Eric Carle

In class we talked about a popular author.  It so happens that this author also creates his own illustrations for his books.  The author that we discussed was Eric Carle.  Eric Carle is a well known  author of children's books. One of his most famous books was the Hungry Caterpillar. In class, we watched a video of Eric Carle demonstrating how he creates his illustrations.  As a class we then created our own illustration for a children's book we could write.  Above is a picture that I created using Eric Carle's technique.  When creating an image like Eric Carle, a person needs to start off with a white sheet of paper.  Then you choose colors that you would like to mix.  For example, for my background I took red and blue and made a purple background.  For my tree I took a dark green and added white to make a lighter green.  To then add texture an artist can make designs with the back of their paintbrush.  I did this while designing the house in my picture.  You create these colors and designs on separate sheets of paper.  You then choose the one you want ant create an image.  I took an orange paper and made a dog.  You take different combinations and cut out the shapes or objects you want to create a story.

An extension activity for this project would be to have student's create their own stories.  They then can create different illustrations to go along with their story.  This would be a great project to use for English. Students can then create their own story book to share with their family and friends just like Eric Carle.