Two interviews with Maurice Sendak

Here are two interviews with Maurice Sendak author of 'Where the Wild things are'. In the long interview pay attention to the part where he and the host talk about his work being Guerrilla Warfare and on why he feels it is important to feature dark subjects in his books.

Also... Sendak is a great example of how divided people are on 'what is appropriate for children'. Sendak is one of the most sold, celebrated and respected children's book illustrators/writers and yet there are to this day many people who very much think of his work as completely inappropriate for children! This is something that seems to come with the territory! The way I see it is to just go with your gut feeling and remember that you can't please everyone!

here is the other shorter interview on Sendak featured on You Tube

H.A. Rey and Margaret Rey: the creators of Curious George

Here are two links on some of the history of the lives of H.A. Rey and Margaret Rey without whom we would not have a Curious little monkey named George today.

link it once.

link it twice.

Here's them apparently doing a school visit/demonstration/signing of sorts. Also it looks like he is drawing that with both of his hands at once (mirror drawing technique)... how much fun would it have been to get these dudes to come to your school? A lot!?

Sebastien Mourrain

Just found a piece of paper from the last time I was a Sophia books EVER because they now too have closed down due to lack of business! I had written down the name of Sebastien Mourrain for his illustration work for the classic 'Around the world in 80 days'. I would have bought the whole book while there, but it was all in french and is an illustrated novel and not a picture book. ... and I unfortunately do not speak nor read french well enough for something like this. Too bad. Beautiful work though. I added Mourrain to the contemporary illustrators list on the side or check out his portfolio here.

Character Model Sheets

In session #1 for my class 'Illustrating the Children's Picture Book' we did a Character development exercise I've created. Everyone in the class came up with some fantastic characters and at the end of the class had a sheet where they had drawn their character from both sides, front and with different expressions.

These here are some model sheets I found online on a great website on comic, and animation art. I think looking at these old model sheets for animations and comics makes it very obvious how similar and intertwined the work of the picture book illustrator is to that of the animator and comic book artist. We all have to get to know our characters and make them believable!

Quentin Blake video on his process

This is amazing 10 minute video of Quentin Blake in his studio talking about his process of creating illustrations and also actually creating an image right in front of the camera! Invaluable glimpse into this totally fantastic and prolific artist's world.

Watch it! You'll learn so much in only 10 minutes!
Also check out his whole site here. Fantastico.