Playground - Children Book Illustration
When I was a kid, our playground was a small courtyard blocked by two-story buildings. In the middle, there were trees with a table; and, around that mini-park were benches where we kids were sitting and playing. We had to imagine our games ourselves. We ran, we played, we laughed. The only climbing opportunities were the trees; but, the eagle-eyed grandmas that were sitting on the opposite benches of the courtyard would yell at us as soon they saw any climbing attempt. We knew that those grouchy old ladies were evil. They couldn't climb the trees themselves, and therefore, they would prevent us from doing so!
Ah, childhood! How wonderful is to get a glimpse of it from my memory. As imaginative kids, without specially built playground we made our own courtyard a ground of fun play.
These days a lot of kids have full equipped playgrounds; but, do they use their imagination? Can they pretend that a tree branch is a mast of a sailboat that brings you far far to the ocean's unknown? Can today's kids play with the candy wraps and feel super happy when winning another one from the game partner?
If I pictured my childhood playground, I'd probably focused on the movements and face emotions of the kids there. A little girl would be sending a small paper boat sailing down the pond. A boy would be sitting on the tree branch teasing the other one to hurry and to catch up. A few girls would play with their dolls on the bench. And, two sisters would be conquering a new jump-rope.
The painting above is the illustration to Bernard Goes To Music School book.
The playground here is a modern one. Colorful slide with other cool equipment is there. The flowers all over the place and cute benches. Safe wonderful area for kids to play. The boy is daydreaming. He is the one that is a shy person, but we learn from the book that he will overcome his shyness and have many friends in the future. I wanted to picture kids in a far background preoccupied with their games. And the boy in front is all by himself kind of separated from the crowd. Yet, he is a cool boy in sunglasses; but, who knows maybe at this point his glasses are hiding his sad eyes. But, I promise, the story ends very good.
More information is in the book by Connie Du on Amazon, HERE
(or, just type Irina Sztukowski (the illustrator) in the search window of the search browser there)
- ISBN-10: 1523864753
- ISBN-13: 9781523864751
