The Mother Goose Treasury - by Raymond Briggs

I picked up this wonderful vintage children's book a few weeks ago at a local garage sale, and it's gone straight to the top as one of my favourite childrens illustration books!  It's a bit old and worn, but the pages are clean and undamaged and feature the most fabulous illustrations by British illustrator Raymond Briggs. 

The Mother Goose Treasury (first published in 1966, with my version published in 1973) is packed full of children's nursery rhymes, accompanied by Raymond Briggs' whimsical and witty illustrations. 

There are some classic nursery rhymes such as The Grand Old Duke of York, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Baa Baa Black Sheep etc - but there are also hundreds of ditty's and nursery rhymes I've never heard of - including some very strange ones. 

The lively illustrations are a mix of black and white sketches created with an ink pen by the look of it, and colourful painterly pieces, perhaps with watercolour? 

Raymond Briggs is probably most famous for his children's classic 'The Snowman'.  First published in 1978 it's a picture book without words, that was made into an animated film in 1982. 

The illustrations and the animation of The Snowman is fabulous, all hand-drawn with pastels and crayons without any digital or fancy effects, and whilst the film contains no words the music describes the scenes perfectly, and you almost don't notice there isn't any commentary. 

The story is about a young English boy who makes a snowman one Christmas Eve.  The snowman comes alive at midnight and the two share a delightful adventure before the snowman takes the boy on a magical trip to the North Pole to meet Santa Claus. 

If you have a spare 25 minutes it's worth watching The Snowman on You Tube for the animation, and also a beautiful video to watch with children - it so reminds me of my childhood as this was played every Christmas.  Just seeing the snow and the excitment of the little boy takes me back to snowy winters in England a very long time ago! 

Cute vintage children's memory game

How adorable is this children's memory game!  I picked this up recently at the Daylesford Mill Markets, it was only a few dollars as the cardboard box housing the cards was a bit old and battered.  The sweet little cards (measuring 5 x 5cm) are in great condition and I just love all the different pictures and illustrations.  There are 54 pairs of cards in total, with the idea being to spread the cards out picture side down, gradually turning the cards over to reveral the pictures, and to try and remember where all the matching pairs are. 

The game was manufacturerd by John Sands in Australia, 1966, and some of the pictures in the game are taken from 'House of Cards' by Charles Eames - which explains why I love the images so much.

Mixies

 'Mixies' card game from the mid 1950's

 

     Mixies colourful characters in thier 'correct' bodies (above) or a little mixed up (below)

I've been collecting a few second-hand and vintage children's bits and pieces recently, and one of my recent purchases is this fantastic set of 'Mixies' playing cards.  The cards are from about 1956 and is a puzzle-style card game where you can 'mix colourful heads, bodies and legs to make thousands of the zaniest, funniest circus figures!'

I'm loving the crazy circus theme, and of course the fabulous 1950's graphic-style stylised illustrations.  The cards are reminiscent of a non-digital era - pre-computer games, i-pads, Nintendo's, Wii and Angry Birds!      

Animal Farm

 'Animal Farm' children's bedlinen design

The last time I sat down to write a blog post it was the end of summer, and it was hot.  And now in a few short weeks Autumn has well and truly arrived here in Kyneton.  The leaves are turning yellow and dropping from the tree's, mornings are cooler, and my hoodie has made it out from the back of the wardrobe for snuggly evening comfort.

I've been flat out working on some freelance projects, and overseas visitors have also arrived to visit us the grandson, so we have been out-and-about visiting local shops and cafes, markets, and seeing the sights of the Macedon Ranges. 

At one local market we visited, a lady was selling some children's clothes and toys that her son had grown out of.  As I walked passed I spotted some fabric I recognised - it was a children's bedlinen design I created about 3 years ago.  The design is called 'Animal Farm' and not surprisingly given the title, depicts some little farm animals.....cows, sheep, a hen and her chicks, a doggy, cat, duck and some piggies! 

I picked the quilt cover up for little Mr J, I'm not sure whether to save it for when he's a little older and in a big bed, or make him something out of the fabric.  Either way, it's nice for me to have one of my designs that I can use for him - and he might think he has a clever mummy one day!          

The Owl and the Woodpecker

 

 

 

I was really chuffed to come across this Brian Wildsmith book The Owl and the Woodpecker in the
second-hand section of my local bookshop the other day.  Not in the best condition, however at $4 I wasn't complaining!   

The book (published in 1971) tells the story of an owl and a woodpecker who live in a far-away forest.  The woodpecker lives in a tree where he sleeps all night and works all day - however - in the tree next door lives an owl, who likes to work all night and sleep all day!  All the animals in the forest get together to resolve the disagreement between the angry birds, so that peace can return to the forest.

It's the fabulous illustrations by Brian Wildsmith that captured my attention - Wildsmith has created a series of lively, expressive and frenetic animal illustrations to accompany the story.  Painted in what appears to be layers of gouache, oil pastel and the occasional use of collage, the multi-textural illustrations are playful and portray a sense of movement and energy on each page. 

I love Brian Wildsmith's freedom and relaxed illustrative style, and these colourful animal illustrations are really delightful (the photographs don't do them justice)..... and they make me want to rewind my life by several years and go to study illustration at college! 

There are some more examples of Brian Wildsmith's work on my blog here and here. 

Up, up and away.....

Towards the end of last year I was commissioned to create a range of young girls and boys coordinated designs for ceramics and bedlinen application.  These sweet children's designs have an old-fashioned flight theme, with hot air balloons and vintage air planes.  

 

The designs were originally drawn in black ink, before being scanned into the computer for adding the colour.  This results in the artwork retaining a hand-drawn feel, but making different colourways very easy.        

 



The Big Brown Bear - book & record

The Big Brown Bear - a little golden book and record!   

Well, here we are.... one week into the new year and January is already racing by with lightning speed!  I managed to find time over the festive period to have a rummage in my local charity shop, and found this super-cute 'Read and Hear' Little Golden Book AND record! (a 45 RPM for those old enough (like me) to know what this means).

The story is written by Georges Duplaix and illustrated by Gustaf Tenggren (copyright 1944, 1947) and tells the story of a naughty bear who gets stung on the nose after stealing some honeycomb from a beehive, whilst he was supposed to be out catching fish for his dinner.

It's been a mighty long time since I've seen a 45 RPM record, and it reminded me of the little portable orange record player I had as a child. Sadly, I no longer own a record player so I can't actually play the record, but I still thought the book and record set was too good to resist!

A rather quirky second-hand kids cook book!

'My Fun-to-Cook Book' illustrated by Martin Mayhew 

I picked up this rather quirky children's cook book from a second-hand book shop recently.  First published in 1969, it's full of these fabulously crazy child-like illustrations by Martin Mayhew which appear to have been done with coloured texta's, felt tips or magic markers.

I love the care-free and relaxed style of the illustrations, and the cute visual step-by-step diagrams to accompany the recipes and cooking methods.  The illustrative style is such a world away from sophisticated computer generated illustrations or stylised photography, but I can see how these simple and fun images would relate to children, and make cooking seem quite easy.

I love having these sort of books as reference material to remind me that everything doesn't have to be 'perfect' or too finished, sometimes a quick scribble can be just as visually effective as a fully polished piece of artwork. 

Jasper's 1st birthday books

Cute animal flash cards by Eric Carle

Brian Wildsmith's fabulous animal illustrations in 'Animals to Count'

The little guy celebrates his first birthday!

Little Mr J celebrated his first birthday a few weeks ago (1 already.....where did that year go ?!) and he received some lovely illustrated books just for turning one! 

I love the set of Animal flash cards by Eric Carle - who is most famous for his 1969 book The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  The cards feature Eric Carle's simplistic, collage-style illustrations of animals on one side, with upper and lower-case letters on the reverse.  Whilst Mr J is still a little too young for learning his alphabet, it's fun showing him the animal pictures with their naive and quirky shapes, textures and colours.  (OK, I do also enjoy trying to impersonate some of the animals too.....anyone have any ideas for how an octopus / quetzal / buffalo or Jellyfish sound?!.....)

Brian Wildsmith's Animals to Count book is full of Wildsmith's very cute and lively animal illustrations - and this book might find it's way from the babies room onto my bookshelf!  It's only a very small A5 sized book, but I love the illustrative style of Brian Wildsmith and his animal depictions.  I've blogged about Brian Wildmith's work before with my book Python's Party and the Illustrated Children's Books.

Happy 1st Birthday little man! x x