Furthermore, in the upper right corner of each page is a tally. Each tally tells, in pictures and numbers, how many of each animal, plant, and building can found in the forest and on the page. The animals increase by one each page, the plants are always the number of animals squared (2 X 2, 3 X 3, etc.), and the buildings double. Would you like a little math with your story book? The tallies turn every page into a seek-and-find. Those are always fun.
The Water Hole also deals with natural resources. In the wilderness there is a large water hole that all the animals want to drink from. First, one rhino drinks from the water hole. He is soon joined by two tigers, then three toucans. Soon, there are hundreds of animals drinking from the water hole. But as the animals drink from the hole, it becomes smaller and smaller (and the dye cut circle in the center of Graeme Base’s genius illustrations becomes smaller and smaller, too).
I especially love the way Graeme Base shows the animals talking. He writes out the noises they make and then translates them in parentheses!
And finally, the very first Graeme Base book I ever read, The Worst Band in the Universe. This book will always hold a special place in my heart. It is much longer than the other two books I talked about today and it is recommended for kids aged 9-12.
On the planet Blipp, no one is allowed to create new music. They can only play ancient music. But Sprocc longs to create and perform new songs.
One day Sprocc plays a new song and the Musical Inquisitor becomes enraged. Sprocc knows that if he cannot create new music on Blipp then it is not the place for him. He leaves his home for a new planet, one where he can play his own music.
On this planet, called Squaag, he finds a contest that seeks the worst band in the universe. He is told that on Squaag it is better to be the worst band than the best, that here the meanings are reversed. As Sprocc soon discovers, though, it’s all a trap.
You’ll have to read the book yourself, though. I don’t want to ruin all the twists of this clever rhyming story. The wacky and aliens and their foreign instruments make the illustrations this book perfectly suited to older children.
There are many more great books by Graeme Base. Among his most beloved are Animalia and Eleventh Hour. Check out any of his books and you will certainly be delighted.
Return to main page.
Uno’s Garden tells the story of a man named Uno who moves into the forest and builds a small house. When he arrives, there are all kinds of amazing animals, created and named by Graeme Base. There are Moopaloops, and Lumpybums, Snagglebites and Flipperflaps, and one completely ordinary Snortlepig. But over time, people move into the forest and put up buildings. The plants and animals slowly disappear until there are none left. Eventually the people realize their mistake—they have thrown off the balance between humans and nature. Over generations, they put the forest back in order so the plants and animals can return.
Not only is this a wonderful story with fantastic illustrations, but it teaches about environmental issues as well as natural and manmade resources. Furthermore, in the upper right corner of each page is a tally. Each tally tells, in pictures and numbers, how many of each animal, plant, and building can found in the forest and on the page. The animals increase by one each page, the plants are always the number of animals squared (2 X 2, 3 X 3, etc.), and the buildings double. Would you like a little math with your story book? The tallies turn every page into a seek-and-find. Those are always fun.
The Water Hole also deals with natural resources. In the wilderness there is a large water hole that all the animals want to drink from. First, one rhino drinks from the water hole. He is soon joined by two tigers, then three toucans. Soon, there are hundreds of animals drinking from the water hole. But as the animals drink from the hole, it becomes smaller and smaller (and the dye cut circle in the center of Graeme Base’s genius illustrations becomes smaller and smaller, too).
I especially love the way Graeme Base shows the animals talking. He writes out the noises they make and then translates them in parentheses!
And finally, the very first Graeme Base book I ever read, The Worst Band in the Universe. This book will always hold a special place in my heart. It is much longer than the other two books I talked about today and it is recommended for kids aged 9-12.
On the planet Blipp, no one is allowed to create new music. They can only play ancient music. But Sprocc longs to create and perform new songs.
One day Sprocc plays a new song and the Musical Inquisitor becomes enraged. Sprocc knows that if he cannot create new music on Blipp then it is not the place for him. He leaves his home for a new planet, one where he can play his own music.
On this planet, called Squaag, he finds a contest that seeks the worst band in the universe. He is told that on Squaag it is better to be the worst band than the best, that here the meanings are reversed. As Sprocc soon discovers, though, it’s all a trap.
You’ll have to read the book yourself, though. I don’t want to ruin all the twists of this clever rhyming story. The wacky and aliens and their foreign instruments make the illustrations this book perfectly suited to older children.
There are many more great books by Graeme Base. Among his most beloved are Animalia and Eleventh Hour. Check out any of his books and you will certainly be delighted.
Return to main page.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Great Children's Book Illustrators
There are many great children's book illustrators. Sometimes the artwork in picture books blows me away. So it's about time I started posting about some of this great art.
You've already read about Eric Carle and maybe created your own painted tissue paper Valentines. Awhile back, I reviewed a book called The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss, which you may remember. But that's it. Three posts out of 350 were about children's book illustrators...
So in the coming weeks, beginning tomorrow, I will post Fantastic Fiction Friday on Thursday. On Friday, you'll find a project related to that week's illustrator.
I'm so excited about this.
If you've been looking for projects that relate to a specific book or illustrator, leave me a comment. No guarantees, but I'll do my best to post a project for you.
Up first: Graeme Base.
Return to main page.
You've already read about Eric Carle and maybe created your own painted tissue paper Valentines. Awhile back, I reviewed a book called The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss, which you may remember. But that's it. Three posts out of 350 were about children's book illustrators...
So in the coming weeks, beginning tomorrow, I will post Fantastic Fiction Friday on Thursday. On Friday, you'll find a project related to that week's illustrator.
I'm so excited about this.
If you've been looking for projects that relate to a specific book or illustrator, leave me a comment. No guarantees, but I'll do my best to post a project for you.
Up first: Graeme Base.
Return to main page.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Paint Your Own Aboriginal Boomerang
You learned yesterday that Aboriginal artists in the desert often paint on objects like rocks, water carriers, and boomerangs. Today, paint your own Aboriginal boomerang.
Supplies Needed:
Construction Paper
Pencil
Scissors
Boomerang Tracer (optional)
Paint
Paintbrush
Q-Tips
Cover your workspace.
Choose a piece of construction paper. Any color will work, but I recommend using brown, yellow, orange, or black. I chose to use orange.
If you have a boomerang tracer, trace it onto your construction paper. If not, draw your own boomerang. Look at my example at the bottom of the page to help you with the shape.
Use your paintbrush to paint some shapes onto your boomerang. I drew two watering holes (circles) and some animal tracks (squiggly lines).
Using a different Q-Tip for each color, outline your shapes with dots. When you do this, you are making concentric shapes, just like the Aboriginal desert artists.
Cover your entire boomerang with paint. Let it dry, then hang it and enjoy!
Return to main page.
Supplies Needed:
Construction Paper
Pencil
Scissors
Boomerang Tracer (optional)
Paint
Paintbrush
Q-Tips
Cover your workspace.Choose a piece of construction paper. Any color will work, but I recommend using brown, yellow, orange, or black. I chose to use orange.
If you have a boomerang tracer, trace it onto your construction paper. If not, draw your own boomerang. Look at my example at the bottom of the page to help you with the shape.
Use your paintbrush to paint some shapes onto your boomerang. I drew two watering holes (circles) and some animal tracks (squiggly lines).
Using a different Q-Tip for each color, outline your shapes with dots. When you do this, you are making concentric shapes, just like the Aboriginal desert artists.
Cover your entire boomerang with paint. Let it dry, then hang it and enjoy!Return to main page.
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