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ooooh, shiny
This topic came to mind because I just found the toymaker's journal, where I got lost for an hour and could easily spend a lot more time. Marilyn Scott Waters also has an online workshop where you can download paper toys to assemble. Or you could go get her book (The Toymaker: Paper Toys That You Can Make Yourself). I plan to.
If I had a zillion dollars, I'd collect original art from illustrators I adore (all of these having to do with children's books, which brings me to my second question: why can't adults get illustrated books, too?):
I particularly like the brothers Robinson (Thomas Heath, Charles, William Heath) -- who don't nearly enough attention. James Hamilton wrote a book about William Heath Robinson (1872 - 1944), who is considered to be
the greatest comic draftsman of the century. His name became synonymous with outrageously complicated devices for carrying out the most basic tasks, contraptions that he thought out with solemn logic, executed with precision, and explained with the ultimate in deadpan captions.Monty Python, anyone?
Another artist I really adore is Lisbeth Zwerger (left)
The zillion dollars is not much of an exaggeration. Have a look at storyopolis (an incredible place to browse for children's books, by the way) and the artists whose original work they represent. No matter how much I adore Lisbeth Zwerger, I can't come up with $12,500 for one of her originals. Not if we want to send the girlchild to college.
Helen Oxenbury (right) illustrated Phyllis Root's Big Momma Makes the World, which is right up there with Robert Munsch's The Paperbag Princess as a book to be presented to little girls when they start reading.
Jim LaMarche illustrated Laura Krauss Melmed's The Rainbabies, an all time favorite of mine. It's a beautiful book. I wish I had the final image as a life-size painting.
Finally there's N.C. Wyeth.
Looking at his illustrations can put me into a trance, where I can recall with all five senses what it was like to be a little girl reading in the Lincoln Avenue branch of the Chicago Public Library.
If a genie popped out of a bottle and offered me the choice between a singing voice ala one of the great divas, the ability to churn out novels like Dickens, or the imagination and skill of one of these illustrators, I wouldn't hesitate to put away paper and pen for illustration board and pencil. Of course, the best of both worlds would be to illustrate my own books.
May 14, 2005 11:13 AM
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Comments
Probably the closest thing adults get to illustrated books beside comics/graphic novels, are Nick Bantock's Griffin and Sabine series, the Library at Purgatory, and the like.
I'm never quite sure how to call these books, they skirt the worlds between photography books, travel diaries, souvenir books and novel but they're nice to look at at any rate. A good one in this vein is Barbara Hodgson's The Tattooed Map.
Posted by: tzigane at May 15, 2005 12:43 PM
tzigane -- I just ordered The Tattooed Map. Let you know when I've read it.
Posted by: sara at May 16, 2005 04:52 PM
Illustrators, have always been looked down upon by other artists. Why? i personally do not understand it. Art is Art. To Create is art... and it is all around us in many forms. Rockwell was not looked upon as a artist in his day yet, his work reflects so much of our most recent history. I think it has been only in the last 20 years are so that he has even been thought of as a fine artist, but not by his peers in his day. I had a cousin who painted several covers for Time magazine back in the 50's, beautiful, James Stewart, i am not sure of the name he signed on his work, beautiful work but he was not considered an artist in his time, he was called an illustrator, i can remember foundly looking forward to his Christmas cards, he looked a bit like a young, Jack Parr and always illustrated himself as an angel or something related to the holidays. He died at a fairly young age, what a lost.
Maxwell Parrish, NC Wyeth, along with Homer were some of the greatest Amercian artists that i admire, they were all considered illustrators from the Brandywine area of Pennsyvania, amazing of all the talent that came from that area and continues to flow. NC Wyeth left a legacy of fine artists through his children and grandchildren.
Illustrators in my opinion are fine artists also, if not more because they must meet a deadline and create work more on demand. (sounds familiar?)
I know that a lot of what one could call coffee table books have been published by different publishing houses of different illustrators. They are very expensive to print because of all the colours and paper. Hopefully someone is cataloging all of this somewhere. I think some of the finest art can be found in illustration.
Posted by: joanna at May 18, 2005 03:53 AM