Collage
Artists
Bob Barner
Eric Carle
Melissa Sweet
A crop of Eric Carle's art from The Secret Birthday Message. Click through to enlarge.
Collage is an art form in which compositions are made out of layers, using pieces of paper, cloth, photographs, and other miscellaneous objects, juxtaposed and pasted on a dry ground. It can include a mixture of any number of mediums, textures and dimensions. It can be used to capture texture.
Bob Barner: Ants Rule: The Long and Short Of It
In this paper collage piece, Barner used colored, painted, and decorated papers from all over the world. They were torn and cut into shapes, then assembled and attached to the dry surface background. The juxtaposition and overlay of pieces add depth and texture to the illustration. The sharp lines of the leaves, plus the use of multiple colors and patterns in Barner’s paper choices created a light hearted, colorful and playful image.
Eric Carle: The Secret Birthday Message
On his website, Carle wrote, “I begin with plain tissue paper and paint it with different colors, using acrylics. Sometimes I paint with a wide brush, sometimes with a narrow brush. Sometimes my strokes are straight, and sometimes they’re wavy. Sometimes I paint with my fingers. Or I paint on a piece of carpet, sponge, or burlap and then use that like a stamp on my tissue papers to create different textures.
These papers are my palette and after they have dried I store them in color-coded drawers. Let’s say I want to create a caterpillar: I cut out a circle for the head from a red tissue paper and many ovals for the body from green tissue papers; and then I paste them with wallpaper glue onto an illustration board to make the picture.”
Melissa Sweet: Balloons Over Broadway
“With the art, I was emphatic that some of it be three-dimensional in order for the book to feel like Sarg’s studio with toys and paraphernalia everywhere. I tip my hat to everyone involved at Houghton. To meld photography with paintings in the same book is a feat and they did it with aplomb. Once the book went to press, I think we all inhaled for the first time in months.”
In the School Library Journal, July 13, 2015, Sweet asks,“‘What is the one word that defines this person?’ For Balloons over Broadway (HMH, 2011), Sweet’s tribute to puppeteer Tony Sarg, the word “movement” came to mind. Using the vertical height of the book, Sweet was able to convey the movement of Sarg’s enormous balloons floating high above the parade route.”
http://www.hbook.com/2011/11/authors-illustrators/interviews/five-questions-for-melissa-sweet/
http://gallery.lib.umn.edu/exhibits/show/balloons-over-broadway/mixed-media