Favorite Illustrator - Garth Williams

So it's time for me to tell you about another favorite illustrator of mine, and probably yours.  When I think of Garth Williams I think of my childhood and reading his books in the tiny bedroom of my childhood home.  I read every single one of the "Rescuers" books multiple times.  I read them for the illustrations because I loved Garth Williams pen and ink drawings.  I would copy those drawings over and over again.  Bernard and Bianca were brought to life for me by those drawings.  And their adventures took me to new places.  I knew when I read a description of a predicament that they found themselves in, Garth Williams' drawing would portray it perfectly.  I remember a description of Bernard and Bianca escaping the Black Castle through a small opening that lead to a gushing stream outside.  It was a detailed description, but I couldn't quite picture it in my mind.  Then I turned the page and the illustration showed it perfectly.  It made my enjoyment of the book complete.  I remember staring at the picture below and being amazed at how he crafted the details of a little girls face with just hatches of line.  I think it was the first time I came to appreciate the power of value.

And of course my favorite book of his was "The Cricket In Times Square".  The little world that he created for Tucker the mouse, Harry the cat, and Chester the cricket in the subway enthralled me.  Tiny matchbox beds and thimble tables.  I loved every drawing! I often copied the drawings trying to get his pen and ink style.  It was my exposure to Garth Williams' drawings that made me fall in love with drawing as a child and made me want to be an artist.  I loved that he created these magical worlds where adorable creatures lived and had these memorable adventures.  His work touched both the artist and the adventurer in me and has influenced me to this day.

Garth Williams was born in New York City to artist parents.  Like many great artists he studied art in Europe when his parents moved to England.  He studied architecture and then switched to painting and sculpture.  He graduated from the Royal Academy of Art and served briefly as the headmaster of the Luton Art School outside of London before resigning to immerse himself in art.  When he returned to the United States, he tried to become a cartoonist for The New Yorker, but his work was rejected because it was considered too wild and European.  Isn't that funny!  His work was considered too wild?  I wonder what he showed them!

He eventually found an opportunity at Haper and Row when a manuscript for a children's book came in.  It was E.B. White's "Stuart Little".  I guess he wasn't too wild for children:)  That was the beginning of a long and successful career as a children's book illustrator for Garth Williams.  And while his illustrations were the reason for the success of such books as "Stuart Little," "Charlotte's Web," and "Cricket In Times Square" at the time of their success he was often not credited.

For me, almost all of Garth Williams work sits on my bookshelf.  He is frequently a "go to" resource for me when I want inspiration.  He captures a sense of innocence and wonderment in his illustrations that I want to develop in my own work.  He has not been with us since 1996 when he passed away, but his art has left a permanent mark on me and maybe on you too.

What is your fondest memory of Garth Williams work?  Leave me a comment below.

Trina Schart-Hyman - Another Favorite Illustrator

Today I thought I'd write about another favorite illustrator of mine, Trina Schart-Hyman.  I was introduced to Trina and her work through my sister.  She gave me a copy of Saint George and the Dragon, the Caldecott winning book by Hyman, to read to my son Hunter.  Actually, now that I think about it, my sister has turned me onto lots of good books, and illustrators over the years....she has a big influence on me.

My sister loved all the characters and fairies that Hyman puts in her work and especially their facial expressions.  I started to look at her work and fell in love with her gestural line work and her character development.  She works in gouache and pen & ink so you really see the expressiveness to her illustrations.  One book that I particularly love is called "Tight Times".  This book is long out of print and is very hard to find.  My sister found a copy for me and it is one of my most cherished books.  It is a story of a family that is struggling with the stagflation of the 1970's.  I was about the age of the main character in the book in the 1970's so I really can relate to the story line.  Times are tight and both parents have to work to make ends meet.

Then one day the father comes home early because he lost his job.  My dad was a union carpenter so this was a regular occurrence in our house, the job would end and he would be out of work.

The little boy doesn't quite understand what is going on so mom sends him outside to play.  He discovers a kitten tucked behind the trash and a passing gypsy woman helps him rescue the kitten.  He takes it home to ask if he can keep it.

The mom and dad are reluctant at first to keep the cat but then emotion overwhelmed them and they realize a little cat just might be what they need now to lift the weight of the situation.  They make a hug sandwich and the kitten stays!

This is a wonderful story that also speaks to an experience that I was very familiar with.  Hyman's work seems to do that...get at the root of humanity and human emotions in a way that is touching and real.  You can see her gestural drawings in this book, which is done all in black and white.  Her character development is superb and the facial expressions that my sister loves are very evident here.  She also does a wonderful job of setting the environment with details in the kitchen and living room, and the streets of New York. 

Another work by Hyman that my sister turned me on to is "The Fortune Tellers".   This is a story of a young carpenter who is looking for something better in life.  He goes to see the fortune teller to find out if he has something better coming in life, like fame, fortune and love.  The fortune teller says all will come as soon as the carpenter becomes well known, makes lots of money and finds the right woman!  The carpenter is overjoyed!  As he leaves he realizes he forgot to ask one question so he returns to the fortune teller only to find him gone.  A women enters and mistakes the carpenter for the fortune teller so he goes with it and plays the fortune teller.  Through the charade all of his dreams do come true! 

Once again you can see her wonderful gestural drawings, this time with gouache color added.  She establishes the setting as somewhere in Africa and she develops a whole cast of characters and secondary actors who are unique, vibrant, and full of character and life. I love all the details she adds, like the little  monkey who becomes his side-kick.  These are exactly the type of things I enjoy pointing out to my children when we read stories together.  I also really admire the way she maximizes her use of the long horizontal format of the page.  I go back to her work time an again for inspiration and lessons on how to illustrate a wonderful story.  

In her own words  this is what Hyman felt made for a children's book.  “You just have to feel it. Certainly it has to relate to the human experience because children are human, too. It should have all of the things that a good adult story has only put in simpler terms so that children can grasp it.” 

For a complete interview with Trina Schart-Hyman click here.  Unfortunately, Trina died in 2004 so we can no longer look forward to new work from her, but the work that she left us will undoubtedly leave an impression for many generations to come.  I hope you enjoyed meeting Trina Schart-Hyman.  Let me know if you have a favorite book by Trina Schart-Hyman or what you think of her work in the comments section below.  

Michael Knapp

Continuing with my coverage of my favorite illustrators in no particular order, today I am covering Michael Knapp.  I discovered Michael Knapp and his work through another artist by the name of Robert Mackenzie.  On his blog Robert Mackenzie talked about a collaborative project he was involved in called "Out of Picture".  It was a production by Blue Sky Studios and the many concept artists and illustrators that work there.  They spent their spare time putting together individual stories that were rattling around in their heads and they never got the chance to illustrate.  Then they assembled all the work into a book and published it!  I went on Amazon and found it and fell in love….and also discovered Michael Knapp's work among them.

He is a concept artist who also develops wonderful characters.  Here are a few samples of his work

I really like his quirky style and his line quality in his concept drawings.  He works in full color, but I find his black and white work my favorite because of his value patterns.  I also like how he handles the graphite medium and how he uses variations in the value of the graphite to lead the viewer through his compositions.  He also has a wonderful visual story telling ability that needs no words.  I like to study his work hoping to learn some of his techniques myself:)   

Michael Knapp has a blog that I like to explore to see what he is upto and what other projects he is or has worked on.  You can click here to go to it.  His last project was Sketchtravel which you should definitely check out!  You can click here for an animated short about the project.   The website for Sketchtravel is http://www.sketchtravel.com.  I bought the Sketchtravel book and was so inspired by it. The last image I posted above was Micheal Knapp's contribution to Sketchtravel.  So I hope you have enjoyed learning about Michael Knapp and check out his work on his blog.  I'll be back in a few with another one of my favorite illustrators:)

Ezra Jack Keates

A while ago I posted about my top 10 favorite illustrators.  Well, I thought I would expand on that for you and feature each illustrator in a post of their own.  To start I chose Ezra Jack Keats because I would have to say that I think he is my favorite:)

It is not surprising that I like Ezra Jack Keats work, many people do.  And of course he was recognized multiple times over during his life.  But his story is so inspiring to me.  He was born around the time that my grandfather was (the one I just lost and posted about a few weeks ago).  He grew up in New York City and was quite poor and his family was hard hit when the Great Depression arrived.  But he persevered in his art despite the fact that his father was concerned about his being able to make a living as an artist.  Ezra's father Benjamin worked as a waiter in a restaurant and knew how hard it was to provide, and despite his desire to discourage Ezra from pursuing art, Benjamin brought home tubes of paint, pretending that he had traded them with penniless artists for food!  Ezra remembered his father saying, "If you don't think artists starve, well, let me tell you…one man came in and swapped me a tube of paint for a bowl of soup."  I love it that his dad was concerned for his welfare, but still wanted to encourage him because he was proud of his son's talent.

Ezra served in the army during World War II, like my grandfather, and then came home to pursue art.  He was determined to study painting in Europe and found a way to spend a season in Paris in 1949.  He returned home to New York and pursued work in commercial art.  Children's book illustration sort of found him and he excelled in it.  It was never his intent to do children's book illustration, but I'm so glad that he did!  He illustrated during a time in our country when there was still a lot of discrimination.  He himself was the victim of discrimination because of his Jewish heritage and he empathized with people who were struggling with it.  Consequently, he was one of the first illustrators to make an African American child the protagonist in a story.

What I appreciate most is that Ezra painted and wrote stories about what he knew, people from his community.  People we can all relate to.  Many of his stories portray family live, and the simple pleasures and more complex problems that children encounter every day.  He drew on his own childhood experiences for his books, like having to run from bullies or being teased by friends.  But these are also the experiences that many children can relate to and that what makes his work so powerful.  He also develops wonderful, memorable characters that we fall in love with.

           Amy                    Maggie                Roberto         Louis            Archie             Jeannie

           

                                                  and of course Peter and his dog Willy!

I also like Ezra's approach to his artwork.  He uses lots of brush strokes and strong shapes.   The simplicity of the shapes are so eloquent and lend such charm to his art.   And I like how he uses elements of collage as well to create his patterns.  I just love studying Ezra's work!  

I hope you enjoy his art as much as I do!

Top 10 Illustrators

Picture books are my favorite form of art and there are some picture book illustrators whose work I think is outstanding.  I thought I'd share with you my top 10 favorite illustrators..and I should qualify that they are illustrators but also story tellers.  Some are award winning and some are not.  Some have been illustrating a long time and some have just recently made a name for themselves.  Some are alive and some are dead.  Some work with in animation and concept art, some in picture book art, and some do whatever illustration job comes along.  But all inspire and motivate me and I find myself time and again returning to their work to see how they handle a situation or set up a scene.

Here is my list in no particular order:

1.             Ezra Jack Keates

2.             Trina Schart Hyman

3.             Jane Chapman

4.             Tony DeTerlizzi

5.             Garth Williams

6.             Jerry Pickney

7.             Peter DeSeve

8.             Michael Knapp

9.             Leuyen Pham

10.         Sara Palacios

I have included a sample of their work in the collage above. Starting at the top left, I'll mention the artist and what I love about their work.  In subsequent posts, I'll feature each artist further.  

Garth Williams is at the top left and I love his art because it's always in pen and ink.  His line work is so good and his characters have so much depth using only black and white.  Another artist who is excellent with black and white is Tony DeTerlizzi who is next.  His value pattern and character development is what draws me to his work.  Ezra Jack Keates work is simplistic, childlike and yet so profoundly well done.  His was one of the first illustrators to use African American children as protagonists…but he didn't do that to make a statement, he did that because he painted what he knew.  He grew up in New York City as a Jewish boy who lived in an ethnically diverse neighborhood and his art naturally reflected his surroundings.  Rounding out the top row is Peter De seve, who is best know as a concept artist and who developed the characters for Ice Age, among many other feature animated films.  He also has done multiple New Yorker covers and in my opinion captures New York like no one else can.  I love his characters, his wit in his storytelling and his application of watercolor.

Starting the second row is Trina Schart Hyman whose influences are similar to Ezra Jack Keates in that she grew up in New York City and her artwork reflects all ethnicities of people.  I love her figure work - she is so good at capturing the human form.  Jane Chapman is the creator of the beloved bear character that I love so much.  What I admire about Jane's work is her color pallet which is so young and playful without being too primary, and her animal characters are so memorable.  Jerry Pickney is next and if you have seen his work, you too would put him in your top 10 list.  He is one of last century's most successful African American illustrators and his career evolved during a time of great change for both illustration and black people in this country.  He was often a voice and a vessel for dealing with issues about race.  His watercolors are outstanding and he really studies his subjects well and the infuses personality into them in a way that readers can really relate to.  Leuyen Pham is an artist who I discovered recently.  What I love about her work is her ability to place so many story telling elements in her compositions and to have them all feel harmonious.  Her characters are adorable and her illustrations have a sweetness to them.  

Starting the third row of images is Michael Knapp an illustrator that I discovered through the "Out of Picture" book that was published by Blue Sky Studios.  Blue Sky Studios is  a computer animation studio dedicated to creating high end character animation and visual effects for the commercial and feature film industries.  The artists there are amazing and they put together a book of all their ideas that were cropped "out of the picture".  Really cool!  I was drawn to Michael Knapp's work because of his ability to tell a story without any words.  He also has wonderfully dynamic compositions.  And the last image I have above is from Sara Palacios.  I discovered Sara on Illustration Friday, a blog site that features illustrators work.  I fell in love with her work and have been following her for about 5 months.  Her picture book work reminds me of Ezra Jack Keates, but with an updated feel, and I love her character development.  She has also been so kind as to talk to me on e-mail and through Facebook, so I feel honored that she would share her hard earned knowledge with me.  She is also a graduate of The Academy of Art University so we have that common educational element.  

So there you have it!  My list of my favorite illustrators.  Let me know what you think and if there are some illustrators out there that you think I should get to know.  Drop me a comment below.  Thanks!