The Little Nuthatch — inspirational artists
Inspirational Artists I grew up on... Clement Hurd.
More from my childhood picture book collection, we have The Runaway Bunny. Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd made a great team with Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny. Simple, sweet, and imaginative.
Inspirational Artists I grew up on... Irene Haas.
I love The Maggie B by Irene Haas. I looked up Irene Haas online, and found some more beautiful books, but no information on the artist. Her watercolors are so different, as a watercolor artist I find a lot of inspiration in this book and looking at how she paints. The point that they are in a dark boat comes across, but it's still so colorful!
Inspirational Artists I grew up on... Dahlov Ipcar.
Stripes and Spots by Dahlov Ipcar is one of my very very favorite picture books. I love the specific color palette. I love that all the animals are realistic but look friendly and happy. I just love every page of this book! Upon making this post, I looked to see what else Dahlov Ipcar had done. So many beautiful picture books!! I found that she lives on a farm in Maine, is 95 years old, still painting and showing in galleries. A prolific artist and an inspiring woman.
Inspirational Artists I grew up on... Barbara Cooney.
The next inspirational artist I grew up on I'd like to mention is Barbara Cooney, illustrator of many books, my favorite being one she also authored: Miss Rumphius I love love love this book! The colors and details are the best. There is an interesting article about Barbara Cooney on the penguin website. Barbara talks about her mother being a painter, and the support she received from her mother as a child: "She gave me all the materials I could wish for and then left me alone, didn’t smother me with instruction. Not that I ever took instruction very easily....
Inspirational Artists I grew up on... Gyo Fujikawa.
Here is another inspirational artist I grew up on, Gyo Fujikawa. One of the best! The only book I still have is Fairy Tales and Fables, which all these pictures come from. However, I strongly remember many others such as Oh, What a Busy Day! and Babies (one of the first picture books to feature all races and cultures). She often illustrated things in chart style, little pictures with captions underneath... I've always loved that style, you can tell as I paint my own charts now!