Artists paint pictures of me with cerulean, cobalt and ultramarine (G. Brian Karas) or Sarah Louise's most eclectic post yet

from the picture book, Atlantic.

Today I made it my focus in life to find a beach related book to read to my Mother Goose kids for the winter session, which lasts from the end of January to the end of March. Whilst in the stacks, among chattering children singing "Abiyoyo" and alternating saying "That's not a real word" and the mother of the one group of children showing Abiyoyo the book to the mother of the other children, I found the oevre of works by G. Brian Karas. I remember his earlier work in illustration only, in Car Wash, which uses collage to show what it's like to be in a car while the car goes through the automatic car wash.

Karas also illustrates Beginning Readers (does he write them too?) and so I was familiar with his illustrations right away, his round headed children that are a mix between Charles Schultz's Peanuts characters and Tomie De Paola's people of all sizes.

I fell in love with these three titles: Atlantic, The Windy Day, and The Class Artist.

Atlantic is done in "goache, acrylic and pencil" (from the t.p. verso), is vivid and poetic and a bit chaotic. In first person, the Atlantic Ocean describes him (her?) self to us, talking about fishermen, artists, poets, dolphins, describing its geographic boundaries and its relatives, the Pacific, Indian, Artic and Antartic Oceans. I love the first sentence: "...I begin where the land runs out at the end of yards and streets and hills."

The Windy Day is...windblown. In the statement "About the Art," Karas writes, "The artist worked on the windiest paper he could find. Bits of grass, newspapers, and flowers blow through this breezy book. Pencils, goache, and acrylic paints were also used." The book starts out telling the tale of a breeze blowing through a tidy town. The town is tidy, and rhythmic repetition is used to create a tidy mood. And then WHOOSH! Everything goes topsy-turvy and un-tidy!! Hats, steno pads, cereal and milk, pancakes with pats of butter all go upside down and all over the pages. On the next page, people are depicted yelling at the wind and its chaotic clutter: "My hair?!" cries a man with a toupe. A teacher runs after sheafs of paper, crying, "Come back with my papers!" A yellow paper is centered on the left side of the pages, with the words "wind," "windy," "windier," and "windiest" pencilled in. A boy, Bernard, has a conversation with the wind, which then moves on to another still place, "which was not to be still for very long."

The Class Artist is a typical underdog tale. It reminds me a bit of Tomie DePaola's Oliver Button is a Sissy. I love the honesty on the first page, in both the illustrations and the words:

The first day of school wasn't Fred's best day. "I wish I could draw,' said Fred when he got home. "Everyone says I can't even draw a straight line." "Who's everyone?" asked his sister, Martha. "Frances," said Fred.

Fred sits on his front stoop with his eyebrows furrowed and his backpack open with two scribbly drawings half on the sidewalk, half on the grass. In the next pages, Martha (armed with her jumbo size drawing pad) shows Fred how to draw pilgrims, and Fred is hooked. "Drawing became Fred's favorite thing to do." But then Fred's teacher gives the kids the whole week to work on one project, and as happens often with a large task, Fred is overwhelmed and daunted and spends most of his time worrying about how to position his tipi. Frances, of course, is part of the discouragement process. The days go by, and are depicted in big letters at the top of each page, as different children show each other what they have been drawing. Friday takes up a two page spread and at the bottom of the second page you see Fred in a red spotlight. "It was sharing time, and Fred had nothing to share." It gets bad. Frances is a part of this badness (how easy we are to let one person undermine our creativity) and there is a black page where the words above Fred's head are these: "I give up being an artist."

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I wrote this post in a creative burst on Friday. I can feel the real Sarah Louise coming out of the fog I've been in for almost a month, but I had three very vivid bad dreams this morning, one of them involving (yes, I'm not kidding) a murderer that targeted his victims by sewing death threats onto their comforters while they slept.

Sometimes I wish I really was Sarah Louise. That I could compartamentalize my life, put it in a box, and go off and be Monana or something. But no, I have to live my life, and that life includes bills, working lunches, and wanting to talk to people that are now dead.

I have accepted fear as a part of life--specifically the fear of change. I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back. (Erica Jong)

This is one of those "I would have written a shorter post if I had more time" posts, where I try to fit all my conflicting thoughts into one box and as you can see, I have at least five boxes open. Focus is something I am lacking today. I am wishing for a fairy godmother to say bipidy boppity boo and send me off to the ball. I am wishing for my mother to kiss it and make it all better. I am wishing...but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, so I'll get in the car now and drive to my working lunch.

And the pink shoes (were you wondering the connection?) are for MsCell, who is going through tornado like bursts in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, as she is all out of red ones (you know, like Dorothy's).