I am quite interested in hearing what everyone's favorite technique of illustration is. Your favorite illustrator, your favorite illustrated book, and so on. Let talk illustration. There is painting illustrations, drawn illustrations, computer animated illustrations, construction paper cut outs, other types of paper cut outs, many many types of illustration techniques used. What catches your eye the most?
My personal interest in this topic stems from my childhood and continued interest in drawing and art. But also from my experience in class reading the book Golum by David Wisniewski. It features illustrations that were cut out from different types of paper. So intricate these illustrations are, made of castles, people, places, landscapes, most importantly the Rabbi and his clay sculpted savior Golem, the details are outlandish. My favorite part is how he left the small edge of white in each cut out. He did this strategically to give a more contrasting effect. As you can see the detail, the effect looks phenomenal in his pages. Perhaps why it won the Caldecott Medal.
In my opinion, illustrations are what make children's books, I would even go as far to say that they can sometimes be more important than the text. When younger children are just beginning to read they rely a lot of the pictures to figure out the story line as they stumble through the text, sounding out big words that they are unsure of. Also, i've noticed in classrooms I have observed in, when children get the chance to pick a book to read they always flip through the pages to check out the illustrations before they actually read the book. So, the illustrations have to catch their eye and get them interested before they even attempt to read the book.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger and still to this day I love illustrations done in paint. I can't exactly pin point why they appeal to me so much other than the fact that when illustrators use paint I feel like there is an endless amount of colors that they are able to use. I don't have a favorite illustrator, but I do have a favorite illustrated book, No, David. We talked about No, David a couple weeks ago in class, and I used it in a lesson plan I wrote when I was a teacher aid in high school. I love the quirky, disproportional illustrations. The illustrations look like a five year old might have painted them, which makes it so fun to look at. David is drawn with a very round body, noodles legs and arms, and completed with jagged, spaced out teeth. I know if I were a kid flipping through books, trying to find one to read, No, David would most definitely catch my eye.