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    Kid Artists: True Tales of Childhood from Creative Legends
    Kid Artists: True Tales of Childhood from Creative Legends
    Kid Artists: True Tales of Childhood from Creative Legends
    Ebook303 pages1 hour

    Kid Artists: True Tales of Childhood from Creative Legends

    By David Stabler

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    About this ebook

    Hilarious childhood biographies and full-color illustrations reveal how Leonardo da Vinci, Beatrix Potter, Keith Haring, and other great artists in history coped with regular-kid problems.

    Every great artist started out as a kid. Forget the awards, the sold-out museum exhibitions, and the timeless masterpieces. When the world’s most celebrated artists were growing up, they had regular-kid problems just like you. Jackson Pollock’s family moved constantly—he lived in eight different cities before he was sixteen years old. Georgia O’Keeffe lived in the shadow of her “perfect” older brother Francis. And Jean-Michel Basquiat triumphed over poverty to become one of the world’s most influential artists. Kid Artists tells their stories and more with full-color cartoon illustrations on nearly every page. Other subjects include Claude Monet, Jacob Lawrence, Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Beatrix Potter, Yoko Ono, Dr. Seuss, Emily Carr, Keith Haring, Charles Schulz, and Louise Nevelson.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherQuirk Books
    Release dateAug 9, 2016
    ISBN9781594748998
    Author

    David Stabler

    David Stabler is an author based in Brooklyn, New York. He specializes in reference books covering entertainment, sports, and world history.

    Read more from David Stabler

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    Reviews for Kid Artists

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    • 4/5
      This book is part of a series about famous people as kids and this work is the best one so far. There's not as many individuals in this book as there is in the others, but the bios go into much more detail here. The artists selected are from various backgrounds and a wide range of time periods. There's also a pretty good bibliography for more reading listed at the end. Adorable illustrations too! Best for middle grades.Net Galley Feedback
    • 4/5
      I read this book in one sitting. I learned so much about these famous artists then I ever thought I would. What I enjoyed the most about this book is that while the stories were short they packed a bunch of information in each one but in an enjoyable way. Unlike some books where you are reading them and it is like reading a history book in school. The illustrations in this book were great too. Although, not really needed they did help bring the stories more to life. After reading this book I have more appreciation for these artists and their crafts. I will be sharing this book with my nephews to help grow and inspire their creativity more.

    Book preview

    Kid Artists - David Stabler

    Acknowledgments

    ot every kid grows up to be a great artist. But every great artist definitely starts out as a kid. Painters get their start by doodling in school notebooks. Sculptors begin by playing with mud in their backyards. And most illustrators working today can name their favorite comic book, video game, or animated cartoon.

    This book tells stories from the lives of sixteen legendary artists. You will surely recognize some of the names, but you’ve probably never heard such curious details about the artists’ lives. That’s because these stories take place before these painters, sculptors, and illustrators were famous—back when they were still kids doing homework, drawing in sketchpads, and dealing with moms and dads, brothers and sisters.

    It’s okay if you are not familiar with all the names in this book. You don’t need to be. It’s not necessary to see Andy Warhol’s artworks to understand how much he did not want to go to school. He disliked school so much that, every morning, a grown-up had to drag him kicking and screaming out of the house.

    On the other hand, you’re probably quite familiar with the work of Dr. Seuss. Even so, you might not know that, as a kid, he was teased and bullied by his classmates. This book tells you why.

    Then there’s Jean-Michel Basquiat. His family had very little money, so he had to sleep in a crawlspace under the stairs.

    And who could forget Charles Schulz? He entertained millions with comics about Charlie Brown and Snoopy. But did you know that his first published comic was about his family’s real-life dog?

    Each of the artists in this book had a special talent. Many of them also faced special challenges. Whether it was recovering from illness and injuries, like Frida Kahlo…

    or dealing with an overprotective mother, like Yoko Ono…

    or surviving a gruesome childhood accident, like Jackson Pollock…

    These kid artists all learned how great they could be by surmounting huge obstacles. Or in the case of the painter Emily Carr, just by rolling around in the mud with some pigs!

    We hope that this book will inspire you to draw, paint, and write stories of your very own. Maybe one day, you, too, will find your work hanging in a museum or published in the pages of a book! But even if that doesn’t happen, we know you’ll have a lot of fun just being creative and testing the limits of your imagination.

    That’s how all of these kid artists got started. They made art, they made a difference, and they made history.

    Nature always fascinated Leonardo da Vinci, who would grow up to be not only a great artist but also one of the Renaissance world’s eminent scientists. Much of what he knew about animal and plant life he learned by taking long, solitary walks through the rolling hills of his native Tuscany, carrying a sketchbook in his hand. While you are alone, you are completely yourself, he once said. You should say to yourself, ‘I will go my own way and withdraw apart from others, the better to study the form of natural objects.’

    But as fascinating as it was, the natural world could also be a source of great mystery and terror. Young Leonardo learned that lesson one day when he was walking alone in the countryside, hoping to see the multitude of varied and strange forms created by nature.

    He stumbled upon the entrance to a large cavern, deeper and darker than any he had ever seen. Leonardo lingered by the entrance to the cave for a long time. He bent down, peering into it, looking for signs of movement. He was afraid, but also intensely curious. Did he discern a monster lurking inside?

    Leonardo never found out; he was too scared to explore any farther. But the vision of the cave creature stayed with him for the rest of his life, fueling his desire to depict the marvels of the natural world—and on one memorable occasion, the unnatural world as well.

    In 1466, when Leonardo was fourteen years old, his father sent him to Florence to work as an apprentice to a renowned painter, sculptor, and goldsmith named Andrea del Verrocchio. Life in Verrocchio’s workshop was often tedious. Leonardo spent his days grinding pigments, shopping for groceries, and running errands for the master. He worked hard and was rewarded with invaluable instruction in the arts of drawing, painting, and anatomy. Leonardo quickly became one of Verrocchio’s prize pupils and grew into a formidable artist in his own right.

    One day, according to a sixteenth-century art historian named Giorgio Vasari, a farmer friend presented Leonardo’s father, Ser Piero da Vinci, with a round shield made of fig wood; he asked to have it decorated in Florence. Leonardo’s father passed the job on to his son, instructing Leonardo to paint an image on the front of the shield.

    In his quest for inspiration, Leonardo thought long and hard, wracking his brain for a suitably terrifying subject to adorn a warrior’s shield. What could he paint that would be so horrible that it would frighten anyone who gazed upon it? Perhaps it was then that Leonardo thought back to his past experience of peering into the darkened cave in search of a monster.

    All of a sudden the idea came to him. Leonardo remembered the Greek legend of Medusa, a monstrous Gorgon whose hair was made of poisonous snakes. It was said that anyone who looked upon her face would instantly be turned to stone. What better way to vanquish your opponent than by petrifying him with Medusa’s

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