Eric Carle’s ‘The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse’: Fun creative inspiration

"The Artist Who Painted the Blue Horse" by Eric Carle

Beloved children’s author/illustrator Eric Carle’s newest book, The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse is set for simultaneous release here in the United States and United Kingdom on Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011.

Courtesy Eric Carle Museum

Carle’s distinctive artistic style, a combination of vibrant colors applied to hand-painted paper and formed into expertly crafted collages, has garnered him a worldwide following over the past four-plus decades.

The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse continues this artistic tradition, which has served to delight countless children, and in his latest offering, he provides children a good dose of creative inspiration and permission to think outside of the box.

Many of Carle’s books are best-sellers and are considered evergreen children’s classics that have been translated into more than 50 languages, selling over 100 million copies around the globe. The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse is sure to be embraced in that same rarefied category.

Inspiration for this latest book came from the Expressionist period of painting and in particular the German artist, Franz Marc. In the video below, Carle discusses this, and demonstrates his creative technique in addition to sharing some of the story.

If you’ll be visiting New England from now until March 20, 2012, be sure to check out the special exhibition, The Art of Eric Carle: The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse, at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. 

The exhibition includes almost all of the original artwork from the book, plus three “dummies” (working mock-ups for the final product). Also on-hand is a poster of one of Marc’s blue horses as well as several of Carle’s conventionally drawn horses, and a few other animals – a terrific way to compare Carle’s range of media and variety of technique.

For further information regarding the exhibit along with address and hours of the Museum, visit online at: http://www.carlemuseum.org/

Debbie and Friends Presents: ‘Learning to Play Piano for the Very Young’

'Learning to Play the Piano for the Very Young'

Debbie Cavalier is one of those rare multi-talented music industry hyphenates: Her performances with her award-winning kids/family band Debbie and Friends rank her as one of the top children’s music artists in the nation; she is an educator and Dean of Continuing Education at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston; a seasoned producer of DVDs, and a prolific author who has penned more than one hundred music education publications and arrangements. Cavalier’s latest project, Learning to Play Music for the Very Young is a wonderful and entertaining method for introducing the joys of music making to a child.

Geared to be the perfect pre-primer for preschoolers, Cavalier created Learning to Play Piano for the Very Young with her grandfather, noted arranger/composer Marty Gold, who was an A & R man for RCA in the ‘50s and ‘60s and recorded dozens of records with the Marty Gold Orchestra. Gold was also Cavalier’s first music teacher when taught her how to play piano.

Cavalier says, “Learning To Play Piano is a readiness method for the parent and child to experience together. It prepares kids for further study with a piano teacher using any of the commercially-available methods.”

The pre-primer method book is filled with active participatory activities: writing in note names, tracing hands, writing in finger numbers, clapping, singing and playing melodies.

There is a pullout “Keyboard Tent” that is included, which provides a fun visual reference to associate notes on the page to keys on the piano.

Children learn to play familiar melodies such as “Twinkle, Twinkle” and “Jingle Bells” with their right hand and gain the readiness skills needed to graduate to any commercially available piano method.

The full-color book is filled with words of encouragement and praise from familiar Debbie and Friends cartoon characters.

Cavalier says, “The melodies are familiar, so there’s immediate satisfaction as kids learn to play songs they know.” She adds, “Parents don’t have to be trained musicians to enjoy working through the material with their child from start to finish.” 

Learning To Play Piano for the Very Young is available from  Debbie and Friends Music ($9.95) and from various retailers.