Fabulous Cities

May I gush about another wonderful children's book writer and illustrator? Oh heck, you can't stop me.

The late Simms Taback wrote and illustrated books full of humor and charm complete with quirky colorful folky and funny illustrations. All of them are incredibly clever and, though silly, are amazingly beautiful and contain details that make me want to look at them again and again.

My favorite is his Caldecott winner, Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, a retelling of a classic Jewish story of a poor man who has an old ripped coat and continually cuts it down so he still can use it. First it becomes a jacket and then gets cropped into a vest. By the end it's only a button and soon even that is lost. But the story leaves you with a moral about creativity and resourcefulness and seeing the glass half full.

OK, OK, you say. Get on with it, Paula! What did YOU make from this book? Me? Nothing. But the kids in my Pre-K group made some lovely crazy buildings and cities. What might be difficult to see in the scan of this wonderful spread from the book is the quirky details. Simms added crazy photos of people making all sorts of faces in the windows of the city. He also put in pieces of material and newspaper clippings made to look like old Yiddish (Jewish) papers.

A trip to the city for our hero!'

Together we read the book and looked at the pictures. 

The Picasso's Basement PreK artists used cut and torn paper to make their wacky buildings. They clipped pictures out of magazines to fill  the windows with faces. I told them to feel free to add any kind of details with markers and scissors. One resourceful artist even added a button she found on the floor which was very much in the spirit of the book! 

Well done, artists!

Happy Birthday to The Snowy Day

While planning for the upcoming Winter Picasso's Basement classes beginning next weekend I've thought about how little Winter we've actually seen. I'm grateful this year: we have a new dog and while he loved our one snowstorm I don't really look forward to walking him in freezing rain or down icy streets!

This brought to mind one of my favorite books, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. There is no book that better captures the excitement of a day home playing in the snow. The dreamy yet crisp images. The crunching sounds of the snow under your feet. The neighborhood as it is transformed into a world of new sounds, sights and smells.




As a child I didn't know that this was the first book to feature a black child as the main character. I didn't know the author was white, that people were concerned about white authors portrayals of black characters because they'd never done it well before. I just knew that it was exciting and fun and beautiful all at once      


Keat's characters and his art work stay with you. As a little girl I loved looking at the hats he created in Jenny's hat with fanciful textured collaged patterns. His simple shapes were charming but intriguing. His stories were of everyday events: making hats, painting a chair, playing in snow, putting on a pet show. Around age 8 I started writing my own books. Looking back they were very much influenced by the work of Ezra Jack Keats. Stories about pets in a pet show. Cut outs of people mixed with painted images.

The Snowy Day has turned 50. It makes me realize how important children's books and children's artwork is. That it can continue to excite, to make children want to read and to draw. And to run and play in the snow. Happy 50th to The Snowy Day. I am sure it will be just as exciting to a child in 50 more years!

Inspiration Smells Likes Peroxide

I am completely distracted in my own home. Oh sure, I can paint and assemble and color at home. But the ideas, the real thinking, the actual inspirations and subsequent designs just don’t happen there. Much as I’d like them to.

Here’s last month’s scenario: I realize I must come up with a new illustration in order to create a self-promotion piece. I know I need to start the idea process but as I putter about my house this seems to become my priority list:

1. Check email and Facebook. Must get messages out of way so I am free to work.

2. Clean drafting table.

3. Pick up every sock that my husband and two children have left balled up on the floor.

4. Snack to boost energy.

5. Check email and Facebook again. Someone important may need to reach me.

You can see where this is going. This all leads to a marginally clean house and a remarkably spotless yet empty drafting table.

The following day after discovering that cleaning products do not make me want to draw, I go to get my hair cut and colored. In order to cover the vicious gray that my hair has been blessed with since my early 20's my Miracle Worker, the phenomenal Russell of Russell Scott Hair Designs in Clark NJ, must gunk me up and leaves me to sit in the corner in shame with my head resembling and a putrid bowl of ice cream covered in Magic Shell. I look ridiculous. I reek. The Black Eyed Peas are pounding in the speakers and I am stuck sitting next to two Kardashian-wanna-be housewives who are deep in discussion about their jewelry. 

BUT there are no balls of socks. No dishes to do. No one calling me “Mommy”. And so, sketchbook balanced on smock-covere lap, I find that my mind is actually functioning. In fact on that one visit alone I came up with a slew of sketches for a series of animal musicians AND a sketch for a painting of Coney Island that I’ve been thinking about for years. AND the start of this blog entry.

Here’s where I do and have done my best creative thinking:

1. Hairdressers

2. Laundromat

3. Doctor’s Office

4. At the drivers wheel when on long drives by myself (rare but precious occasions)

So fellow creative friends, where do find your inspiration?
Where do you do YOUR best thinking?

The Children’s Book Bandwagon

Detail of illustration of book I've written

Pretty much everyone is writing children’s picture books nowadays. 

There are, of course, the celebrities: Madonna, John Lithgow, Julie Andrews, Kathie Lee Gifford, Tori Spelling…. Perhaps it’s their second career. I can’t fault them for that. I’m working on MY second career.

But my sneaky suspicion is that “how hard can it be?” popped up in their minds. Followed by “I bet this would make a great idea for a children’s book!” I'd like to think that my favorite children’s book authors never ever have that thought. They have a story to tell and the stories just happen to be for children.  They don’t moralize. They don’t talk down to kids. And I’d bet that they don’t ever think “what child wouldn’t love to hear my story about a (insert favorite barnyard animal here)?” 

This trend is not limited to celebs. I can say with great certainty that, myself included, almost everyone has thought of a “great idea for a children’s book.” How do I know? Because I’m an Illustrator. And practically not a week goes by that some friend or relative or friend-of-a -friend or friend-of-a-relative doesn’t ask me to illustrate their book. Maybe they’ve just been introduced to me. Maybe they’ve never seen my work.  For all they know I could produce evil evil artwork that would make Hieronymous Bosch blush.* Doesn’t matter. They have a great book about a little (turtle, girl, rabbit, gender-confused child) that they know I can help them with. 

I’ve only said Yes once. To a wonderful cousin who can write well and has good things to share with children.  I really wanted to work with her and it’s been a great experience. In my experience most publishing companies prefer to find their own illustrators for books by first time writers. So truthfully the writers shouldn’t bother hiring me anyway.  They should feel free, however, to recommend me to their publishers!

Right now I’m fine-tuning a few picture books that I’ve written. They have been pretty tough to fine-tune. Writing for children can be harder than it looks.  I guess we can’t all be Tori Spelling, Bette Midler, The Prince of Wales, John Travolta, and Jimmy Buffet.

*I’m hoping to sprinkle my blog posts with references to artists. I know you all have all “Googled” your second grade nemesis, that good looking physical therapist you once met, that date that stood you up. So I know you can “Google” a few artists. If you don’t know Hieronymous then please look him up. 

Metamorphosis

This is supposed to be My Year. The Year I've Been Waiting For.

My children can officially dress themselves in weather-appropriate ensembles. They are now old enough that they cringe at the sight of me in a Halloween costume. Particularly when I wave at them maniacally from the curb. They can find their own snacks without setting the kitchen ablaze. These were my first clues that it had finally arrived. The Year of Paula.

Like Kafka's Gregor I plan to metamorphosize. Hopefully my resulting transformation will be more of a positive experience for me than it was for poor Gregor. For starters, I hope not to repel people. In fact, I hope the opposite to be true. Hopefully this year and this blog will be the start of a journey that will take me to new wonderful places and help me meet fantastic people. I hope to make it a positive experience for those around me and I want to pass my excitement on to the children I teach and those that I raise. And I hope to avoid setting off the smoke detector in my kitchen as much as possible.

I usually measure my year in school years. September to September. I don't think I'll ever stop measuring my years this way and since I intend to teach art in elementary schools, I suppose it's fitting. So from September 2010 to September 2011 I will attempt to do the following:

• Update my illustration website. (Thank you to web designer Linda Bradler, designer to the stars. And me.)

• Start substitute teaching.

• Get certified to teach art.

• Finish illustrating the children's books I've written.

• Continue to keep my family fed in the half-hearted manner to which they've become accustomed.

• Not get so distracted with all the above that, instead of art, I create roadkill.

• Keep you updated on all of the above. Particularly the roadkill.