Considering Children's Book Illustrators

I’ve mentioned before that I have been sporadically completing the exercises in the Art Quilt Workbook by Jane Davila and Elin Waterston (C&T Publishing, 2007).  One on the things that I appreciate about this book is the short list in each chapter of “artists to study” whose works relate to the lesson in the chapter.  The artists are mostly well-known and easily researched names.  No matter what art medium you are exploring, you cannot get away from looking at the work of other artists and learning from them.  Art history constantly builds on what came before.  College art students often get assignments to copy a painting hanging in a museum to learn multiple techniques.  One word of caution, it is always prudent to respect copyright, artists at any level need to be familiar with copyright laws.  Check your local library for a selection of good resources on copyright, and you could always try to wade through the essential source for copyright, the U.S. Copyright Office  

There are other artists to consider aside from the usual suspects of art history.  At my day job, I spent some time recently shelf reading the children’s books.  I have re-discovered some personal childhood favorite illustrators and found some new ones that are worth study for applying to my own art adventures.  Of course, I cannot insert images of these illustrators’ work here, but I encourage you to investigate them further. 

First, consider the collage illustrations of Lois Ehlert (Lots of Spots, Boo to You, etc.) and Eric Carle (Pancakes, Pancakes, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, etc.).  Ehlert creates images from layers of paper shapes accented with cut-outs and tiny paper bits.  Carle creates his collage illustrations from shapes cut out of painted papers, then adds detail with more paint and crayon lines.  If you want to create representational images from fabric using applique, take a look at these two.  The two small quilts below are what I created for the chapter two and three exercises in The Art Quilt Workbook.  These were done before I rediscovered Ehlert and Carle, but they make my point nicely; I certainly could have had the two illustrators in mind when I made the quilts.  The carrots and squash were created by fusing fabric cut into the desired shapes, then detailed with hand or machine stitching, similar to Ehlert’s and Carle’s techniques with paper.

Images copyright RPS, please do not copy or repost

On a bit of an aside, I highly recommend giving the children in your life a copy of Carle’s Pancakes, Pancakes for the message it contains about what it takes to make something. 

I’ll have something different on Thursday, next week I will look at another illustrator, hopefully with a quilted example that applies what I see in the art.  I’ve got to get busy!