October 28, 2013

Tri-Color Goodness!

Hello party people! Today we discuss...primary colors! There are so many picturebooks that utilize the primary colors, and all of them seem to stand out in their own, unique ways. Using the primary colors (red, blue, and yellow) so heavily is an excellent way to drive the eye all around the page, and an equally excellent way to draw attention to special areas whenever two of the colors are combined on the page (forming secondary colors purple, green, and orange). A-divin' in we go!

The first on the list is the amazing, incomparable A Ball For Daisy by Chris Raschka. This beautiful, wordless picturebook recently won a Caldecott Medal in 2012 and even from the cover heavily features primary colors. Take a look!



(note how much the couch stands out since it's a combination of two of the primary colors used, blue and yellow)


Frank Vivas' picturebooks so far almost always use the three primary colors, plus black and white. Along a Long Road, A Trip to the Bottom of the World, and his most recent book A Long Way Away are all perfect examples of just how much the primary colors stand out and draw readers in. You can take a look at all three covers here:





The insides of each book match the primary color look of the covers, and the strong aesthetic similarities between all three give the books a sense of connectedness.

Finally, we have Red Cat, Blue Cat by Jenni Desmond. I'm the first to admit that the story for this picturebook isn't my favorite, but the illustrations are very fun and, like the rest of this post, feature strong primary coloring.



Other lovely books that fall into this category and have been previously discussed are Press Here by HervĂ© Tullet (click here), The Conquerors by David McKee (here). Another is Little Bird by Germano Zullo and Albertine, but I don't want to say too much since an Albertine post is definitely forthcoming...yay for things to look forward to!

As a side note, with things picking up so much in other aspects of my life, I fear I must resort to posting every other week rather than every week. Hopefully this doesn't drastically alter your week.

See you in two weeks!!

Primarily yours,
Mel

October 14, 2013

This Week and Next Week

So this weekend I was in a wedding, and next weekend I'm going to Seattle, so there's really just no time for awesome picturebook posting. But I will see you all two weeks from today with a super awesome post just to make up for it.

Have a great two weeks!

Yours,
Mel