Spring Break
Artist Discusses His Illustrations For Children
Kimberly Primiciero
Issue date: 4/5/07 Section: Focus
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The artist, Etienne Delessert had been speaking to classes and students all day and continued to lecture to students and faculty.
The artist also showed his viewers slides of some of his most famous pieces of work. His discussion ended with a panel of professors and future illustrators asking the artist questions.
Delessert was born in Switzerland and began his career in Paris doing graphic designs for ad agencies. It wasn't until 1965 that he made his way to the U.S and made the decision that he would illustrate for children's books.
Delessert said he did his best work when it was just his paper and pencil. As much as he enjoyed working with graphics and animation he believed his books were a way to reach a serious audience.
"Children always remember their favorite books, and stories," said Delessert.
When Delessert draws he says he tries not to get bored and spend too much time on one particular project. He mentioned how he tries to diversify projects by adding certain themes to them.
Delessert showed his audience about 25 slides consisting of a variety of pictures and posters from his children books and others from editorial columns from The New York Times.
The slides consisted of illustrations of Delessert's fictional character Yok-Yok. Yok-Yok is a portrayed in the artist's books as a little person trying to bring nature into a big city.
Other slides were pictures of Humpty Dumpty as well as monsters, and angels and certain landscapes Delessert has painted.
"I liked the colors, they were amazing and outlandish," said Amy Fernald, a 4th-semester illustration major. "The pictures were dream like, they reminded me of The Beatles 'Yellow Submarine'."
Delessert spoke of the visions in some of his artwork. He said that the idea behind a picture is more important than actually painting it. The illustrator feels at ease when a certain idea hits close to home. He said he can visualize it, which helps with the illustration.
Delessert tried to answer some students questions about getting their careers started and setting themselves apart from other illustrators. Delessert admitted that is much harder nowadays to get known then it was back when he started his career. He basically said if an illustrator is good then he or she will get noticed.
"It was good to hear someone speak from experience, someone who has done it before," said Victoria Wilson, a 4th-semester illustration major. "We saw the stuff we are supposed to be doing."
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