“The Grandmother Doll” by Alice L. Bartels, Illustrated by Dusan Petricic (2001)
In my last post, I talked about how a good illustration in a picture book needs to emphasize the character’s motivation and add to the story by its visual elements. Dusan Petricic is an artist that does just that but take it one step further.
In his book “The Grandmother Doll” by Alice L Bartels, ” Dusan uses lush watercolor illustrations to portray the world of Kate, while leaving the grouchy grown-up world rendered in black and white” (Annick Press). He uses red as the main color for the girl in the day time, and purple for the night time. Red in the western world can symbolize fire, or anger, whereus purple often means royalty or spiritualism. Dusan Petricic also does not have a set framing for his illustrations. Most of his illustrations in the book took up the top half of the page with extentions to the lower parts.
Like Michael Martchenko, the visual elements in Petricic’s illustrations really adds another dimension to the words. When Katy was stomping to the room, we see in the photo her eyes staring at her mom as well as dark shadow around her eyes, and her shadows are sharp against the wall. When she open her junk box, aside from the 5 items listed in the words, there were also a piggy bank, a comb, a computer mouse, a watch, a tooth brush, a tea cup, a pencil, a ring, a spring, a mask, a horn, a button, a flowwer, a canadian maple sticker, a light bulb, a can of pop…and lots of other items girls this age usually collects. When Katy was making a TV for the grandmother Doll, from Grandmother’s facial expression in the illustration, Grandmother Doll looked as if thinking “why is she doing this?”
Another thing adding to the words is whenever Katy is in her room, she is always in a sitting down position, like she is trapped by the height of the page, just like she is trapped by her sickness in the story. The exaggerations and details in Dusan Petricic’s illustrations really captures the readers’ attention and makes the story that much more interesting to read.
RH
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