For todays featured artist (which I've been slacking on for the past couple of weeks. School, kids, art commissions...busy lady am I) I chose Dorothy Grider.
As I said in my previous post, the illustrations have stuck with me. I believe that a big part of why I became an illustrator is because of the books I read as a child, and the impact those images had on me. To this day I have a hard time giving a book a chance if the cover sucks. Even if the book doesn't have pictures inside, the cover of the book tells my brain if it looks like a great story or not. My husband has a series of books he loves and wants me to read, but the covers themselves are horrible and I don't want to read them. Silly, I know, but...I'm a very visual person.
Anyways, take a look at these illustrations from "Little Ballerina":
I love that costume!
One thing that really stuck out to me was the different colors of tutus. I just assumed that all tutus were pink, so when I read this book as a little girl, I saw that illustration of her shopping with the yellow tutu hiding in the background. For some reason this was just amazing to me. I wanted that yellow tutu! And then the last image with the yellow, blue, and pink ballet costumes was one of my favorites. I don't know why this was stuck with me so much, but it did. My mom bought me a blue tutu and I remember wearing that until it fell apart.
I don't really know why this book impacted me so much. Maybe it was the fact that my mom was a ballet dancer for 19 years and so I felt this book was a way of taking a glimpse into my moms life as a young girl. I have no idea. I may be very visual, but I'm not good with words, so I can't really describe what I love about art and how certain images make me feel. But I DO love this book, and when I have an extra $50 laying around, I'll buy it. Until then, I'll keep looking in thrift and used book stores and hope that they have one waiting just for me.
