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Amazing ohio kids art – folk art chickens!

Oh how I’ve looked forward to this class.. I am very easily amused and I think chickens are one of the weirdest, coolest animals. Did you know chickens are related to dinosaurs?! True story. For proof, click here. 

I think they look alike, don’t you?

In class today we learned about folk art and viewed some farm related examples of North American folk art, including sculpture and quilts. We sketched chickens in 3 different ways:

Anime chicken by Thatcher. WOW.

Then we chose our favorite chicken sketch and drew the design on large construction paper. We used oil pastels and baby oil to blend bright colors together.

Finally, we collage-d paper squares around our chickens to create a final folk art ‘quilt.’ Here are our final images!

Chicken Quilt by Maura, age 6

Chicken Quilt by Rowin, age 6

Chicken Quilt by Ingrid, age 6

Chicken Quilt by Dexter, age 10

Chicken Quilt by Thatcher, age 7

The post Ohio Kids Art- Folk Art Chickens appeared first on Scribble Kids.

Pigeon Post Holiday Series

November hits, the Halloween decorations are put away, and suddenly everything is Christmas already. Judi Chan & Keith-yin Sun of Pigeon Post have produced a stylish set of folk art influenced Christmas post cards.

Cartoonist Diana Tamblyn has scanned in some illustrations from the 1938 book French Canada: Pictures and Stories illustrated by Hazel Boswell. Diana writes:

My Grandmother had many of these illustrations framed and had them hanging up in her home as they depict scene from Quebec where she grew up.

I grew up seeing them and when she passed away, I inherited them, and they now hang in our home.

I realized I knew nothing about the artist, and so many years later I still found them enchanting. Thanks to some sleuthing and trusty Google, I found they were illustrations from a book written and illustrated by Hazel Boswell called “French Canada: Pictures and Stories”, and was printed in 1938.

It was very popular in its day. I tracked a copy down on Abebooks and thought I would share the wealth with scans of all the illustrations. Enjoy!

Posted by John Martz on Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog | Permalink | No comments
Tags: canada, Canadian, folk art

What is a children’s book without illustrations?  One that doesn’t get read, most likely.  To children, illustrations are an enticement to read the words, not the other way around.  Who can blame them?  As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. 

Illustrations, however, can be more than a trick to get kids to read, they can be time capsules, windows into the artistic trends of the times.  I’m sure I’m not the first to argue that children’s illustration can be viewed as legitimate instead of pop art, but some are still suspicious that because their intended audience is so immature,  the art must also be immature.

Here are a couple examples of beautiful children’s book art that I feel could be found on any museum wall.

As examples of artistic style, or of folk traditions, children’s illustrations can be the most revealing, which is why The Memory of the Netherlands includes so many examples of children’s books as examples of their culture. 

If you squint at this last one, you can imagine that the dentists are fist bumping each other over the boy’s healthy teeth.

The University of Alabama also has a large online gallery dedicated to book bindings by artistic style.  If you always wanted to know what Art Nouveau means, check it out!

Special thanks to Fed By Birds  for pointing me in the right directions to find this neat stuff.

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