Collage illustrations in children’s literature

Speakers

Joan McCracken and Mary Skarott

Mihi and acknowledgements

Joan McCracken: Nau mai, Haere mai. And a warm welcome to the June edition of Connecting to Collections Online. Ko Joan McCracken ahau, I'm with the Alexander Turnbull Library's Outreach Services Team. And I'm delighted you've joined us today to learn more about some special items in the Library's children's literature collections with my colleague Mary Skarott.

Before Mary starts her presentation, I have a little housekeeping. As you'll have seen when you joined the webinar, it is being recorded. And as this is a webinar, your videos and microphones are turned off. However, if you have any general questions or comments, then please add them to chat.

If you have any questions for Mary, then please add those to Q&A. You'll find both buttons at the bottom of your screen. My colleague Lynette and I will be monitoring chat and Q&A. At the end of the presentation, we'll pass on any questions we receive to Mary.

We will also be adding some links to chat during Mary's talk. If you want to save those links, click on the ellipsis, the three dots beside the chat button, and select Save Chat. To open our talk today, we have as our Whakatauaki a verse from the National Library's waiata “Kōkiri kōkiri kōkiri” by our Waikato-Tainui colleague Bella Tarawhiti.

Haere maie e te iwi
Kia piri tāua
Kia kite atu ai
Ngā kupu whakairi e

And now, it's my great pleasure to introduce my colleague Mary Skarott, Research Librarian, Children's Literature at the Alexander Turnbull Library. Welcome, Mary.

Introduction

Mary Skarott: Thanks very much, Joan. Kia ora koutou, and thank you for coming along to this talk today. I'm going to show you some artwork by artists who have used collage and cut paper in their illustrations for children's books. The collections I have drawn on for examples are the National Library's children's collections, specifically the Dorothy Neal White collection, and the national children's collection.

Together, these collections tell the story of the development of children's literature in New Zealand and around the world from the 19th century to the present day. You can find more information about the collections on our website. And Joan will put a link to the children's literature research guide into the chat. And we'll also add a few more links about some of the artists as we go along.

Traditions of cut paper and collage techniques — Jianzhi and Wycinanki

Before we start looking at today's selection of artists and their books, let's just remind ourselves of some of the rich history of cut paper and collage techniques, which have inspired and influenced the works of children's illustrators. Starting at the top right, you can see an example of traditional Chinese paper cutting, or jianzhi, which developed around 2,000 years ago, following the invention of paper.

Poland also has a rich history of cut paper folk art, in those bottom right two images, Wycinanki, which began in the 1800s and became a popular decoration for walls and beams in people's homes. Wycinanki was originally cut using sheep shears because they were often the only cutting instruments available to people in rural areas.

Numerous regions in Poland have distinct paper-cutting traditions, which have been handed down from generation to generation. Also on this slide are some examples of popular Victorian recreations. Firstly, center top, the creation of collage pages in purpose-produced scrapbooks using lithographed images or scraps that were produced especially for the purpose.

Papers silhouettes

There were many categories of scrap images, including flowers, birds, animals, cupids, fans, and landscapes. And in the top left, we have some silhouettes. Cutting silhouettes, particularly portraits, were something of a craze in the 18th century and became a popular parlour pastime, engaged in by well-to-do Victorian households, at least until photography became easily accessible in the mid-19th century.

Here are some more examples of paper silhouettes from 18th-century Europe. I should note that when they were made as portraits, which was often the case, they were known then as shades or profiles. But the term silhouette is the one that has remained in use.

I should also say that while silhouette conjures up for me a mental image of an artwork produced with scissors and paper, they were often made in other media as well, such as Indian ink, oil paint, or works produced variously on ivory glass and plaster.

You might be familiar with Arthur Rackham as the illustrator of detailed pen and ink and watercolour fantasy artworks, often depicting the fairy realm. But he also produced two masterful works in silhouette, Cinderella in 1919 and Sleeping Beauty in 1920. Rackham chose this technique to bring what he thought was a more modern look to his work.

We should also remember that this is just after World War I, when there was less of a market for expensive and lavishly illustrated books. So another factor he considered was that black and white pictures were much cheaper to produce. For these books, he took stylistic inspiration from the 18th and early 19th century silhouettes that we've just been looking at, setting his Cinderella visually in the 18th century, using the distinctive clothing and hairstyle outlines of the period.

Rackham was inspired by paper-cut silhouettes but produced his own silhouette work in paint. Here is another that's very 18th century. Other artists around this time also employed silhouettes. And again, their artwork appears to have been rendered in ink or paint rather than cut paper.

Here, we have a silhouette by American poet Rachel Field, who illustrated her own book of verse entitled, The Pointed People, first published in 1924. And here are images by Danish silhouette artist Elsa Hasselriis from Shen of the Sea by Arthur Bowie Chrisman, originally published in 1925.

I think the influence of Chinese cut paper art can clearly be seen in the framing patterns here. These illustrations don't use cut paper. But shortly, I'll be showing you some work by Ed Young, an illustrator who did use actual Chinese paper-cutting techniques in his illustrations.

Jan Pienkowski

To conclude our look at silhouettes, I've chosen a master in the field, Polish-born Jan Pienkowski. He spent his early years in Poland until the age of 10, before his family went as refugees to England in 1946. He lived in England for the rest of his life. But his childhood had a lifelong influence on his art.

In an interview with The Guardian in 2006, following the publication of this compilation of fairy tales, he described the influence of the silhouette on his art. He says, “the profile is everything. I think the visual impact of trees seen against the sky is what explains the prevalence of the silhouette as a traditional art form in the heart of Europe, from the Black Forest to Southern Poland.”

He produced a prolific body of work, illustrating more than 140 books, many of these employing fantastical black ink silhouettes. This example shows his trademark style, taking the traditional silhouette and giving it his own character by adding a vividly-coloured backdrop. In his book of Polish fairy tales titled, The Glass Mountain, Pienkowski produced illustrations completely in cut paper, using scissors and pinking shears, inspired by the traditional paper cuts he remembered from his childhood in Poland.

Also from his interview with The Guardian are these memories of traditional paper cutting in Poland. He said, “as a child, I would sit at the table cutting paper decorations for Christmas. And at Whitsun, it was the custom for a local paper cutter to come to the house to make new paper curtains for the kitchen. I loved watching, especially when she unfolded it at all.”

His choice of vibrant colours and strong shapes gives the pictures real life and vigour. Here's another one. And this lovely dragon is from the title story in the collection The Glass Mountain. I should say that this book is the only one in the talk that isn't held at the National Library. This is my own copy.

And this wonderful rooster is from the story, The Fern Flower. Although he is using traditional techniques here, these illustrations are still unmistakably Pienkowski's work. The powerful, sharp-edged etches and strong colours are a feature of much of his work, including his Meg and Mog books that many of you will be familiar with.

Ed Young — Traditional cut paper techniques

Another artist who has taken inspiration from traditional cut paper techniques is Ed Young. Young was born in China and moved to the US in 1951 when he was 20. The illustration we're looking at here is from Jane Yolen's retelling of The Emperor and the Kite, a runner-up to the 1968 Caldecott Medal.

I was amazed when I learned that the illustrations for this book are cut paper. Young has taken the intricate forms of traditional Chinese paper cutting and added subtle washes of colour. To reproduce the works for the printed book, they were mounted on glass and lit from both sides.

I really like the way he has contrasted the delicacy of the cut-out paper patterns with blocks of solid colour, seen in the black figures here and in the emperor's robes in this image. I'll just give you a little time to enjoy that.

Collage illustrations

Now, I'm going to move on from traditional paper-cutting techniques to the wider world of collage illustrations. I'm sure most of us have at some time in our lives made an artwork which involved cutting up coloured paper or magazine pictures, glueing them down, and perhaps also glueing down other objects to form part of the finished piece. The immediacy and ease of the process can make it less daunting than doing a drawing or a painting. However, although the methods used might, on the face of it, seem easy, producing the collage artworks we are going to see today takes considerable imagination, talent, and skill.

While I was preparing for today's talk, I watched a YouTube video of Eric Carle working in his studio. When talking about his collage technique, he disarmingly looks straight at the camera and said, anyone can do it. You can do it. It certainly is true that anyone can do a collage. But not everyone can do a collage like Eric Carle.

Leo Lionni

We'll look at some of Eric Carle's work shortly. But I'm going to start this section by looking at Leo Lionni, who was the first artist to use collage as the primary medium to illustrate children's picture books. His first picture book was published in 1959, Little Blue and Little Yellow.

Sadly, we don't have a copy of this at the Library. But we do have his next book, Inch by Inch, published in 1960. He used decorated paper collage, as seen here, cut into simple graphic shapes. His illustrations have a lovely simple crispness to them.

He started his career as an art director in advertising, which I think is evident in his illustrative style. You can see in these detailed images how he has used crayon and paint to create texture and pattern on the paper before cutting the shapes out and creating his collage. And here, he has made clever use of a black paper background to give added vibrancy to his coloured papers.

And here is an example from his book Frederick, which also was a Caldecott Honor Book in 1968, along with Ed Young's The Emperor and the Kite that we just saw. So that was a very good year for cut paper and collage illustrations.

Ezra Jack Keats — The Snowy Day

This next image I'm sure needs no introduction to many of you. Here, we have Ezra Jack Keats Caldecott Medal-winning, The Snowy Day, from 1962. Keats had considerable previous experience as an illustrator. But The Snowy Day was his first foray into collage.

He used cutouts of found materials and paper he had decorated himself. And he also made stamps. For example, the snowflakes are carved from erasers. I think it's a bit like making a potato print or similar kind of idea. He created luminosity in the snow by painting over pink paper with white paint.

Another example of Keats's use of collage can be seen in Jenny's Hat, published in 1966. It is interesting to see how he has incorporated a photomontage technique in these illustrations to build up the layers of Jenny's wonderful hat and really give it dimension. The technique gives the hat a striking visual connection to the Victorian collage tradition. Remember the scrapbook page that we looked right at the beginning?

Eric Carle — The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Also, beginning his career in collage illustration in the 1960s was Eric Carle, the creator of the hugely popular and enduring, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. His particular technique, which he used throughout his long career, was one he learned as an art school exercise.

He started with large sheets of tissue paper, which he cut colourfully decorated with paint and then cut up to create his artwork. He stored his prepared sheets in colour-coded drawers in his studio. Delicate, drawn-in details were sometimes added to the finished art, for example, the little hairs on the very hungry caterpillar's back.

And you can see here some of the very well-known images from The Very Hungry Caterpillar, including the little finger holes that children love. And here is a look at a book from later in Eric Carle's career, The Very Quiet Cricket, published in 1990. He continues to express his love of the natural world in his artwork.

And I think these images show his complete mastery of collage as his medium of choice in his composition cutting techniques and use of colour and texture. Coming up, we've got a couple of close-ups from The Very Quiet Cricket. This beautiful insect, which I neglected to identify when was looking at the book. The next one is a lovely bumblebee.

Enjoy the bumblebee.

Lois Ehlert

Another illustrator who expressed their love of nature in their work was Lois Ehlert. Now, we are in the 1970s. And this is an early book by her, illustrated using her favourite medium of paper collage. She was known for her use of bright colour and bold shapes, as seen here.

I think the look of this book has a real '70s vibe to it. And the paper she has used looks just like the shiny craft paper I remember using to create artwork at school in the 1970s. This next slide shows what I think of as her signature style, which she used in numerous books, boldly cut shapes and intensely bright, saturated colour blends using painted papers that she created herself.

Nature and gardens and particularly fruit and flowers were often a central theme in her books. Here's one more by her. This one's about the life cycle of a butterfly.

Steve Jenkins — Paper collage purist

Now, we're going to look at an artist who could be called a paper collage purist.

American-born Steve Jenkins initially trained as a graphic designer. He began his illustrating career in 1994 and created more than 80 books for young readers that explore aspects of the natural world, science being a particular passion of his.

His intricate cut and torn paper collages were created using handmade papers that he purchased. And he made a point of not embellishing his work with any other media at all, so even the smallest details are cut in paper.

He used an X-ACTO knife to cut his shapes. You can see his graphic sensibility in the precise composition of his works. And here, you can see how skillfully he creates the softness of fur by tearing the paper edge to add texture and depth.

When talking about working in collage in preference to drawing or painting, which he felt he wasn't very good at, Jenkins said, “the paper can do a lot of the work that would have to be expressed in some other way with brush strokes or pencil shading. It's the nature of the paper.” And here are some more examples of his work.

Look at the intricate layering in the thrushes throat feathers, and the finely-cut hairs on the fly's body, and the amazing glowing tail on the firefly. Remember, every part of this artwork is made from cut and pasted paper.

Helen Ahpornsiri

Other artists might choose to work exclusively in other collage media. And one particularly lovely example of this is Helen Ahpornsiri, who produces illustrations made entirely from dried flowers and plants. These images are from her book Drawn from Nature. The art of pressing flowers, plants, and even seaweed to create an artwork is another pastime that, like the creation of collage scrapbooks, was very popular in Victorian times.

She has actually produced another book Beneath the Waves, with illustrations composed entirely from seaweed, algae, and coastal plants. On YouTube, you can find some mesmerising time-lapse sequences of Helen producing her meticulously detailed works, using a blade and tweezers to cut and manipulate the delicate plant material. Joan's going to pop a link to one of them in the chat.

Micha Archer — Multi-media approach

Now, we're going to look at some examples that take more of a multi-media approach, that is to say, the collage is combined with other elements, such as drawing and painting. In her Caldecott Honor book Wonder Walkers, Micha Archer skillfully blends painted elements with collage to produce her illustrations. In this picture, the painted figure of the girl is combined with collage created using tissue paper and patterned papers that the artist created herself.

And here, the girl sits in an intricately collaged tree. It's hard to see where the painted elements end and the collage begins. And in this picture, we can see the painted beach behind the amazing way that she's chosen to show the slanting rain coming down with tiny strips of decorated paper. Enjoy that while I take a sip of water.

Bryan Collier — Paper collage and watercolour

The next examples are by multi-award-winning American artist Bryan Collier. He works in a combination of paper collage and watercolour. And like many of the artists we have already seen who use painted papers to create their collage, Bryan Collier uses clippings from magazines and newspapers for his collage elements and combines these with paint to create his artworks. You can see in this illustration from Martin's Big Words, a book about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, how he has combined the two mediums to create his own unique style.

In the illustrator's note, he says, “in illustrating The Life of Dr. King, I wanted to bring a fresh spin to a story that's been told many times. In some places, the imagery had to stay true to history. In others, I tried to push it to an emotional level that allows the reader to bring his or her own experience to it without actually losing the intensity or the intention of the story. College is a perfect medium for this. It allows me to piece together many different things that have no relationship to each other until they're put together to form a oneness.”

In this picture, I particularly like how he has used a bold patterned black and white paper clipping for the women's dress. And by contrast, he has so subtly combined collage and paint to create the reflections in the window. Here's another powerful image from Martin's Big Words.

And the images coming up as some of his illustrations from Nikki Giovanni's book about Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks. In the illustrator's note for this book, Collier talks about a research visit to Alabama. He says, “when I arrived in Alabama, the first thing I noticed was the heat. That is why my paintings for this book have a yellow, sometimes dark hue. I wanted the reader to feel in that heat the foreshadowing an uneasy quiet before the storm.”

Lauren Child

Our next artist is Lauren Child. She also uses a combination of artwork and collage to create her mixed media works. But her artistic style is in total contrast to Bryan Collier. These images are from her Greenaway Medal-winning book, I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato, featuring siblings Charlie and Lola.

At the core of a successful picture book is a sympathetic connection between the tone of the text and the illustrations. And Lauren Child's humorous and quirky collages are totally in sync with her stories of family life.

And here is another example of Lola being Lola, this time by refusing to go to bed. Well, of course, she does, eventually.

Local examples — Ali Teo and Astrid Jensen, Kate de Goldi and Jacqui Colley

And now, two local examples in the same quirky and fun-loving vein. Firstly, Ali Teo and Astrid Jensen's charming illustrations on Tekiteora, Kei Hea o Hu, later published in translation as Oh Hogwash, Sweet Pea!

I really like the juxtaposition of photographic collage elements with the drawn artwork, particularly the piece of toast, and the apple, and the banana.

And here's another local book, multi-award winning Clubs by Kate de Goldi, illustrated by Jacqui Colley. It is a story that really captures the complexities of childhood friendships and how they feed into school playground crazes that I'm sure we all remember. What I especially like about Jacqui Colley's pictures is the way the collage elements pop out visually to give a 3D effect, for example, in these details, the paper clip and luggage tag in the left-hand image and the stars and the stage curtain on the right.

The way that collage can be used for three-dimensional effect on the use of found objects and materials beyond paper and cardboard is something that a number of illustrators have explored to its full potential. This example is taken from the end paper of Shaun Tan's The Lost Thing and makes a connection to the bottle top collecting hobby of the main character.

Denise Whitmore — Pepetuna and collage with depth and dimension

Another example of artwork that explores the potential of collage to add depth and dimension is by Denise Whitmore from her book Pepetuna about the years-long lifecycle of the puriri moth. We can see here her depiction of the moth, using materials including lace, thread, paint, and what looks like mesh or canvas.

And here, she has used soft fabric, maybe white velvet, together with paint, lace, beads, buttons, and thread.

And here, she has incorporated plant material, the fern, and stitching.

Ed Young — Wabi Sabi

We have already met Ed Young today, as the illustrator in cut paper of The Emperor and the Kite. He has had a long career and uses a variety of media in his illustrations. And here, we've got a book that he chose collage for, Wabi Sabi.

Talking about the collage process, he said, “it's easier to change around. Nothing is permanently pasted down. It's flexible and alive. With other mediums, you often get tight to quickly. And then, you get attached to it. And it's hard to change.”

He had to produce the illustrations for Wabi Sabi with a deadline of only weeks, when the original illustrations were lost after being delivered to his agent. The story is about a cat named Wabi Sabi, who lives in Kyoto. She goes on a journey to find out about the true meaning of her name.

Wabi Sabi is a Japanese aesthetic concept that finds beauty and serenity in objects, landscapes, designs, et cetera, that are simple, imperfect, and impermanent. Bearing this in mind, Ed Young says, “so when I started my second version, I decided to use Wabi Sabi materials. Wabi Sabi does not occur when something is newly made because it hasn't got to that point where the soul is revealed. New things don't have stories to tell.”

Jeannie Baker — Collage construction

And now Jeannie Baker, who I'm sure is familiar to many of you. She's an English-born Australian illustrator and author. Her medium of choice is what she describes as collage construction. This is the endpaper construction from one of her earlier books, 1984's Home in the Sky.

She says, “the materials and techniques I use vary from one project to another. I enjoy the continual challenges this medium gives me to invent techniques and explore and experiment with materials and their textures.” She goes on, “the work is quite two-dimensional. And I play with the little real depth the work has and a strong illusion of perspective that's created.” Which I think you can certainly see in that flock of birds.

And here are some images from one of Jeannie Baker's more recent books. Circle is about the migration of the godwit.

She cleverly uses the visual motif of the curvature of the Earth throughout the story to symbolise the enormous journey of these tough little birds. Here's some detail from the book showing the beautiful textures and colours. I particularly like the way she positions the birds off the background to give a sense of depth to them flying in the sky.

Melissa Sweet

Like Jeannie Baker, Melissa Sweet also uses collage constructions. This is her book Balloons Over Broadway. In this book, they are combined with illustrated pages. So when the collage is used, it has extra impact. So this book received the Sibert Medal, which is an award for nonfiction.

And this picture book biography tells the story of puppeteer Tony Sarg, who was famous for his work on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York. I think one of the most fun details I've found in this picture was the wheels on the little Tiger are made from hoppers, from the kind you sew onto your clothes to shut them together.

There's lots of other lovely details to be found in the work she's done for this book. She made these little puppets and dolls. Here's another puppet.

Joan is going to put a link in the chat to the notes for an exhibition on the University of Minnesota website that looks in detail at the work involved in producing the illustrations.

Salley Mavor — Three-dimensional fabric relief artworks

Our last example of illustrations with dimensional depth is Salley Mavor. These are images from her book of traditional nursery rhymes, Pocketful of Posies. Her works aren't completely done in collage. She works in fabric and embroidery to create beautifully detailed creations, which she describes as three-dimensional fabric relief artworks.

She also incorporates collage elements using found and everyday objects, for example, driftwood, buttons, beads, nutshells, and acorns. There are so many little details to enjoy in her work. I could really spend hours looking at those.

Yuyi Morales — Digital collage

To end with, the final category I've chosen is digital collage. And the artist here is Yuyi Morales, a Mexican-American author and illustrator.

These images are from her book Dreamers, which tells her own story as a migrant to the United States. In her bright and dynamic illustrations, she used Photoshop to combine her original artwork with scans and photographs of numerous objects, including her studio floor, traditional Mexican fabrics and clothing, childhood drawings, handwritten text, and garden plants and leaves.

To add further layers of meaning, numerous symbols are incorporated. Some of these that you can see in this image are monarch butterflies and swallows, both of which make long migrations of their own. And the inclusion of snakes symbolises overcoming the obstacles in one's path.

And here's an image from towards the end of the book. Again, you can see the beautiful embroidery in the drawings in the monarch butterflies. Joan's going to pop a link in the chat to an exhibition about Dreamers on the Norman Rockwell Museum website.

And here are some more examples of her digital collage illustrations, this time from Bright Star. The techniques captured in the images include hand-embroidered lettering, weaving, painting, sketching, and digital paintings. The book explores the Sonoran Desert borderlands through the plants, animals, and insects that make their home there and the people who live there or pass through on their travels.

Like Dreamers, this book also connects to the immigrant experience. I particularly like the colour palette she has chosen to capture the atmosphere of the desert.

And that brings us to the end of our travels through the world of cut paper and collage illustrations. Of course, there are many artists who wasn't able to include, but I hope you enjoyed the examples I chose. And very happy to take questions, if anyone popped any in the chat.

Pātai | Questions

Joan McCracken: Thank you, Mary. What a feast for our eyes and our ears. I just love that. While we're waiting for questions coming through on Q&A or chat, I wondered if out of all that lovely stuff you had a particular favourite.

Do you have a particular favourite?

Mary Skarott: I have a couple of favourites. I'm very fond of Steve Jenkins, who you remember was the purist who likes the X-ACTO knife, nothing but paper. I just find it amazing that he can get so much texture, and depth, and detail just by using a blade and paper. And my other favourite is Lois Ehlert. She's with the very colourful vegetables and flowers, just because I love that intensity of colour.

Why did you choose this subject for your talk?

Joan McCracken: I mentioned in the chat that Ezra Jack Keats', The Snowy Day particularly, but several other of his books, were amongst my son's real favourites. And I don't think I've really absorbed the collage aspect of it. But I'm so glad you pointed it out and took me back to a long time ago when we were reading that together. And my granddaughter loves Charlie and Lola, so I was really, really pleased to see them too.

I don't think there are any added questions. So people, if you've got any. When I suggested to you that you might like to do a Connecting to Collections, was there a reason, a particular reason for you choosing this subject, which I don't think many people know about particularly?

Mary Skarott: I think it partly stemmed from the fact that I've always had a bit of a craze for collage and also applique, which is very similar to what we saw with Salley Mavor. I've always loved a bit of glue and sticking things down.

[LAUGHTER]

And then, I sort of kept coming across examples of people far more skilled than me making really beautiful artwork using that technique. That would sort of be something nice—

Joan McCracken: It was gorgeous.

Mary Skarott: —especially having started quite early on in the '60s. It was interesting to chart it.

Materials used in collages

Joan McCracken: And that history as well, with the silhouettes and paper cutting techniques. We do have a comment in the question and answer section.

Thank you. That was incredible, says Rosemary. I have a question. Collages have expanded exponentially in what media is used to create them. What materials have you been most surprised to see? And what materials do you think there will be in the future?

Oh, well that's interesting.

[LAUGHTER]

Mary Skarott: I was very interested when I saw Yuyi Morales, the way she photographs textures, like a piece of floor or a concrete wall, and then incorporates them into her work. I think that's really, really interesting. I'm not sure about future developments. Gosh, that's a bit of a — it could be anything, really.

I suppose as the world changes, new things pop up all the time. I just had a horrible thought about what an AI collage might look like.

[LAUGHS]

Joan McCracken: Oh, perhaps we should put that to somebody who's talking to us in the future.

Mary Skarott: People's imagination is boundless. So I guess the scope of that was just—

Have you seen any New Zealand examples of digital collage coming through yet?

Joan McCracken: Have you seen any New Zealand examples of digital collage coming through yet?

Mary Skarott: Well, I suspect, I mean, I just find that sometimes you can't already always tell what techniques they've used. Because I mean did wonder whether the Oh, Hogwash, Sweet Pea, was done digitally, like manipulated digitally. But you don't always, unless there's an illustrator's note, you kind of have to — you're not quite sure.

Joan McCracken: Yes, I thought it's very useful of the illustrators to tell you a little bit about what they were doing.

Mary Skarott: Yeah. So I'm pretty sure people are.

Are you an artist yourself?

Joan McCracken: Yeah. Miranda comments, Thank you. As a mixed media artist, grandmother, and reader, this was a real feast. Are you an artist yourself? she asks.

Mary Skarott: I'm an extremely amateur artist. I did enjoy art at school greatly. And I still enjoy sewing and the odd bit of collage. I have a vivid memory actually of when my daughter was a preschooler. And 6:00 one morning, she said, let's do collage. This is before we'd even had breakfast. So it's certainly always been a part of the household.

[LAUGHTER]

Joan McCracken: And has she gone on to do more of collage herself?

Mary Skarott: She's not an artist as such. But I mean she is an enthusiastic scrapbooker actually. So guess that is collage.

Joan McCracken: Yes.

Mary Skarott: Yeah.

Joan McCracken: Actually, that is an example of collage that has been very popular in recent times, hasn't it?

Mary Skarott: Yeah, that's an example of, as Eric Carle would say, anyone can do it. You can do it. Anyone can do a scrapbook.

[LAUGHS]

Joan McCracken: Oh, well, we look forward to seeing some examples. There are no further questions. So ngā mihi, Mary, that was so fantastic. I really enjoyed your presentation and, obviously, our audience did too.

Mary Skarott: It was a real pleasure to prepare.

Closing comments

Joan McCracken: Great. Just so people know, Mary's talk has been recorded. So if you have friends who you'd like to share it with and who weren't able to come at lunchtime today, then it will be made available through the National Library website in time. It takes us a little while to edit and do the transcription. So it won't be immediate.

However, it has also been recorded live to Facebook. So if you're a Facebook user, you can go to the National Library website any time after we finish. And it will be there for you to see immediately. So please do share that with people you know who might enjoy Mary's talk also.

And if you'd like to hear about future events being held at the library on-site or online, and you're not already on our What's On mailing list, please do sign up. You can subscribe on the events page on the National Library website. I'll add it to chat. And remember, you can save the chat and the links we've added, which are numerous and fascinating.

And we'll continue Mary's kōrero to you by clicking the ellipsis by the chat button. We really look forward to the next time you can join us. And the next Connecting to Collections in July will be our colleague Sean McMahon talking about a new finding aid for accessing authors' papers in the Turnbull collection. So that should be really interesting as well.

We'll finish with a whakatauaki. Ma ta kimi ka kite. Ma te kite mohio. Ma te mohio ka marama | Seek and discover. Discover and know. Know and become enlightened.

Kia ora, everyone. See you next time.

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