Analysis of a Picture Book Featured Illustrator: David Wiesner By: Michele Mushall June 2007.

Analysis of a Picture BookFeatured Illustrator: David Wiesner

By: Michele Mushall

June 2007

David WiesnerBackground

• David grew up in suburban New Jersey.• As a child, David enjoyed wordless comic books and

silent movies.• He has been interested in telling stories through pictures

since he was a teenager. • David took a liking to stories which used the panel

format. He enjoyed how the panels changed the pace of the story, especially the use of little panels to stretch out action, almost like slow motion.

• Growing up, his parents encouraged painting and drawing. His father brought home an old drafting table for him. The table was a springboard for David’s creative process.

David WiesnerInfluence

• David was first influenced by the Renaissance painters, such as Michelangelo and daVinci. He became interested in their realistic, academic style.

• He focused on the backgrounds in their paintings and the stories that they told.

• He also was influenced by the Surrealists, such as Magritte and De Chirico. He was attracted to the odd and the strange aspects of their paintings.

David WiesnerCreative Process

• Before illustrating a book, David thinks about how the reader’s eye is going to navigate through each page. He sets this up before he begins his illustrations.

• David begins each project with a sketchbook. • He then cuts out his pencil drawings and

arranges them to the actual page layout.• Next, David draws each illustration on tracing

paper to the actual size that the painting will be.• Lastly, David paints his final pictures for the

book.

David WiesnerCreative Process cont…

• David was asked to paint the cover for Cricket magazine, in March 1989.

• He began thinking about what happened to the frogs before and after the painting. What were their personalities like?

• This cover became the launching pad for David’s book Tuesday.

Analysis of David Wiesner’s Tuesday

Tuesday synopsis

• Tuesday is a nearly wordless picture book. • The story begins on any given Tuesday at about

8:00pm. • Frogs and toads on their lily pads, raise up and

begin to float through the air. • They fly to a nearby town and explore a sleeping

granny’s house, pester a dog playing in his yard and surprise a man who is up for a midnight snack.

• They finish their adventure at sunrise. • David concludes Tuesday with a glimpse of a

future Tuesday….flying pigs.

I chose to analyze this illustration from David’s book Tuesday.

• David effectively uses panels to slow the reader’s eye down. • He uses large, detailed watercolor illustrations, with lighting

effects to create dramatic night time scenes. • His large, precise drawings enhance the facial expressions

of the frogs, dog and people in Tuesday.• In this top panel of the illustration, David creates a calm

looking frog, flying peacefully through the air with a gentle breeze as indicated by the leaves behind him.

• The frog’s body appears relaxed, almost as if he is gliding on a magic carpet. David effectively creates the illusion of movement.

• In this next panel (middle of the three), the frog is caught off guard by an oncoming dog.

• Suddenly, movement is halted and the frog is forced to “put on the brakes”, in an effort to not collide with the dog.

• David creates a different direction of movement in this panel. In the first panel, the frog was moving along in a left/right direction. In this second panel, the frog’s sudden halt suggests to the reader that a change in direction is ahead.

• The reader’s eye is brought quickly to the third and last panel on the page…anxiously awaiting the outcome of the frog.

• In this last panel, David creates a panicked looking frog, heading in the opposite direction. He is cowering down on the lily pad, trying to gain speed to escape the chasing dog.

• The frogs face is very different from the first relaxed frog. He appears much more tense. It is especially noticeable in his eyes as he fearfully glances back at the dog over his shoulder.

• The same three leaves carry through each panel, helping to create the illusion of movement.

• On this page, David uses dominance, making the frog and dog larger and brighter than the hedge and neighborhood in the background.

• David gives a feeling of harmony with the repeated hedge and darkened neighborhood carrying through each of the three panels.

Analysis of David Wiesner’s The Three Pigs

The Three PigsSynopsis

• The Three Pigs starts out like the traditional story, until the wolf tries to blow down the straw house. When he puffs, he blows the pig right out of his house and off of the page. This sends the pig into a space outside of the story where he is safe and sound and ready to explore. The second and third pig join him in an adventure into the imagination. They enter into the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle and later rescue a dragon from a prince. The three pigs end up back in the brick house with their new friends, free from the wolf.

The Three PigsInspiration

• David has always been fascinated with the idea of characters leaving a story and moving into the space outside of the page.

• He was first introduced to this concept as a small child when he was watching Bugs Bunny. The cartoon characters would run on and off the page. This concept amused him.

• He pondered the idea of shifting realities for many years. He decided to pick a recognizable story, such as The Three Pigs to be a vehicle for his idea. In addition, the three pigs had a great reason to leave their story.

The Three PigsIllustration technique

• In The Three Pigs, David used a variety of techniques in his illustrations, including watercolor, gouache, colored inks, pencil, and colored pencil.

• These different techniques help to create the feeling of leaving one reality and entering another. Speech bubbles are used to create conversation between the pigs when they are out of the original story.

I chose to analyze this double page spread from David’s book

The Three Pigs

David created the pigs and wolf on the pages of the storybook in an abstract style. They have softer, more exaggerated features, almost cartoon like. As the pigs leave the page, David uses more pencil and ink lines to create texture and

details, making the pigs look more realistic. The left side of the double page spread shows the two pigs in both worlds,

embarking on a new adventure.

David’s use of panels in the story lends well to the storybook pages flying away. He effectively uses speech bubbles to

emphasize the pigs “side-bar” conversation when they are out of the story. When first looking at this double page spread, my

eye was focused on the pigs jumping off of the page on the lower left. David creates excitement with the pigs cooking up a

new adventure after narrowly escaping the pig.

Caldecott Medal

• David Wiesner was the 1992 Caldecott Medal winner for outstanding picture book for Tuesday.

• In 2002, David was also the Caldecott Medal

winner for The Three Pigs.

• David’s newest book Flotsam won the 2007 Caldecott Medal.

Bibliography• CBC Magazine. Retrieved May 18, 2007, from CBC Magazine: Meet

the Author/Illustrator: David Wiesner Web site: http://www.cbcbooks.org/cbcmagazine/meet/david_wiesner.html

• Horning, K (1997). From Cover to Cover. New York: Harper, Collins. • Macaulay, D (2007). A Tribute to David Wiesner. Retrieved May 15,

2007, from Houghton Mifflin Books Web site: http://Houghtonmifflinbooks.com/authors/wiesner/bio/bio2_macaul.shtml

• Wiesner, D (2001). The three pigs. New York: Clarion Books. • Wiesner, D (1991). Tuesday. New York: Clarion Books. • (2001, August 6). David Wiesner. Retrieved May 15, 2007, from

TeachingBooks.net Web site: http://www.teachingbooks.net/search.cgi?searchtype=author&search=wiesner&quick=