The images before him generated a love of detail, an admiration for the creative process, and a curiosity about the hand behind the drawings. When the everyday play stopped, he would follow his imaginary playmates into the pages of books, wandering among dinosaurs in the World Book Encyclopedia. His home and his neighborhood became anything from a faraway planet to a prehistoric jungle. Perhaps it was this decor which awakened his creativity and gave it the dreamlike, imaginative quality so often found in his work.Īs a child growing up in suburban New Jersey, Wiesner re-created his world daily in his imagination. He is frustrated however to find that he must only use certain colors and must copy the teacher's directions.During David Wiesner's formative years, the last images he saw before closing his eyes at night were the books, rockets, elephant heads, clocks, and magnifying glasses that decorated the wallpaper of his room. As school time approaches, he is thrilled because he’s been told that the school has an art teacher and Tommy wants to know more and do more with art. Tommy loves art and has been encouraged to imagine and create since he was tiny. Our narrator closes with, 'I am a good artist.' It is only after this that Carle includes a reproduction of 'Blue Horse' by Franz Marc along with a short biography. However, the story itself is a simple, almost wordless, tale of a child painting-a blue horse, a red alligator, a pink rabbit, a yellow cow and more. The title gives a hint as to the identity of the boy narrator of the story. In his first book in four years Eric Carle honors one of the great artists who inspired his singular style. 32 pages.įind this book: Local Bookstore, Amazon, B&N The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse by Eric Carle.

There are parallels to life as well as the artistic reference. This is another nice book on breaking away from staid traditional representational art and toward experimenting with bolder creativity. Kids will find it odd, but also intriguing. Like much of Wiesner's work this book has a surreal quality.

The whole process has changed their outlook on artistic style and now they both happily return to painting-Art splattering a cactus à la Jackson Pollock and Max creating a pointillist portrait of two other lizards. With other lizards looking on Max eventually recreates Art, this time with glorious pointillist colors. Max's attempts to help only make things worse until Art is just an outline, which, of course, unravels. Taking the suggestion literally, Max paints Art himself at which point a furious Art shakes off the paint and, somehow, his original color and scales. Art is not thrilled with the idea, but he suggests that Max paint him. Art has painted a beautiful portrait and now Max is excited to learn how to paint too.

Art and max david wiesner