Several months ago I was interviewed for an article in my neighborhood magazine,
Cheviot Living, by local resident Gabrielle Michel. (The neighborhood where I live in Los Angeles is called Cheviot Hills, inspired by the hills on the border of Scotland and England of the same name.) Gabrielle did a great job and I thank publisher and editor Joe Schneider for featuring my work and introducing it to my neighbors. I met Joe last spring in conjunction with the Cheviot Art Crawl, an annual event in which artists who live in the area open their studios to the public. I plan to participate in the Art Crawl next spring.
Here is the text of the article:
Meet Cheviot resident and artist Caroline Arnold!
Caroline grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and spent most summers at a small
camp in northern Wisconsin. It was there that she began to develop a love for
nature and the outdoors (which would ultimately become her muse for her art
pieces and environmentally-conscious children’s books, of which she’s written
over 170 to date). Caroline attended Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, where she majored in art and
also studied English literature. Following that, she attended the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, and received her M.A. in art in
1968.
Caroline began writing books for children more than twenty-five years
ago when her own children were small. She illustrated a few books and then worked
with photographer Richard Hewett for many years creating photo essays about
animals. The books she illustrates today are inspired by her experience working
with Richard. They read like true stories, following the lives of animals from
birth to finding independence, and teach simple themes to children about
growing up. The
books have also been a major avenue to showcase Caroline’s art creations of
paper cut-out shapes.
Says
Caroline about her paper cut-outs: “I rely heavily on the
outside edges of each piece of paper because it’s those lines that define the shapes
of the objects. I use flat colors so I depend on contrasting hues and a
layering process to create depth. Thicker art stock paper, when layered, gives
a nice, although minute, three-dimensionality that really brings the animals to
life and allows them to `pop’ off the page.”
Caroline has found that for animals that live underground or
underwater, are active at night, or live in remote locations, often a drawing
is better than a photograph for showing their behavior.
Says Caroline about her books: “[these books] are intended for kids
in early elementary school so the pictures have to be big and bold, with a
poster-effect, and fill both pages, so when a teacher reads to her class, the
students can see the images clearly from the back of the room.” While the
stories themselves are full of information and can be found in school
libraries, they are also good for pleasure reading and are available at book
retailers.
Caroline’s favorite aspect about her art is the fact that it’s so
scalable: while intended as book illustration, it can also be framed or made
into prints to hang on a wall. She’s also used these images to create great
greeting cards.
Caroline’s paintings and drawings have been exhibited in
numerous galleries and competitive shows. Caroline plans on making her Cheviot
Art Crawl debut in 2019. She lives with her husband, Art (name not
coincidentally on purpose), who sometimes helps with photography for her books.
Their children are grown and flew the nest long ago.
To visit her works, see:
