When I was a kid, I loved a book called
The Friendly Book. The text is awful - it's by Margaret Wise Brown, author of
Goodnight Moon, which is wildly over-rated...(I do love the line "Good Night Mush" though).
Seriously, the cover just does not do it justice folks. The whole book is just animals...there are no humans so it's quite a puzzling cover choice.
However, the artwork is amazing. Many of her books were illustrated by Garth Williams. Besides Williams' amazing work for young children, he also illustrated some of my later childhood favorites,
Stuart Little and
Charlotte's Web. Anyway, I found my old copy of
The Friendly Book not too long ago at my parent's house and, well, stole it.
I was determined to paint something from this book and settled on probably my favorite page:
This was on the page with the poem, "I Like Stars". The facing page has more stars and a little village below. It's really quite beautiful and idyllic. I started working on it last winter and sketched and inked the balloon and the rabbit. Then I stopped for one reason or another. A few weeks later, I painted it but I felt stuck as I couldn't mix the right color for the background. Then I was paralyzed by the thought of trying to paint around the balloon (and make it look nice) so I just stopped and worked on other projects.
Finally, with our silent auction coming up (and I am offering my own amateur skills up for the highest bidder) I decided to finish it up for my portfolio, even if I couldn't do it justice. It came out better than I expected although I'm not super happy with it. I think I'll like it better in six months....without further adieu,
I Like Stars.
I Like Stars (2010)
I Like Stars (detail)
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