Nature's Paintbox: A Seasonal Gallery of Art and Verse (Millbrook Picture Books)

How would you capture winter’s crispness, spring’s softness, summer’s freshness, and autumn’s richness? In this inspiring picture book, poet Patricia Thomas imagines each season rendered in a different art medium. Pen and ink, with spots of color, capture winter ’s mood, while pastel chalks make spring flowers bloom into life. The seethrough hues of watercolors celebrate summer ’s warmth, while vibrant oils perfectly paint fall’s majestic scenes. Artist Craig Orback takes up the poem’s challenge in his marvelous illustrations, using each of the mediums described. Just as the seasons move seamlessly into one another, so too do the art styles blend together, then emerge in full splendor, and blend again as the next season approaches.

Re i n f o r c e d b i n d i n g

A g e s 7 - 10

Patricia Thomas illustrated by

Craig Orback

j Millbrook Press • Minneapolis

For Mother and Dad, who taught me to see the art around me —P.T.

For Jessica, a Connecticut girl, who taught this California boy a few things about the seasons —C.S.O.

Nature sketches WINTER, I think,

in pen and ink . . . black and white; sharp and clear and fine; no colors to blur the line . . . or maybe, just a bit at a time . . .

berries on a bush; cardinals on a branch; a red mailbox flag winking a cheery hello, snuggled under

its caps of snow; a snowman’s carrot nose, a holly wreath with a red velvet bow;

a pink sunset, glowing behind hilltop trees— every lacy twig outlined.

Mostly though, it’s black and white,

so you can see all the patterns . . . all the tiny, tiny, tiny patterns . . . boot prints; weed shadows; birds floating high in a winter sky; snowflakes, bright white— no two ever quite alike— or so they say. (It is true, no two alike ever landed on a mitten. Now, if you catch them on your tongue . . . well, it’s hard to tell. They melt away.)

White snowy day; black snowy night;

winter is done in pen and ink . . . black and white.

And then . . .

Nature draws SPRING in pastel chalk, dotting crocuses along a walk; forsythia against a wall . . .

drawing them all in

warm-as-sunshine colors; gentle baby colors; blurry, furry, baby-chick, baby-duck colors . . . fresh-green-fuzzy, baby-leaf, baby-fern colors . . . soft colors, showing slowly, perhaps so the surprise of color in a black-white world won’t hurt your eyes. A tulip here, a hyacinth there. Blue violets push the snow aside. Time to wake up, daffodils decide— and in a dash of yellow, off they dance, along a path . . . beside a fence.

Suddenly, before you can blink… there are blossoms everywhere… blossoms,

peach and white and pink; fluffy, puffy, pillowy, billowy, spun-sugar, cotton-candy blossoms; blossoms; blossoms.

Sometimes a day is clouded pussy willow gray and streaked with blue-silver rains— washing streets and windowpanes and rooftops . . . watering crops of umbrellas that grow on sidewalks below . . . until by and by, a rainbow

sends all the colors arching across the sky.

I guess no one will mind if a few puddles— fine for splashing— are left behind . . . along with drops that drip on your nose when you close your umbrella . . . plip . . . plunk . . . plop.

Spring is done in pastel chalk.

And then . . .

Nature paints SUMMER in watercolors— reds, greens, yellows, purples, blues . . . pure, clear,

nearly see-through-them hues… as hot as hot dogs or as cool as diving in a swimming pool… as wet as ocean spray, flashing, splashing in; bright as a buttercup, glowing butter-yellow under your chin.

Summer colors sparkle… shine…sizzle…dazzle… there’s no time for subtle shadings… gentle…slow. Summer colors have places to go… baseball and picnics in the park… parades and fireworks when it’s dark.

Summer’s blue is bluest sky… or blue, blue morning glories that try to tumble from their window box and catch the purple hollyhocks.

Summer’s green is greenest trees, waving deep green shadows in the breeze… or a green frog that winks a yellow eye, snapping at a shiny green dragonfly.

Summer’s red is red geraniums in red pots; and red strawberries— lots and lots. In splashes, dashes, spots and dots; in rings; on wings and things that sing— summer colors, one by one, are clearly busy having fun!

In watercolor is how summer’s done.

And then . . .

Nature works AUTUMN in oils… coils of color, brilliant, twining, vining, seen as redorangepurplebronze indigogoldgreen… chasing round and round… in a game of tag with crimsonrustyellowtancranberrybrown.

Fire colors…that sparkle… crackle… blaze…

dance with sky colors— bluegray smoke; bluepurple haze— and earth colors, warm, dark, mellow… curled, whirled, brushed in a rush of scarletorangebluegray purplebrowntanyellow… sandtan cornstalks, row on row… a goldorange jack-o’-lantern’s glow. unending blendings… shade on shade, tone on tone.

Autumn colors are never known to play alone.

Heaped and stacked and draped in boxes, baskets, crates… yellowrosegold purpleblueblackgreenred… apples, pears, plums, grapes

are spread in all sorts of sizes… textures… shapes.

Leaves blow… go tumbling, twirling swirling, falling… pile them high… run… spin… jump in… let them fly!

Autumn is done in oil… rich, bold redrustbronzescarlet cranberryorangetanbrown yellowgreengold!

And then Nature somehow seems to find a camera— the old-fashioned kind— and, with a laugh, snaps a photograph… not black and white… nor color, quite… but one with a sort of mellowy, birch-leaf yellowy, oak-leaf brown, meadow-grass tan, warm, sepia glow— like pictures taken long ago. You have to look quickly, though. A click… a quick gust of wind… in a wink it’s hard to tell what the photograph had been… and then…

Nature draws WINTER in pen and ink…

Craig Orback worked in four different media to render this book. Winter was done with Micron ink pens on bristol board. Color was added using the computer program Adobe Photoshop. Spring was rendered with pastels on watercolor board that was toned with a wash of watercolor. Pastel pencils were used for detail. Summer was painted using tubes of watercolor on

cold press paper. And for fall, the artist used oil paint on watercolor board that had been gessoed and toned using acrylic paint. The transition spreads joining two different media were done in Photoshop. The artist wishes to thank Olivia and Samantha Pess for doing such a great job of modeling for the illustrations.

Text copyright © 2007 by Patricia Thomas Illustrations copyright © 2007 by Craig Orback All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review. Millbrook Press, Inc. A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc. 241 First Avenue North Minneapolis, MN 55401 U.S.A. Website address: www.lernerbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Thomas, Patricia, 1934– Nature’s paintbox : a seasonal gallery of art and verse / by Patricia Thomas ; illustrated by Craig Orback. p. cm. ISBN: 978–0–8225–6807–0 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper) 1. Seasons—Juvenile poetry. 2. Children's poetry, American. I. Orback, Craig, ill. II. Title. PS3570.H5755N38 2007 811’.54—dc22 2006035079 Manufactured in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 – JR – 12 11 10 09 08 07 eISBN-13: 978-1-58013-649-5

Patricia Thomas writes in styles that range from the zany rhyme of her nonsense verse classic, “Stand Back,” Said the Elephant, “I’m Going to Sneeze!” (featured on PBS Storytime series), to the lyrical Firefly Mountain . Her magazine articles and stories have covered subjects from Arthurian legends to the Loch Ness monster to Benjamin Franklin. She is a graduate of Penn State University, teacher of courses and workshops on writing for children, and senior writer/editor in the Communications and Marketing Office of Marywood University.

Craig Orback has a B.F.A. in illustration and is a freelance illustrator living in Seattle. He has illustrated Keeping the Promise: A Torah's Journey, Paul Bunyan , and other award-winning children's books. He teaches children's book illustration at several local colleges. Jacket art © 2007 by Craig Orback j A

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Welcome to Nature’s art gallery, where the beauty of each of Earth’s four seasons is displayed in its own special way.