When I was in eighth grade, I learned to oil paint.  Our high school’s art teacher had MS; therefore, she was unable to physically demonstrate the various hands-on techniques we needed to see.  We were urged to read books, study finished paintings–which some of us did.  For my first and only piece, I chose a lazy, sweeping pastoral scene with blue-gray mountains in the distance, bright green pastures containing a smattering of cows, and a large oak tree in the foreground.  The skies were a cornflower blue with a dash of cumulus clouds.  Each day, I eagerly anticipated returning to it, and found the actual execution of it calming and restorative.

When I was finished, I brought it home.  The first thing I heard was, “Oh, that’s very good.”  Pause.  “Perhaps the clouds are a little too perfect.  See here?  They need to be more wispy…like real clouds.”  But there are plenty of perfect, absolutely perfect white clouds in nature, I wanted to say.  But I didn’t.

Instead, every time I looked at the painting, I saw THE CLOUDS.  I felt a little disgust with myself.  How could I have gotten it so wrong?

The painting was displayed, along with all my other classmates’, in the foyer hallway of the school, and in late summer was entered into the Minnesota State Fair in my age bracket.

It won the Grand Prize that year…and I learned firsthand about the objectivity of art.

So, when I saw this incredible book (Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children About Their Art by Philomel Books), I had to pick it up.  A group of illustrators have gotten together and written short letters (complete with pictures) to the budding and hopeful “young artist.”

The book benefits The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, so, of course, Eric Carle opens the anthology by explaining, “In my own life, I have been very fortunate to have had many mentors, or door-openers, as I like to think of them.  First there was my kindergarten teacher, Miss Frickey, in whose light-filled classroom I created some of my first drawings and paintings, and who told my parents to nurture my talent, which they did.”

Ah, elementary teachers.  How lovely when you get an excellent one!  I had several whom I remember fondly.

It’s remarkable in the reading of the book how similar, I think, writing is to drawing, in the sense that both are storytelling.  Steven Kellogg gives an anecdote from his childhood: “One of the most fascinating things to me about drawing was the fact that I could create stories with my pictures.  My two younger sisters, Patti and Martha, were subjected to a process called ‘Telling Stories on Paper,’ during which I would sit between them with a stack of paper in my lap, concocting a rambling narrative and wildly scribbling accompanying illustrations.  I think that those sessions helped to prepare me for the work that I do today, intertwining the verbal and visual elements of storytelling within the turning pages of a book.”

Leo Lionni’s granddaughter tells stories about her grandfather.  When children asked him how he got his ideas, he would respond, “Hard work.”

She continues.  “But why did Leo make books at all?  Why draw, or paint, or make sculptures out of wood, glass or metal?  He did all of those things and more.  He always said that he had ‘an irresistible urge to make things.’  If for some reason he couldn’t make art, he claimed that he’d make bricks or boxes or anything else that he could make with his hands.  Maybe you’re like that, too.”

Petra Mathers eschewed training.  “I didn’t matter that there was no time or money for art classes.  I wasn’t going near a classroom again anyway.  I wanted to learn by myself.  I looked at books about naive and primitive painters from all over the world.  Many of them had never studied art but painted anyway, untroubled by their lack of knowledge.  For example, I remember a painting of a picnic in a summer meadow.  The food basket was gigantic, large enough to put the entire family feasting nearby inside of it.  The sun was shining but there were no shadows on the ground.  I thought it was wonderful.  These painters had their own vision and told their stories unconcerned with rules.”

“The world is waiting for you,” says Wendell Minor.  What a fabulous statement for anyone!

Barry Moser, who has always been one of my favorite illustrators, says, “My daddy told me that I could never make a living at art.  But I persisted in spite of his discouragement and today I live a marvelously happy and comfortable life.  So, my young friend, never let anyone tell you that you cannot do something.  You can.  All it takes–and this is a lot–is the desire to do it, the persistence to learn how to do it well, the courage to stand strong when people around you are discouraging your dreams.  And perhaps most important of all is being willing to fail while you are trying your hardest–but then to pick it up and start over again.”

Jerry Pinkney credits lying in bed on warm summer nights, listening to his parents and their friends telling stories.  He credits, too, the Saturday movies, Westerns in particular, which he and his friends would continue at home afterward.

Alice Provensen bemoans the fact that children are innate artists, and “it isn’t until an adult criticizes the picture and makes derogatory comments–‘Those cars only have three wheels’ or ‘The printing on those stores is too big’ or ‘That person’s legs are too long’–that children lose their confidence and stop drawing.”

Maurice Sendak loved “the graphically vivid, absurdly endearing figures of Mickey Mouse and Charlie Chaplin.”

Gennady Spirin says, “Develop your visual memory.  Nature gives you many chances to do just that.  Draw from memory every day, like Leonardo da Vinci did many years ago.  The ability to draw from memory will give you the chance to expand your creativity, or in other words, to spread your wings.”

This reminds me of the weeks my brother Matt and I would check out all the drawing books in the library.  Matt was far more talented than I.  I always had to copy; he could draw from memory.

Chris van Allsburg (of The Polar Express fame) thought he wasn’t very good at drawing in college, so he decided to become a sculptor.  Later, when he decided to make a picture book, he started with pencils because that’s how he did preliminary drawings for his sculptures, and lo and beh0ld, people praised him for being so original when, he says, he “couldn’t have done it any other way.”

In the end, there’s a quote by Pablo Picasso (something for us all to ruminate on if we’re parents of young children!)–”Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”

Are you grown up yet?  Are you still an artist?

[Post image: Artist to Artist, partial cover]