Emily Winfield Martin's Blog, page 10

A Very Lazy Gentleman from the 1930s Shrunk Into This Cat

And in the process, his slippers fell off.

Regards from Miette, his Royal Roundness

A Cookie Party

A color sketch from work on my next picture book. As a friend pointed out, the panda does look like he's been poisoned & knows he's done for. Although these are mostly a preparation step, I love them for their unfinished wobbliness (and some I love as much as their finished counterparts.)

Soviet Era Children's Books

I'm always losing my mind a little bit over a lot of things. Right this minute, it goes something like: thoughts of my next picture book, balloons, Manet's portraits, Babar, muffins, girls in blouses, The Museum of Extraordinary Things, sewing dresses, the Bears film etc. etc.

There's also this Soviet era children's book art. All but one of these (the pink elephant) are from this beautiful archive/online exhibition from the Rare Books/Special Collections dept. of the McGill Library.

 

   

The lively, simplified shapes & beautiful, wise use of color and grey-blacks make them so arresting & eternally modern. I think the barracuda/cat/mouse spread is one of my favorite things I've seen.

Now I'm wondering about Beautiful Books, Terrible Times...it looks like a good one.

A Standing Date with Bears

These old friends are one of my favorite sights in one of my favorite places.

They were the first thing I saw when I visited the Museum of Natural History for the first time, ducking out of the hot, crowded New York Summer and finding inside the magic, dark and cool, of that magnificent place. It found me when I most needed it, nearly ten years ago, when I was just out of college and lonely and restless and out-of-place in the city. I walked in on a rare quiet day (it's never been so quiet, ever, on any of my further visits) and laid eyes on this diorama and tears crept into my eyes. We don't have a word for the particular way you love a place, but we need one.

I don't expect it to make sense what the museum means to me, the spell it has, no matter how many times I visit. I keep it in a safe place beneath my ribs, where we keep the books that found us at just the right time, the films and albums, the feeling of being understood, of being loved when you least expected it.

If you ever want to find them, the bears wait for you, huge and grand, in the Hall of North American Mammals.

One Reason Why I love New Old Books

I found this 1930 edition of my favorite Colette book today (the first of the Claudine series, Claudine at School.) It was just sitting there, waiting for me at Powell's & I think it cost some king's ransom like six dollars.

I check the shelves of my favorite authors on most trips to used book stores, because even though I start off with modern editions of most favorite books, I always try to trade up to nice oldie (but readable) copies as I find them.

Plus, old books come with heart-melting little idiosyncrasies like abandoned library card pockets and bookplates (in this case) and sincere inscriptions from aunts and mentors (in other cases). I'd pay extra for those little things.

PS: well-loved cat tote from Leah Goren

More Watercolor Sketchings

Little bits from a fairy tale of the dark, dark woods.

Watercoloring

I have been using watercolors lately and I really love them. They are so different from my usual paints, which are all building and layers and varnishes. Silk chiffon vs. wool.

I was wishing for something a bit lighter & airier to work on a few different things I've got percolating. One thing I'm using them for is to make pictures for a new story I'm writing (like the one above).

This will soon be a black mushroom cavern, all inky and dark, but I liked it white & bright as it is, too.

I'm in the midst of lots of behind-the-scenes work right now.
Lots of it is bookish: I'm writing of an expanded novel from a favorite fairy tale, making sketches for my next picture book, but my mind and sketchbook are also filling up with a few series of new pictures.

I will, of course, share dispatches!
Happy Spring!

Blanche & Cora

One of the most unusual old children's book's I've brought home lately: a nineteenth century chromolithographed book about two girls in florida, a bow & arrow, and a snake. I love the image on the cover so much (and the pamphlet-style book is quite brittle and delicate) so I think I'll probably frame it to keep me company here in my studio.

There is nothing quite like the colors they achieved when printing chromolithographs. There's an irrepressible brightness in the colors and a softness in the shadows...it's hard to define, really. I only know that they're some of my favorite, favorite illustrations and that boxes of postcards and game pieces and scrapbook bits printed this way make me go out of my mind a little.