Amen!

Something to be thankful for: a beautifully designed proclamation, signed by several prominent authors and illustrators, insisting on creating fresh, meaningful picture books.
(link to Children's Authors and Illustrators Proclamation)

I especially like "picture books are a form, not a genre" (that's especially poetic sounding to me), and "the tidy ending is often dishonest." I find that part in particular to be fairly inspiring. It makes me want to write a book that ends, if not truly happily, then maybe at least unsatisfactorily, as so many things end up in life!

via Quill and Quire via Drawn! The Illustration Blog.

Point One for Paper!

Came across an article on NYT last night about how while the world moves on to e-readers (myself included, god how I love my Kindle), actual "dead-tree paper books" are still the preference of tech-saavy parents. I have to agree. The benefits far outweigh the costs in this case. My top reason my children will read on paper for as long as they can: the illustrations! I want to see each one big and right out in front of me, not squeezed onto a limiting screen. But there will always be that delicious sensory and romantic feel of a paper book that you can't get from the screens we use for everything else all day. New paper smell is one of my favorites!


Some Things Should Stay the Same
via nytimes.com

Surrealists and Picture Books

So I just had a fantastic weekend with some old college friends who were visiting me from Richmond. We all went to art school and of course, number one on our list of things to do in Philly was visit the Barnes Foundation and Philadelphia Museum of Art. I wanted to see the Barnes in its original location in his mansion out in Merion before they move it to a boring, normal museum on the Ben Franklin Parkway (a few blocks from my home!) It was quite an experience. Barnes sure did have some weird taste in art, and I liked how he surrounded each painting with a Roman metal artifact that complemented its composition somehow.

The Philly Museum of Art never ceases to inspire me. Among my favorites are the surreal paintings of Tanguy, Dali, Klee, and most of all, Miro. I took home lots of ideas for new compositions,  and color.

After my friends left, I had some extra time (and an already paid-for admission) to see the Perelman Building, which houses even more art, and particularly a current exhibition on Chagall. I am a huge fan of Chagall, mainly for his whimsical compositions and cheerful subjects. Many of his paintings remind me of picture books. I'd like to incorporate some sort of floating ephemera in more of my illustrations and get a bit more playful.

I thought the easiest transition into floating people would be underwater, and I particularly love the sea ephemera in Tanguy's Black Storm painting, above (which I saw today). Here's what I came up with, which I think is still heavily true to my style, but perhaps not experimental enough. I did it all in Photoshop.

I'd like to find some illustrators who are influenced by surrealists and see how they incorporate it into their narratives. I feel like the two forms of art (surrealism and picture book illustration) are mutually exclusive--one being dreamlike and illogical, devoid of any narrative, and the other being completely narrative and logical enough to communicate information unquestionably.  If anyone knows of any surrealist illustrators, please send them my way!