My friend Diana, from Germany, is visiting this week. We met back when I lived (and studied illustration) in Leipzig. Diana is a linguist; she studies an endangered language in Nepal and has interesting things to say about the role of picture books in endangered language communities. More on that some other time. But since I’m thinking about Germany today, I wanted to mention a few German illustrators whose work I like a lot. The […]
If anyone ever wants to buy me a wonderful and expensive present, I suggest a copy of Thoughts and Aphorisms from the Fruits of Meditation of Kozma Prutkov, a rare pamphlet illustrated by Quentin Blake in 1978. This post is not about the ever-wonderful Mr. Blake, however, but about quotations and maxims. I write my own stories, which is sometimes great (more freedom!) and sometimes burdensome (more freedom!). In the worst cases, fiddling around with […]
I love to champion great independent picture books. If only there were more of them! I was, therefore, delighted to see Rebecca Emberley‘s Kickstarter campaign. She’s starting a small press called Two Little Birds; their first title will be The Itsy Bitsy Spider, a book/ebook/music extravaganza. THE DIRT ON: Rebecca Emberley Hometown: Ipswich, Massachusetts; have lived lots of other places. Now lives in: Kittery, Maine. Tools of the trade: Paper, scissors and Freehand MX. Artistic […]
I used to live in Vermont, where one of the summer rituals is a trip to Glover, to see Bread and Puppet Theater‘s papier-mâché circuses. One of the Bread and Puppet credos is that art should be cheap and for everyone. Accordingly, they have a stand where you can buy their posters for almost nothing. People hang them in the kitchen. There are other publications as well, booklets and calendars and whatnot, illustrated mostly with relief […]
Pen and Oink 