Spotlight on
Giles Laroche
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Q: When did you know you wanted to be an illustrator?
A: In my early teens,
I often read children's books to my young nephews. As I read,
I admired the illustrations and realized that artists were involved in their creation. A few years later, in my high school library, I came across a children's book illustration annual that included many of the illustrators
I had been admiring.
Q: Where do you find your inspiration?
A: I keep all my sketchbooks and files
of travel photographs.
I'm always jotting down thoughts and ideas in them, and when I need inspiration, I look through the sketchbooks and find old ideas that can be explored or redeveloped in some way. Visiting art museums, reading, and looking at books are helpful too.
Q: Your illustrations
are so dimensional, they seem to pop right out of your books.
How do you create
your artwork?
A: Every element of
a particular illustration
is drawn in pencil,
then cut out with a utility
knife, painted, and
finally assembled in layers resulting in
a bas-relief effect. Spacers between the layers create shadows that enhance the depth
of each illustration,
giving the art a near three-dimensional look.
Q: You visit a lot of schools. What is your favorite part about connecting with students?
A: Showing the original art always generates interesting questions, comments, and discussion among the students. The workshops I conduct with the students are my favorite part. Together we make paper houses, pagodas, towers, or bridges.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: A book about houses or dwellings. From a log house to a chateau, and from a house on stilts
to a floating house.
What's Inside
What Do Wheels Do All Day
Down to the Sea in Ships
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Spotlight on
Elisabeth Schlossberg
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Q: What made you want to be an illustrator?
A: I've always liked to draw, and have always found a lot of pleasure in listening to stories. As a child, I loved Russian fairy tales about Mishka, and Andersen's "The Little Match Girl." Those things never left me. It's certainly why I illustrate stories today.
Q: Where do you find your inspiration?
A: I am inspired by my daily life-in the street, at home, anywhere. I like to watch children, people, their attitudes, and capture them in my illustrations.
Q: What other books and artists do you admire most, and why?
A: I love "Eloise," illustrated by Hilary Knight, for its vitality. Eva Eriksson for her precision of expression, her characters, and her stories of kids' everyday lives. I also like soft, sweet moods, and mysterious ones.
Q: What do you love most about working
in pastel?
A: I love working in pastel for the intensity of colors. The material works well
in my hand and is good for making tints and shades. With it, I can capture different moods, and I can stress different things. Also, there's a lot of possibility between loose and precise renderings.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am working on a story called "Mini Waddie Wheezes Up," about very nice, lively little moles,
all a little clumsy. I am also starting work on a book about Hanukkah. And every month, for a French children's magazine, I illustrate a story about my heroine Melle ZouZou, a little girl who is full of life and imagination. When I find the time, I also like to draw for myself.
Adiós, Tricycle
Valentine Friends
On The Way To Kindergarten
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Spring 09 Books
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AnnaLaura Cantone
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Nicoletta Ceccoli
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Christine Davenier
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Just Like a Baby
Ages 4-8
Chronicle Books (February 25, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0811850269
ISBN-13: 978-0811850261
$15.99
link to amazon for more details
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Ora Eitan |
Georgia Rises: A Day in the Life of Georgia O'Keefe
Ages 8 and up
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (May 26, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0374325294
ISBN-13: 978-0374325299
$16.95
link to amazon for more details
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| | Juli Kangas
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Giles Laroche
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Bernadette Pons
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Elisabeth Schlossberg
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Anne Wilsdorf
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Clarence Cochran, A Human Boy Ages 7-10Farrar, Straus and Giroux (March 31, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0374313237
ISBN-13: 978-0374313234
$16.00
link to amazon for more details
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Wade Zahares
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Awards and Events
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The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum, illustrated by Nicoletta Ceccoli (Schwartz & Wade), was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year.
How Mama Brought
the Spring, illustrated by Holly Berry (Dutton), was a 2009 Charlotte Zolotow Honor Book and a 2008 Lupine Award Honor Book.
Piper Reed, Navy
Brat, illustrated by Christine Davenier (Holt), was named to the Texas Bluebonnet Master List. Nobody Here But Me, also illustrated by
Christine Davenier (FSG), was a 2008 Society of School Librarians International Book Award Honor Book.
Middle School is
Worse Than Meatloaf, illustrated by Elicia Castaldi (Atheneum), has
been nominated for the New York State Reading Association 2010 Charlotte Award.
The Great
Doughnut Parade, written and illustrated by Rebecca Bond (Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt), was selected for Bookbuilders of Boston's 52nd Annual New England Book Show.
My First,
written and illustrated by Eva Montanari (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt),
was selected the best Italian picture book of the year in a juried
exhibition sponsored by Primavera del libro in San Vito dei Normanni,
Italy.
Turbo Dogs, an
animated television programmed based on Bob Kolar's Racer Dogs (Dutton)
was the #1 rated show on qubo
(NBC Saturday mornings) for the 2008-2009
broadcast season.
The Program, which debuted in Fall 2008, also
received an iParenting Media Award for Best Product in the Television
category and was nominated for an Elan Award.
Joan Paley had
exhibition of her picture book illustrations, along with the work of
quilter Alice Means, at the Art Complex in Duxbury, MA, June 8 - August
17. A similar show is hanging at
the Danforth Museum, MA, May 6 - August 2.
Giles Laroche
participated in an exhibit at the Gallery Della-Piana MA,
November 8 - December 10. He was
also part of a group show at the Spheris Gallery in Hanover, NH, April 4 - May 13.
Wade Zahares'
work was exhibited at the Zullo Gallery, MA, November 15 -
January 11 as part of "Vision 20/20: Twenty Artists from Twenty Years."
Holly Berry
visited the Treehouse children's museum, UT, March
18 - 21 for four days of museum workshops, book signings, and local
school visits.
"Black Birds and
Burglars: The Storybook Art of Alison Paul" opened May 17 at the
Everyman Bistro RI. The exhibition of art from Alison's
first two books runs through Labor Day.
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