What I’m Doing at Kirkus This Week,
Plus What I Did Last Week, Featuring Mark Hearld
March 7th, 2012 by jules
spring is just a moon or two away.”(Click to enlarge)
This week at Kirkus, I write about Cynthia Rylant’s Brownie & Pearl series for very young readers, illustrated by Brian Biggs. (As in: I did not even know about this great series, so I contribute my own little barbaric yawp about it to help introduce it to others who also may not know about it. I also acknowledge, however, that I am often just VERY SLOW.) The link will be here on Friday.
Last week, I wrote about the very beautifully-designed and -illustrated Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature (Candlewick, February), written by Nicola Davies and illustrated by Mark Hearld. You can go read all about the book—and me gushing—at this link from last week, but today I share a couple of spreads.
And I just stumbled upon this video (which makes me so happy that I’m going to paste it here RIGHT NOW), which showcases LOTS of Hearld’s art. I love what he says about creating a home, a “wonderful space,” and about creating objects. Best of all, he says that the act of choosing objects to then set up in the space of one’s home is a creative venture in and of itself. (There is hope for me and creativity yet! This is something I can actually do well, I think, whereas many other creative acts simply stump me.)
Enjoy the video and art.
They seem too small to be important, / but watch … the worms are recycling.”(Click to enlarge)
OUTSIDE YOUR WINDOW: A FIRST BOOK OF NATURE. Text copyright © 2012 by Nicola Davies. Illustrations copyright © 2012 by Mark Hearld. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA, on behalf of Walker Books, London.
Oh, WOW. I love Mark Hearld’s worms – the text matches so well with the artwork right there. (I was a die-hard worm rescuer at one time in my life, so this is a subject dear to my heart.) I think I’ll have to stick with attempting to create, because I am NOT good at the having/setting things – I can do it if someone else buys them, but my creativity weirdly does not extend to shopping…
Refreshed and reinvigorated by Hearld’s beautiful work…thanks for the introduction Jules!
This video and artwork is so visually satisfying that I want to go live in the magpie eye room forever. So wonderful and rich and shows such depth to his work. The thought of having one piece of my furniture upholstered in Mark’s artwork is now on my bucket list (OK, I’d even settle for a pillow).
Heavy sigh.
Thanks for sharing Mark’s artwork and the video. He has been one of my favorite artists for a few years since I stumbled into his linocuts online. Now I’m so excited that I can buy this book and enjoy it in my own version of a magpie collection. Yay!!!
Excellent, you all. He is new to me, but hubba holy wow, he’s good.
Beautiful!
Absolutely stunning work! Love the collecting and placing of objects to make a 3-D collage and his textile designs and eye toward domesticity. Old toys! Staffordshire pottery! My kind of artist.
And someone must say it — what a lovely accent :).
How gorgeous! Swoon . . .
Thank you! I had never heard of Mark Hearld. Exciting work!