little ladies for my little lady

As soon as I can narrow down my wish list a tad, these lovely creations by Ellen Giggenbach are coming to live with us. I am less than two weeks shy of turning 40 and it seems that the closest thing to a mid-life crisis I can muster is that I am buying tons of children's art, ostensibly for my children. I love the 4 Seasons Paper Lamp Shade, the Three Little Houses paper craft kit and the Pretty Lady Stacking Doll. I gleaned from Ellen's artist statement that her art is made from hand cutting and assembling graphic shapes from art papers that she paints with vibrant artists acrylics. You can read more about her lovely work here.

a magical menagerie

Junzo Terada's Magical Menagerie has taken up residence at our house. The boy and I had great fun assembling all 20 animals in one sitting. We gave one to Auntie. And one to grandma. The boy got the lion's share. But he did manage to share the lion with his baby sister.

Vintage Rosemary Wells

My mother in law was doing a little attic cleaning and ran across this favorite book from my husband's childhood: Rosemary Wells' Impossible Possum. I'm familiar with Rosemary Wells. I've seen the stout, cute guinea pig-like creatures that populate so many of her books. We're quite fond of her collection of nursery rhymes. But this book is nothing like those.

I recently read in Leonard Marcus' Minders of Make Believe; a very thorough history of childrens book publishing in the U.S., that it used to be common practice for children's book illustrators to be awarded a 1 or 2 color illustration assignments when first starting out. It was the publisher's way of testing the popularity of new talent with a less expensive print run. I think some of the most beautiful children's books are a result of these spare palettes. Rosemary Wells' use of line and texture is just amazing. The simple black and red color scheme calls to mind my son's favorite children's book: Virginia Lee Burton's Choo Choo, also entirely red and black. I'm so glad this book has made it's way out out of the attic and onto our shelves.

Discovering Errol Le Cain is a very good thing

I love his use of line and pattern. With no formal training in art, he had a very prolific and successful career as a children's book illustrator and commercial artist. You can read more about his career and peruse a complete listing of his published children's books here. These lovely illustrations are from The Sly Cormorant and the Fishes" and "The Twelve Dancing Princesses". Flamenconut kindly offered to let me post these. Her flickr page is a great place to get lost for an hour or two. That is, if amazing children's book illustration happens to be your thing.

silent and beautiful

Something I know next to nothing about: Russian animated film. But now I really think I should. Thanks to cryptia's lovely flickr world I have these links to share. Top to bottom: Norshteyn's "Good Night Children" and Vladimir Samsonov's "The Bread's Light." Perhaps my son and I can both grow our knowledge of animation beyond the confines of Disney (not that there's anything wrong with that). It's nice when you stumble somewhere completely new and beautiful.

Little Golden Books Exhibit

So I was actually pretty good on the follow through with this one. I made a flickr set of all the amazing illustrations we saw at The Golden Legacy Exhibit, 65 Years of Golden Books. I plan to go back to the Enoch Pratt Library some quiet afternoon when no one will miss me at work and really take my time.

Golden Legacy, 65 years of Golden Books

Golden Legacy, Original Art from 65 years of Golden Books, is the most extensive public showing ever of original illustration art from the well-loved Little Golden Book series. The exhibit will feature more than 60 original illustrations by such artists as Elizabeth Orton Jones, Richard Scarry and Hilary Knight. For those not native to Baltimore, you'll be happy to know it's a traveling exhibit put on by the National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature. I can't wait to go this weekend.

Shown above:
Little Red Riding Hood by Elizabeth Orton Jones
The Poky Little Puppy by Janette Sebring Lowrey
illustrated by Gustaf Tenggren

beautiful book end papers

I got a little photo happy over on flickr, posting photos of my favorite children's books and such. I still haven't quite decided in I'm free and clear on copyright infringement, hopefully I am. It's all attributed, it's all just because I love children's books. Here are a couple end papers of books I think are especially nice. What a neat little subset of design appreciation. So I joined some little groups, I'm making friends, I'm flickr'n. Do you have books with beautiful end papers? I'd love to see them.

Album of Horses by Marguerite Henry,
illustrated by Wesley Dennis

A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson,
illustrated by Gyo Fujikawa

today is Anke Weckmann day

I have so much about Anke I'd like to share today, I decided to split it into two posts. I am so smitten with her line of greeting cards, especially this one called Best Mom. It has a real tenderness and strength about it. How wonderful to find a card celebrating moms that isn't so syrupy sweet.

Anke's little shop is filled with all sorts of things: pendants, mirrors, brooches, prints... it's all beautiful. Anke is also a featured artist with Red Cap Cards.

www.linotte.net
www.redcapcards.com

places I'd like to go, careers I'd like to have...

The Bologna Children's Book Fair, March 23rd-26th, sounds like an wonderful place to go. It's the world leading event for children's book publishers and has an amazing international exhibit of children's book illustrators every year. Only problem is it's a professional event. Nevertheless, I think the event's website is a fun place to poke around and discover tons of illustrators from all over the world and perhaps even find links to English translations for me and my son. Above I have posted a smattering of illustration annuals from the event. I've already book marked about a half a dozen threads off of this site that I will definitely be revisiting soon. From Bologna, the illustrators exhibition will be setting off to Japan to be shown at museums across the country. Not a bad place to go either. So that's two great places to go in one post... a girl can dream, right?

snow angels, happy pups and tatsuro kiuchi

Today we had a bit of a messy start. I got all the way to school with bundled boy and then remembered... Oh Yeah THAT Martin Luther King Day. You'd think I could remember... especially considering we had just spent the previous evening discussing lessons learned at preschool about Dr King. Eventually all the pieces of the day started to fall into place. When I called home to get the latest news from son and dad they were happily making snow angels in the front yard. I worry about what we all loose, my son especially, in the frenetic routine of work, play and rest that rules our days. So news of snow angels, photos snapped, and naps postponed to play trains with dad makes for a happy monday mom.

I love this snow angel by illustrator tatsuro kiuchi. In fact, I pretty much adore every piece of work in his portfolio. So it pleases me to share this with you. He also has some very lovely prints, like the happy pup shown above available for purchase here. Happy Monday.

aleks sennwald made my day

First of all, it made my day that a friend sent me a link to her portfolio at theloudcloud.com. And then to top it all off, Aleks was super generous when I contacted her and offered to let me post some of her artwork here on my blog where all my illustration heros are now living. I really love these pieces from her portfolio of professional work. I have pictured here, top to bottom, the paiga beast for BEASTS! Book 2 by fantagraphics and a lovely heroine from Spectra Pulse issue no. 2. Lastly, I think you would be wise to check out her prints, galactus and root, at the loud cloud shop.

www.theloudcloud.com
www.senvald.com

fastastic voyages

One of my favorite illustrators, mattias adolfsson kindly offered to let me post some of his recent works currently available at his shop. If your not familiar with mattias, he has a wonderful blog and a tremendous collection of moleskins. I love to check in frequently to see the latest and greatest in his imaginative and ever expanding body of work.

www.mattiasadolfsson.se

santa was very good to me

Before Christmas my super-husband started eluding to a present for me and our son that he though we both would love. I couldn't for the life of me think of anything that would have us equally enthralled. His hints had me perplexed. I have the urge to do the same thing when I think I've found the perfect gift. I start eluding to it in conversations because I just can't wait to give it to the recipient and I want them to love it as much as I've hoped they will. My sister was notorious for spilling the beans in this way when she was little. Her hints unfortunately were not quite as cryptic as her six year old brain intended. (It looks like this but bigger...) 

My husband got it right on all points. He didn't ruin the surprise with his hints and yes my son and I both love the poster equally. We are a sting ray lovin family. And jay ryan is pretty cool too. 

www.thebirdmachine.com

a beautiful find from the thrift store

Jason found a 1969 flawless copy of The Fisherman Under the Sea, by Miyoko Marsutani and illustrated by Chihiro Iwasaki at the thrift store. It is gorgeous. I started hunting about for information about Chihiro Iwasaki and found a link to a huge collection of her amazing work housed in two Japanese museums. Both of the museums look intriguing and definitely deserve to be put on the list of places I want to go.

www.chihiro.jp/global

why I love maria carluccio

She gets the kids outside. Tea parties, barn yards, even down in the dirt with the creepy crawlies; Maria's work celebrates everything a kid could love about nature. I found these lovelies over in the main gallery of oopsy daisy.com To me they represent everything I hope my son will discover in his childhood ramblings. 

A while back, I contacted Maria Carluccio for permission to do a post on her work. She was incredibly sweet and accommodating. I just wish I lived in NYC so I could take some her illustration classes. I guess the timing of my post is a little off kilter cause her site is currently under construction. But I'm keeping my eye on it. 

Thinking about kids and the outdoors reminds me I need to get The Last Child in the Woods onto my "to read list" on library thing. 

mariacarluccio.com