Lois Ehlert II

A shoal of surprise fish from the pavement. This is Lois Ehlert's' 'Rains Fish' from 2016. Here Lois has composed fish from found objects to get children to embrace rainy days and look for and make magic. 

“It is these gray winter days that stir my creativity,” Ehlert says. “I am so happy to stay in and work. I am sitting here right now with a bag of scraps on my drawing board. I have green paint underneath my fingernails. I am as happy as a clam.” Lois Ehlert

Lois Ehlert I

Lois Ehlert is a Caldecott winning illustrator born in 1934 her favourite technique has always been collage, possibly as a result of being given scraps of fabric by her seamstress mother, or off cuts of wood by her father. 

"I grew up getting art supplies, from both of them. My dad was a woodworker and my mum was a seamstress, so I had access to the most beautiful fabric, wonderful colours and a lot of textural things from my dad like nails and wire and wood. So I think I started out doing collage, without even realising or knowing how to spell the word in fact." Lois Ehlert 

Her works, particularly these earlier ones from her book; 'See 1, 2, 3,' 1964 are reminiscent of Leo Lionni's, 'Little Yellow and Little Blue' with lovely rough, torn edges and primitive shapes created by  hand tearing, that have great charm and immediacy.