When I visit schools children often ask me how I came up with the idea for the How Artists See series. The story goes like this: One day I was walking through the Guggenheim Museum in Soho, where a gorgeous collection of watercolors by the Russian artist, Vasily Kandinsky, were on exhibit. On each gallery wall hung several watercolor studies to illustrate the artist's working process; the culmination of which became a final oil painting. Coming to the end of a series of these studies, my eyes fell upon Landscape with Rain. It was absolutely fascinating: how Kandinsky blended the oils to capture the wet, clean vision of a sun shower in a mountain village, how it was at once realistic and abstract, and how it caused me to think of and imagine a rain shower in a different way. Then it dawned on me - wouldn't it be interesting to examine how other artists throughout history have depicted the weather? One thought merged with another and I ended up with the seeds of what would become the first book in the series: How Artists See the Weather. The book went on to win an award from the American Booksellers Association, and I went on to write eleven more volumes in the series: Animals, People, The Elements, Families, Work, Play, Cities, Artists, Feelings, America, and Heroes. I love telling this story to children because it shows them that ideas come when we least expect them, and that art has the power to inspire us to dream, think, and imagine. I hope my books will inspire your children or students to conjure up their own ideas as they discover the many amazing ways that artists see.
