When kids ask me where I get my ideas I often say I buy them at the Dollar Store. They generally don’t find this response particularly funny, yet it doesn’t stop me from saying it time and again.
Tag Archives | Art
Guest Blogger: Denise Fleming
But when I walk into the studio to create art, there is a process (and steps to follow) to reach the result I desire. First, there’s the idea, which I turn into a manuscript. Next, I craft a book dummy book comprised of text and sketches.
Guest Blogger: Steve Jenkins
It’s difficult, even for adults, to wrap one’s head around the fact that the elephant can weigh 22,000 pounds. So I included a simple infographic, a small silhouette of each animal, alongside another of an adult human (or a human hand, if the animal was small).
Guest Blogger: Jon Klassen
Writing books is a very mysterious thing. At least it is for me. I’ve always enjoyed writing, maybe just as much as I’ve enjoyed drawing, but drawings are easier to gauge. When you create a drawing you like, you can look at it and immediately see the reasons why, and you can show it to […]
Guest Blogger: Hervé Tullet
My work often asks, “What is a book?” First came the interactive Press Here, which was radical in its simplicity. For Mix It Up!, I painted with my bare hands—a “no-illustration” illustration. Let’s Play! (2016; all Chronicle) is the return to expressing something with drawing, composition, proportion, and feelings.
Guest Blogger: R. Gregory Christie
When a manuscript comes across my art table there’s always a little bit of terror attached to it. What’s the author trying to relate? How should I approach it? How would a parent, a librarian, and, most important, a child look at my paintings? If, as an artist, I can’t quell some of these questions, […]
Guest Blogger: Mélanie Watt
One day I vacuumed a fly—by accident! After realizing what had happened, I wondered what the bug was thinking. Did it know it had been vacuumed? Was it upset? Or was it just buzzing around inside the machine, without a care in the world? This is how the idea for Bug in a Vacuum (Tundra […]
Guest blogger: Tomie dePaola
Look and Be Grateful (Holiday House 2015) is the most unusual project I’ve ever worked on in my 50 years as a children’s book illustrator/author. Usually, a book starts with an idea that I’ll turn over and over in my head, sometimes letting it pop-up when it wants to, other times, sitting down and forcing […]
Contests and Giveaways | August 2015
Each month we feature free and enjoyable book contests and giveaways! We hope you will enjoy the following opportunities as well as the author and book resources available via TeachingBooks.net. Win a free copy of Vincent Paints His House (Elementary) Vincent is ready to paint his house. The only problem is choosing the color. He thinks white would be […]
Connect Literacy and the Arts
Let us help you build solid connections between fine arts and achieving literacy goals! Are you a fine arts teacher looking for ways to support district and school literacy goals? Happily, TeachingBooks.net can help! Art teachers could pair a Meet-the-Author movie with the art techniques being introduced. For example, include Robert Sabuda on “Making a Pop-up Book,” or Saxton […]