Posts Tagged ‘animals’

Renata Liwska | Philomel 2010

It’s no secret that Renata Liwska is one of my favorite illustrators at the moment. With a follow-up book to The Quiet Book, Renata has come back with another tale with a cast of anthropomorphic characters on a magical journey in Lucy’s red wagon. Red Wagon is page after page of spry little beings—each standing upright on their hind legs dressed for that moment’s particular predicament. While we are accustomed to animals as humans, Renata’s are in a league of their own. It’s how she captures them mid-step or mid-air in their group effort to move their wagon along. However, the real life is in their eyes and precious expressions—fret, surprise, delight, confidence, and general mischief are all present in her delicate graphic marks.

Renata kindly shared a few of her Moleskine sketches and a brief note about her casting process.

“As you can see, bunny became a raccoon. Bear didn’t make the cast, raccoon got the part instead. And some scenes were shot on green screen.”

No doubt her auditions are rigorous and getting tougher.

Michael Roberts | Hyperion Book | 1998

As a fan of cut paper it should be no surprise that I love revisiting The Jungle ABC by Vanity Fair’s style director Michael Roberts. There are lots of alphabet animal books but this is in the top three. At 10 x 13 inches and 64 pages, it’s a treasure not only to find each expression of the letter but also to explore the textural nuances of each page’s scene. Each illustration is a master’s course in composition, scale, light and shadow, and color. Robert’s style takes very simple ideas like the elephant for ‘E” and renders only the trunk eating delicate foliage leaving us to only imagine the remaining beast off the page. Or the textured giraffe’s torso with the strutting native running up it’s back. The life created by his hand-cut images is an inspiration to any illustrating storyteller. This is a magical cut, torn, and pasted tour of the rich tapestry and dance of the African jungle.

Clement Hurd | Chronicle Books 2005

Initially published 1941

Once again, I am reminded how simple and playful children’s books should be. The Merry Chase was written and illustrated by Clement Hurd in 1941, best known as the illustrator of classics like Goodnight Moon and Runaway Bunny. With the thread of a dog pursuing a cat, we are taken on a high-speed chase that wrecks more property and probably injures more people than the running of the bulls. Vibrant full-page illustrations show runaway baby carriages, spilled pots, table cloths catching fire, head-on car crashes, spilled paint and toppled wedding cakes—all havoc wreaked by the hound and feline. But the best part is the people—not one of them has their feet on the ground! They are all caught midstream before breaking a tailbone, getting scalded, hitting a head, drowning or getting knocked out by a toppling statue. Each page reveals a catastrophe unfolding and about to get worse. It’s stop-motion animation in book form. The illustrations are painted in a Matisse-like palette with simple flat colors and minimal tonal shading—an amazing feat to create such energy with such a primitive style of rendering. If proposed today, I doubt the lawyers would let it see print. I’m thrilled to see it reissued—disaster never looked so fun!

My next book, Bee & Bird, is about to hit the shelves in May. I’ll tell you already—it’s got no words. No, it’s not half-baked, it just ended up that way. I know what you’re thinking, it must have been easy—no editor! The truth is I worked with my editor, Neal Porter, tirelessly to make this book work without words. After publishing Hank Finds Inspiration with Neal and Roaring Brook Press, we have a good working rapport that usually takes place over the phone, over coffee, or preferably over cocktails. Neal points and I sketch. He initiated this book with “how about something really bold and graphic, really different.” Following remarks were like “no, no, not that, any other ideas?”

I’ve always been fascinated with image cropping from my years as a designer. How little information does it take to tell a story? A tightly cropped image can often extend well past the edges of the page. The book can become virtually huge. So I showed Neal some initial sketches along those lines—each page revealing more information and a fresh point of view.

My initial sketches had words and we both felt an urge to eliminate written narrative. Over the next month we batted the storyline around until we felt it stood on its own. The rest of the year was spent making the final drawings which is always the best part.

The exciting opportunity I saw was to produce very graphic and geometric illustrations—reminiscent of 80’s Swiss graphics that I was schooled on. I got out my T-square and circle templates—sorry Adobe.

Without giving away the story—you already know the main characters in Bee & Bird. In short, it’s a story about companionship, separation, and reunion without words. Believe me, we really thought hard about the merits—or not—of a wordless book. We kept coming back to thing that kids and parents love, that is, to contribute your own version of the story. A book to teach reading this is not. A book to teach storytelling it is. Look for it this May or pre-order it now. Don’t worry, I’ll remind you.

Lois Ehlert | Beach Lane Books 2010

I just published Lots of Dots this fall, so you can imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon a book called Lots of Spots a few months ago! Before I could get the least bit bothered I saw who did it and immediately tore into the pages. Like mine, it’s a seek and find book about all the places spots appear—in this case—specifically on animals. My immediate reaction was the realization that there was room in the bookstore for both our books and I’d be proud to be near this one.

Lois Ehlert has been cutting out and collaging her illustrated kid’s for around 20 years that I can tell. She has been pretty focused on animals as subjects so it’s no surprise that she is very good at representing all things wild. Lots of Spots features no less than 62 creatures of the wild—all with some degree of spots to their appearance. A few actually have stripes but that’s okay given the sheer volume of spotted beasts she has included. I am very familiar with Lois’ work but this book has some of her looser, even more confident illustrations. All of them have a beautiful sense of design with nods to Leo Lionni, Eric Carle and Henri Matisse, but she has her own sense of style and technique. Though very geometric, they all appear to be cut free of straight edges and perfectly scribed circles. Her smaller dots do appear to be punched out with a whole punch, (who can blame her.) What is so powerful about this book is the striking compositions of each spread—an owl nested under the neck of a goose, or a roadrunner running down the tail of a pheasant, or the cheetah and tiger side-by-side staring the reader down. Each animal captioned with a short rhyming factoid about its existence in the world.

What strikes me most about this discovery book is the incredible palette of colors and textures Lois employs in each illustration. Her cut-paper illustrations sit on the white pages and make you want to touch and feel the grain and weave of each piece of paper—some simple craft or PMS paper—others exotic handmade pulps. Her rendition of every nuance of each animal is heightened with color and elegant graphic form. Her sense of design is informed by a deft examination of what makes each of these animals so unique and wonderful. Lots of Spots is on my shelf—right next to Lots of Dots!