ART PROJECT FOR KIDS: Eyes in the Dark--Drawing Nighttime Animals

When daytime animals go to sleep, nighttime animals wake up. Imagine what it would be like to go on a nighttime walk and see some of these nocturnal animals peering in the dark. 

Here's how you can make your own illustration of the animals you might see.

You will need:

    Black construction paper.

    Chalk.

    Googly eyes. (You can buy these at a craft store.)

    Glue.

Use the chalk to draw your animals on the black paper. Glue the eyes in place. What kind of nighttime scene did you create?

Animals that are active at night are called nocturnal animals. You can read about both daytime and nighttime animals in my Day and Night books.

OUTLINING LEAVES: Nature Inspired Art Project for Kids

Every plant has its own kind of leaves. On a recent author visit to Ecole Bilingue in Berkeley, California, I saw some wonderful art projects inspired by leaves that the children had collected. Using different colored pens, the students followed the edges of the leaf, making a series of outlines and creating beautiful designs. Each piece of art was unique, just as the leaves are in nature.

This would be a great activity to do in the fall when leaves are turning colors. But it could be done at any time of year when trees are full of leaves.

PRE-SEPARATED ART: Illustrating My Book THE BIGGEST LIVING THING

 

Black plate illustration for pages 6-7 The Biggest Living Thing (Carolrhoda, 1983) Pencil drawing by Caroline Arnold

Today's children’s books are printed with beautiful full color illustrations created with a vast array of artistic techniques—painting, drawing, collage, photography, mixed-media--basically anything that can be digitally color scanned. Those scans are then used to make the printing plates for the book. Typically there are four plates: black, cyan, magenta, yellow. (These are the same colors in the ink cartridges of your home printer.) On the printed page the colors merge to create a full range of hues.

Pages 20-21 of my book Five Nests (E.P. Dutton, 1980). Illustration by Ruth Sanderson.

But in 1980, when I first started publishing books for children, many were illustrated with black-and-white art, especially if they were nonfiction books, like mine. Digital scanning had not yet been invented and the cost of separating colors photographically to make each of the colored printing plates was so high that only the most established artists worked in full color. Many books were printed with black plus in some cases one or two colors. Five Nests, illustrated by Ruth Sanderson, was my first published book.The art was black, plus one color--green.

For most children’s books in those days, the artist was required to make a separate drawing for each printed color. Thus the art was “pre-separated” not needing expensive photographic separation. It was a technical process, converting the intensity of each color to shades of grey and then calculating how the colors would appear when overlapped on the printed page.

Cover of Sun Fun, an activity book.

My first opportunity to illustrate one of my books was Sun Fun (Franklin Watts, 1982) a book of simple projects about the sun and solar energy. It was a two color book. Obviously, I chose yellow for one of the colors. The other color I chose was red. As they overlapped in the printing I could achieve a range of colors from pink and orange to brown and grey.

Proof sheet for page 39. Squirrels help spread Sequoia seeds.

The second book I illustrated was my book about giant sequoia trees, The Biggest Living Thing (Carolrhoda, 1983.) This also was a two color book. I chose brown and green.

Black pencil drawing for pages 23-24. Space at top is left open for text. This Sequoia stump was so big it could be used as a dance floor.

The primary illustrations for the book were done in black pencil. Then working on a light table I created the pages for the two colors being careful to line up the registration marks to make sure that they would be in the correct places when the pages were printed.

Page 22. Two color art. Black plus green and brown.

The Biggest Living Thing was a 48 page book. I began by doing the black-and-white drawings—24 double-page spreads. With the additional drawings for the two colors I did a total of 72 drawings plus a full color painting for the jacket. It was a lot of work--for not a lot of money. After finishing the project I decided to focus my energy on writing books rather than illustrating them.

Jacket of The Biggest Living Thing. Watercolor painting.

Twenty years later the world had changed. Digital separation made it possible to illustrate without pre-separating. I began to illustrate again, this time using a cut-paper collage technique. But that is another story.

Note: The original art for The Biggest Living Thing is archived in the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota.

David Diaz: Ten Easy Steps to Draw a Face

My drawing following David's guidelines

How hard is it to draw a face?  Not hard at all if you follow illustrator David Diaz’s ten easy steps!  I recently watched him conduct a workshop with fifth graders at Paseo Del Rey School in Los Angeles.  Using black markers on white paper and following his example, the students began with a large “O” for the head followed by a squiggly “M” for the eyebrows and nose, footballs and donuts for eyes, until finally, after drawing the nose, lips, ears, neck and shoulders, they had a face!  They then added hair of their own choosing.  By breaking down the process into simple, do-able steps, David made each student feel successful.  Not only had each student drawn a face, each one had created something original.  Every face was different and revealed its own personality.

David then showed examples from his many books, showing how he had used this method for his own illustrations.  It was a delight to meet David and gain some insight into his own creative process and to see him teach art to children.

David Diaz has illustrated more than forty books for children.  He won the Caldecott Medal for his illustrations in Smoky Night by Eve Bunting.  With author Amy Novesky he will be receiving the 2011 FOCAL Award for their book Me, Frida.  FOCAL is the Friends support group of the Los Angeles Public Library. The award luncheon will be held January 28, 2012.  Go to the FOCAL site for more information.