Virginia Lee Burton

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VIRGINIA LEE BURTON

Virginia Lee Burton's life may bring to mind a steam shovel and a man called Mike Mulligan, a charming little house, and a snow plow named Katy. Yet to speak only of Burton's achievements as a picture book creator would be to paint only part of the canvas of her life. She was also a dancer, an illustrator for an early Boston newspaper, and a musician, designer, sculptor, and printmaker.

She was born on August 30, 1909, in Newton Centre, Massachusetts and died on on October 15, 1968, at the age of fifty-nine. Although she died more than forty years ago, her books and illustrations have continued to be popular with children and revered by adults.

Together with her husband, George Demetrios, Virginia enjoyed a full life. In a small community located outside of Gloucester, Massachusetts, they raised two sons, gardened, kept sheep, entertained friends, and taught art and design classes. Led by Burton, these design classes, which were composed of local artists, evolved into the Folly Cove Designers. A cooperative of sorts, this internationally known group created elaborately intricate designs of rural scenes and other natural elements, which they would carve onto linoleum and print onto fabrics.

Simultaneously, Burton began her career in children's book writing and illustration. The early success of her first books, Choo Choo, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, and The Little House, which received the 1943 Caldecott Medal, was an auspicious beginning for Burton. These same books, along with others she created throughout her career, have now become classics, as well as lasting examples of the fine art of children's book creation.

Some of Virginia Lee Burton’s illustrated books

Burton often used personification in her books and illustrations and drew these subjects for children to relate to, giving objects like ‘The Little House” and “Mary Anne the Steam Shovel” feelings and personality. For example, you can see the house and the Steam Shovel ‘smiling’ or ‘frowning’ to happiness or sadness.

Burton created beautiful landscapes and drew from a high perspective so the viewer could see the ‘whole picture’.

Look at the foreground, the background and the changes of the seasons, the paint, the brushstrokes, and the changes in the colors.

Each illustration Burton did included pictures, decorative type, and decorative borders that matched the style of the book or story.

In “Katy and the Big Snow”, the background is decorative like the snow in the story and includes telephone poles as a border. What would you draw?

A lot of Burtons illustrations included repetitive elements and landscapes looking down on towns prairies, valleys, woods, and lakes. Think about how you would draw a landscape?

Examples of Burton’s different illustrations of landscapes, machines, buildings, and other elements. How would you illustrate a book?

More examples of Burtons Drawings of towns, cities, people, landscapes, and machinery- telling a story with images, painting, type, and illustration.

READ ONE OF THE BOOKS

Read one of the books outloud or use these audio links:

The Little House

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqlOJKt4-RA

Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvhN5T4XaU8

Time to start on activities and more discussion!

QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION.

Did you know that professional illustrators have to read the entire book just to be able to do a book cover that represents what the book is about?

Landscape art and personification. Burton did this with all of her books. Landscape is drawing outdoor images of the land. Personification is giving human-like qualities to an object or an animal or the attribution of human characteristics to things or abstract ideas.

If YOU could write about something and illustrate it, what would it be? Would you give something man-made (or an animal?), human qualities like Mary Anne The Steam Shovel or The Little House?

If so, what would you do and why?   What sort of Book Cover or Story would you design?  What do you think Burton was trying to say in her books and illustrations about change?

How did she show this in her illustrations? If YOU had to show or illustrate something that changed in your world, how would you paint or draw this?