Illustration Friday # 14: TWIRL

I played with character and movement this week. I started with sketches of children twirling, and this went through many incarnations. Still not sure if this is my favorite, but it's 11:30 on Thursday night...  the next Illustration Friday is knocking on my door...

Illustration Friday # 13: PREPARE (for Chinese New Year)

Chinese New Year is almost here. On January 23, 2012, why not join millions around the world who are welcoming the Year of the Dragon.
A few customs to help PREPARE for the New Year, and to ensure a prosperous and healthy year are:

• Clean your entire home and put away all your brooms and brushes. 
• Pay your debts.
• Resolve difference with friends and family. (What a really great idea!)

When I illustrated Celebrating Chinese New Year: Nick's New Year, I was fortunate to be invited to the home of a Chinese American family. They shared the customs they follow with me, and posed  as models for my illustrations.

Here is one of the illustrations from the book.

illustration by Cheryl Kirk Noll

The text says, "Everyone gets a haircut and wears new clothes." 

This book was written by Rosa Drew and Heather Phillips, illustrated by Cheryl Kirk Noll, and is still  available.

"Celebrating Chinese New Year: Nick's New Year"

Illustration Friday #12: GROUNDED

After all the family time during the holidays, I'm back to trying my hand at new work for Illustration Friday. This week's prompt word was "grounded." Watching my grand-niece, Zoe on the cusp of walking, I was inspired to illustrate this amazing process.

Gus is Grounded! Illustration ©Cheryl Kirk Noll

I am taking inspiration from a baby's tenacity with this task, and sticking to my task of working with watercolor and Photoshop. 

RI Mock Caldecott Award

I had a great time talking about children's books with a group of Rhode Island librarians this week at a Professional Development Workshop where we discussed and voted for the Mock Caldecott Award for 2012. The event was held at the stately William  Hall library on Broad Street in Cranston.

The Caldecott Medal has been given annually since 1938 by the Association for Library Service to Children (a division of the American Library Association) to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.

The real Caldecott Medal will be announced in Dallas at 7:45 a.m. CT on Jan.23, 2012, along with announcements for the Newbery Medal, the Coretta Scott King Book Award and Printz award. The books honored serve as a guide for parents, educators, and librarians. The awards are selected under a cloak of secrecy by national judging committees composed of librarians and other children’s literature experts.

Since I was giving a Powerpoint presentation about children's book design at the workshop, I delved into the criteria for this particular award. Here is my version of the criteria, condensed and simplified:

What is a "Picture book for children?"

• Children up to age 14 are an intended potential audience,

• The book displays respect for their understandings, abilities, and appreciations.

• The book provides the child with a visual experience

• It develops a collective unity of story-line, theme, or concept through...pictures.

Criteria to consider:

Excellence of pictorial interpretation of story, theme, or concept;

Delineation of plot, theme, characters, setting, mood or information through the pictures;

Excellence of execution in the artistic technique employed;

Appropriateness of style of illustration to the story, theme or concept;

Excellence of presentation in recognition of a child audience.

What makes a picture book “distinguished?”

Marked by eminence and distinction, excellence in quality.

Noted for significant achievement.

Individually distinct.

If you want to see the criteria in it's original form, along with all the Caldecott award and Honor Books for the past 75 years, click here for the ALSC site.

A tiny sample of the books that won the Caldecott in earlier years:

2010: The Lion & the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney (Little, Brown & Company)

1963: The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (Viking)

1943: The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton (Houghton)

AND THE WINNER IS...

With the wealth of incredible artists who create stunning visual experiences for children, and stories and characters that ranged from hilarious to profound, the choosing wasn't easy. We started with 30 titles, and voted a bit hurriedly at the end, but these were the picks for this year's Caldecott from a small group of RI librarians and illustrators.

WINNER: Grandpa Green, by Lane Smith.

To read more about the making of Grandpa Green, you'll find a wonderful article and extensive photos on Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. This, by the way, is a site that children's book enthusiasts could study for weeks on end, it has such a wealth of information. To access the Lane Smith article, click here: feature about Lane Smith and Grandpa Green

HONOR BOOK: Me... Jane, by Patrick McDonnell
This beautifully designed book tells of Jane Goodall's childhood dreams, complete with  photographs and excepts from a diary she kept.

 

Me... Jane, by Patrick McDonnell

HONOR BOOK: Blackout, by John Rocco
This is the story of city folks who come out of their apartments when the lights go out in New York City. With a hybrid graphic novel/picture book look, the story is essentially one of family and community.

Blackout, by John Rocco

 

 Here is a trailer about "Blackout."

There are so many wonderful books to choose from. Go check out a few of them on your own!

Thanks to Cheryl Space for putting together such a great event, to Wendy and Walter for coming, and to all the book-loving and insightful librarians for a fun morning.

It will be interesting to see who wins on January 23.

Illustration Friday #11: HIGHLIGHTS (for Children)

For years now, I have had the privilege of working for the children's magazine, Highlights for Children. You've heard of them... Goofus and Gallant, the Timbertoes, and most notably, Hidden Pictures!!

from "The Tennin's Robe," Highlights for Children, copyrighted material

A version of this illustration appeared in the March 2008 issue of Highlights to illustrate "The Tennin's Robe, by Philis Gershator.  I later modified it to send as a holiday card.

Tennins are spiritual beings found in Japanese Buddhist art that have some of the characteristics of western angels. They can fly, and sometimes wear feathered kimonos called hagoromo ("dress of feathers").

Highlights for Children is a family-owned magazine, and they treat their illustrators like gold. Working for them has certainly been a "highlight" of my career. 

Illustration Friday # 10: MESSENGER

Storytellers are messengers, carrying tales from place to place, and generation to generation.

Illustration Friday # 9: SINK

The Lion & the Hare

A ferocious Lion who kills for sport, and terrorizes the animals of the forest. Finally, the animals flatter Lion into an arrangement where one animal a day, drawn by a lot, willingly become his supper. In return, Lion agrees to stop hunting.

When Hare draws the lot, he forms a plan. He arrives late, and tells Lion he was waylaid by another Lion.

"In my jungle?" roars the beast. "Take me to him."

Hare leads Lion to a deep well.

Upon seeing his own reflection, Lion roars and threatens the "other" lion. Then, the enraged beast charges at his own reflection, and proceeds to SINK to the bottom of the well, never to be heard from again.

This story is from the Panchatantra, or "Five Chapters," a collection of ancient Indian animal stories, where a wise old man named Vishnusarman uses tales to teach three young princes how to rule wisely.

The story and this illustration can be found in the January 2000 issue of Calliope Magazine, Ashoka, India's Philosopher King. This magazine, geared towards grades 5-9, focuses on World History.
for more information about the magazine, click here.

The Christmas Cats

I want to brag about one of my former students, Cathren Housley. She's a graduate of the RISD-CE children's book illustration certificate program, and has 3 more book signings scheduled before Christmas for the latest book she illustrated, The Christmas Cats.

If you have a chance, stop by to see her, or order the book online.

Saturday Dec. 17,  2-4 pm
The Providence Athenaeum
reading and workshop
251 Benefit Street
Providence, RI 02903-2709

Dec. 20th, 3:30 to 4:30pm
reading and workshop
Rochambeau Library
708 Hope Street
Providence, RI

Dec 22  7-8pm
Providence Public Library
The P.J. Story Hour
150 Empire Street
Providence, RI

Illustratin Friday #8: Separated

Loss, from The Crane Wife, illustrations ©Cheryl Kirk Noll

The Crane Wife is a well known Japanese folktale. It begins as a story of love and caring, when a poor woodcutter saves the life of an injured Japanese crane. Good fortune follows,  but he allows greed and pride to overcome compassion and thankfulness. 

Thus, he is separated from what he holds dear.

 © illustrations by Cheryl Kirk Noll

,

The Crane Wife, by Ena Keo

I'm thankful that I was asked to illustrate this story early in career.  

The book includes a few images that are still among my favorites.

Illustration Friday #7: BRIGADE, and What I Learned While Researching the Black Regiment

Brigade: A military unit consisting of a variable number of combat battalions or regiments

Battle of Rhode Island, Revolutionary War,  © Cheryl Kirk Noll

Since I had the good fortune to work with RI author Linda Crotta Brennan on a book called The Black Regiment of the American Revolution a few years ago, I'm using one of the images from the book for the prompt "brigade." These paintings were done using traditional watercolor techniques.



I also decided to post about a few things I learned while researching this fascinating subject.

Linda Crotta Brennan gathering information at the reenactment of the Battle of RI.

The book is about a RI Revolutionary War regiment that was comprised of men of color. In 1778, the Rhode Island legislature passed a law that created what was later to be called the Black regiment. "Every able-bodied Negro, mulatto, or Indian man-slave" could enlist. The state would pay owners for their slaves and those who  enlisted would be given the same "bounty and wages" as White soldiers. If they survived the war, they would earn their freedom. Close to 200 men signed up. Most of them served until the war ended.

Here are some of the things I learned. 

1. RI had slaves. 

From "The Black Regiment of the American Revolution," ©Cheryl Kirk Noll

Newport was major port, and a hot spot in the slave trade. 

Rhode Island did not abolish slavery until 1784, a year after the Revolution ended. However, they didn't actually free those who were currently slaves. They freed children who were born after that date, but not until they turned a certain age; 21 for males, 18 for females. 

The last slave in Rhode Island died in 1859, just four years before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. 

Some of the men who fought in the Black Regiment:Primus Brown, Cuff Greene, Jacob Hazard, Ebenezer Mumford, Prince Vaughn. From the muster rolls at the RI Historical Society 

2. Reenactors are knowledgeable and generous folk. 

I was incredibly lucky while researching this book to have the Battle of RI (featured in the book) reenacted in Portsmouth, RI. Over 1,000 men, women and children appeared in authentic costume, set up camp and reenacted the battle.

I talked to many of the participants, and was impressed with the amount of research they had done to be historically accurate. 

My illustrations were also reviewed by RI reenactors, who pointed out fine points, like the difference between tricorns and bicorns, and the importance of having straps strong enough to support heavy ammunition bags. 

Many, many thanks go to them.

Comments on my sketches from RI reenactors.

 3. History is subjective.
Linda and I came across a quote about a skirmish in New York state with a group of loyalists called Delancey's Tories, where Colonel Christopher Greene was killed. It said: "the sabers of the enemy only reached him through the bodies of his faithful guard of Blacks, who hovered over him to protect him and every one of whom was killed." That quote was in dozens of books. 

I wanted to find out what the place looked like for my illustrations, so I went to the Yorktown Museum in Yorktown Heights, NY, http://www.yorktownmuseum.org/ where they had some primary source documents about the skirmish. These  included a loyalist newspaper account, and a document  by a woman who was a child living in the house at the time of the attack, written when she was an old woman. The accounts were different, and neither mentioned the "faithful guard...every one of whom was killed." 

It was an "aha" moment for me. We don't really know exactly what happened, and we never will.

The unit that Greene was commanding was definitely integrated. There is evidence that some black soldiers were captured and sold back into slavery. Maybe the author of the statement had additional information available, but the statement seems woven with a bit of supposition. It really made me think.

4. People of color have been full and active participants in the United States from the get-go. 

This is a ridiculously simple-minded conclusion. Of course, Native Americans were here before Europeans. Long before! But did you know that by many accounts, 1 of 6 men who served in the Revolution were men of color? That Americans enslaved Native Americans in states such as RI? That there were Blacks in Jamestown in 1690? That initially slaves/servants were able to earn their way out of slavery and purchase property, but one by one, laws were passed to revoke these rights for Blacks. Eventually, laws were passed in some places to prevent owners from freeing their own slaves without getting permission from the state.
I discovered so many things that no one taught me in school. I felt amazed, a little embarrassed by my lack of knowledge, and a little angry with simplistic, white-washed educational texts.


5. Rhode Island is a spectacularly beautiful state. 

Of course, I live here, but I really began to appreciate it when I went looking for battlefields, historic societies and armories.

"The Black Regiment of the American Revolution" is still in publication.  It is geared for readers between 8-12. It can be purchased at Apprenticeshop Books, Ltd. Click Here

"The Black Regiment of the American Revolution," by Linda Crotta Brennan, illustrations by Cheryl Kirk Noll 

The story of the men who fought for freedom, both their country's and their own, makes for fascinating reading.