Go Inside Animal Homes with Mary Holland

Mary Holland’s popular Animal Anatomy and Adaptations series grew by one today. We release Animal Homes – a look at the way animals adapt to their environment and make their homes. Mary takes us inside the homes of beavers, bees, birds, and squirrels.

Let’s take a look…

You may have made a fort, using blankets and furniture, or put up a tent to go camping, but today we have a different kind of challenge for you. Can you make a house of cards?

What we learned. This only requires a deck of cards, but you need a steady hand and a lot of patience. Start building with two cards angled in a triangle. Once one is steady, start with another and cap them together by placing a card on top. We tried to make multiple levels, but our house folded several times.

Send us a photo of your card house to @Arbordalekids on Instagram and you could win a copy of Animal Homes. For more information about Mary’s latest Animal Anatomy and Adaptations title visit the book’s homepage.

Crafty Fun with Cheetah Dreams!

Today we celebrate Cheetah Dreams!!

Linda Stanek is a cat lover (follow her on twitter @LindaStanek to see her adorable kittens). So, when she began working on an academic book about cheetahs, her next children’s book was forming in the back of her mind. That book just came out last week and is a poetic love story to the majestic cats, but also has valuable facts. Readers are sure to show empathy with the cats as their habitat and numbers continue to decline. With equal passion, illustrator Shennen Bersani traveled to zoos and learned from keepers and the animals themselves. Her realistic illustrations show the fast cats in motion and at rest with adorable furry cubs.

Linda Stanek

Shennen Bersani

In the spirit of October, we have a fun craft to help you celebrate the release of Cheetah Dreams! You can illustrate this simple cheetah mask of your own. We used a paper plate, a combination of markers and paint, along with a folded pipe cleaner. You can be creative with the decoration and if you have a string or elastic to secure the mask that can simply be attached to the sides for a more secure fit.

 

Download the pattern and print it out.

Cut around the lines and then trace it onto a paper plate.

Cut the mask out of the paper plate along with the two ears.

Attach the ears either with staples or glue. And then color your cheetah face! Shennen’s beautiful illustrations are a great guide having been vetted for accuracy by some of the top Cheetah experts.

After painting your cheetah’s spots, attach the holding stick or elastic and be a cheetah for a day!

**This crafter is not as skilled as Shennen, so this cheetah mask has not been vetted by experts

Get you copy of Cheetah Dreams in English or Spanish from Arbordale or just learn more about the book on the book page!

Meet the Illustrator: Phyllis Saroff

Continuing our artist features, today we meet Phyllis Saroff illustrator of Maggie: Alaska’s Last Elephant. The story, written by Jennifer Keats Curtis, is the emotional journey that took Maggie from Alaska to California making human and elephant friends along the way.

When did you know that a career in art was for you?

I can’t remember a specific time when I knew being an artist was my plan. As a child, I was always drawing on the accordion fold computer paper my father brought home from his lab. One side was full of printed equations, and the other side was blank. I created illustrated books that were stapled together as young as age seven. Later, my father told me to concentrate on what I was good at and what I liked, and the rest would fall into place. I might have realized I could be an artist when I painted backdrops for theater productions in college, or the first oil painting I sold.

Where do you start when taking on a project like Maggie?

After reading the manuscript, I do tiny, messy, drawings in my sketch book. I choose the ones I like and they gradually get bigger and more refined even if they stay very scribbly. Then, I start to look for elements in the book that might be all around me. For instance, the color of the sky, open fields, or the texture of trees and tires. In this book, the emotional flow of the story was very important for me to capture. I wanted the pictures to help convey how Maggie was feeling through composition and color.

Who inspired you as an artist? 

There are so many artists who have inspired me the list would be extremely long. Illustrators, fine artists, portrait painters, and mural artists have all inspired me. My problem is reining myself in. I find myself getting excited by work I see and wanting to try another discipline or medium.

What is your favorite animal?

The list of my favorite animals would also be too long to print. Animals were all I drew on the blank side of my father’s computer paper, and I am so lucky to draw animals now as an illustrator. I love all the domestic animals that share our homes with us. I love their faces, patterns and textures from a visual view point. I love the same qualities of the wild animals outside our homes. I even admire the shapes, colors and patterns of insects and invertebrates and I take time to look closely at them-except for ticks!

Do you have a project that you are most proud of?

The most recent work is always what I am most proud of.  Each painting or illustration shows me what I could have done differently as it gets older. I have recently experimented with mixed media paintings that I sell through a local Annapolis gallery. I am proud of the result.

Maggie is Phyllis’ fourth book with Arbordale, readers can travel the world through her other titles! Check them out!