Like Butter …
February 14th, 2012 by jules
waiting for the moonlight / blinking sleepy eyes.”
(Click to enlarge)
I’m just back from being out of town, and jet lag is my enemy.
Okay, so maybe I lined this post up before I left, and I suspect that jet lag will be my nemesis today, but I wanted to share this art with you. This will be short and sweet.
I like to see the illustrations of painter and illustrator Laura Dronzek. There is a soft, dream-like quality to her work that draws me in. Helen V. Griffith’s latest book, Moonlight (Greenwillow, February 2012), illustrated by Dronzek, is about a rabbit waiting for the moon, as you can see above: “Rabbit hides in shadow /under cloudy skies / waiting for the moonlight / blinking sleepy eyes.” When the moon comes out, it covers Dronzek’s night-time scenes in luminescent rays. “Moonlight slides like butter,” Griffith’s write, taking the butter analogy all the way to the book’s end. A “butter trace” is left in the sky, it covers the mountainside, it covers the trees, it “sucks at twigs and branches / like a butter bee,” and more. Indeed, the light “butters Rabbit’s dreams” till he wakes.
It’s a poem of a picture book, though I suspect the butter motif may not be for everyone. For me, it works, and Dronzek’s rich, graceful illustrations shimmer with color, particularly the buttery light. The artwork, bordered with those thick, yellow lines (see below) and rendered in acrylics, are soothing and warm, even given the darker, night-time palette.
And I have trouble imagining how Griffiths’ final line, with the accompanying joyful spread, wouldn’t put a huge smile on the face of a young child: “Rabbit dances in the field / butter on his head!”
Here are two more spreads (without the text). Enjoy.
(Click to enlarge)
(Click to enlarge)
MOONLIGHT. Copyright © 2012 by Helen V. Griffith. Illustrations © 2012 by Laura Dronzek. Images reproduced by permission of the publisher, Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, New York.
Beautiful…I like butter,,,thanks for sharing. It looks like another title to add to my pile.
lovely!
Hope you’re adjusting to returning to your time zone.
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