Eric Carle Museum

                    

        

Have you ever been to the Eric Carle museum? If you have never been you should definitely make the trip! I think it is a great place to gain an appreciation for the art in picture books.  Not only will you be able to see Eric Carle’s work up close but you will have the chance to see other illustrator’s work as well. If that is not reason enough, they have an amazing bookstore that features books by Eric Carle you can’t really find in stores anymore!

I went to the Eric Carle Museum about a month ago and unfortunately the exhibit that usually features Eric Carle’s work was closed for construction. Despite my bad timing, I had an amazing time there.  The painting or mural in the photo above is in the lobby area in the museum, which was done by Eric Carle. There is also another mural of that size next to it. It is absolutely huge! It is amazing how an artist can make a work of art of such magnitude. I really loved this painting because it is not typical for Eric Carle. Usually Eric Carle’s work is done with collage and crepe paper so it was interesting to see his work in another medium. The two galleries that were open featured work by Kadir Nelson who illustrated Testing the Ice: A True Story about Jackie Robinson and We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball.  Both these books are historical fiction. The paintings by Kadir Nelson were from both those books that he illustrated. It is amazing how different the paintings look in person. I realized that although the photos of these paintings look amazing in the books they are just so much more powerful in person. They are also a lot more lifelike. Kadir Nelson’s paintings are incredibly detailed. Most of the paintings featured baseball players and you could see every detail from the wrinkles in the jersey to the blades of grass. It was almost as if someone just took a photograph of that moment and put it on the wall. It seemed way to detailed to be a painting, which is what makes Kadir Nelson’s work so amazing to look at. By visiting this museum, I gained a lot of respect for picture books. Before this class, I thought making a picture book is easy to do. This class has made me realize that both the author and the illustrator put a ton of effort into their work and are extremely talented.  By going to the museum, I was able to see how much work illustrator’s put into each painting they do. Based on the detail of those paintings, it must have taken such a long time for Kadir Nelson to paint all of those paintings to make those books, not to mention the fact that he also wrote one of them. I don’t think illustrators get as much credit as they should. They really do bring so much meaning and depth to a story. I think that going to the Eric Carle Museum would impact my future classroom because I am going to pay more tribute to the illustrations. I think that talking about the illustrators is just as important as talking about the words. At the museum, I realized how much illustrations impact the meaning of the story. It also impacted my future classroom because I am hoping that one day I will be able to make my students there on a field trip because I think it would be beneficial for kids to see the art that goes into the books they read. I also learned that they have professional development opportunities, which I think would be really great to go to when I am an educator. There also are events in which you can meet illustrators and hear them talk about their work. I would love to go back to the museum and go to one of those events. Overall, going to the museum and looking at the illustration was such a great experience for me and really opened my eyes to how much of a work of art that an entire picture book is. The MA ELA frameworks a trip to the museum would cover would be:

RL 1.7 Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting,   

or events.

RI 1.7 Use the illustrations and details in a text to describe its key ideas.