Tag Archives: portrait

Studio Snapshots: Barbara DiLorenzo

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Today, we’ll be visiting Barbara DiLorenzo, a New Jersey-based illustrator, writer, and teacher! Her books include Renato and the Lion (Viking Books, 2017) and Quincy: The Chameleon Who Couldn’t Blend In (Little Bee Books, 2018). In addition to this, Barbara has gone skydiving, hang gliding, surfing, and whitewater rafting. YES! In 2019, we were delighted to invite her to our library to read, make chameleons, and chat with the kids about her creative process. You can also visit her website and her Instagram!

barbara dilorenzo reads

Thank you for including me! Here are some photos from my studio…this is a close-up of some of the art hanging up on a line:

I sit at this desk and Zoom teach art classes – hence the big light and mic stands to hold cameras. I’m a messy artist, so I have to clean up frequently. Otherwise the clay and paint would be all over the keyboard and mouse.

This is another angle of this area – showing that one whole drafting table is covered in paint and other supplies. Even vitamins. Those are important!

This is my flat file, which holds all my art and nice papers. Lots of art materials in the bookshelf to the side.

Many thanks for sharing! Images courtesy of Barbara DiLorenzo

Fabulous Family Portrait

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fabulous carrot family portraitThis handsomely framed three-dimensional portrait is a must for any home. And if you want to portray your sweet little family as carrots, well why not?

We read All Kinds of Families! written by Mary Ann Hoberman, and illustrated by Marc Boutavant (Little, Brown, 2009). This beautifully illustrated picture book describes, through charming rhymes, the various kinds of families in the world. Not just mothers, fathers, brother and sisters either – forks, spoons, numbers, animals, plants, clouds…all kinds of families!

You’ll need:

  • 1 cardboard box
  • Paper towel tubes and/or toilet paper tubes
  • Brown poster board
  • A selection of construction paper
  • 1 pipe cleaner
  • Scissors, glue, and tape for construction
  • Markers for decorating
  • Hot glue (optional)

There are 2 parts to this project – the family, and the frame. The family is basically toilet paper tubes and/or paper towel tubes decorated with construction paper and markers.  The important thing is to measure the tubes inside the frame box before you start decorating them. Otherwise, your family might not fit inside the final frame!

carrot familyThe frame is a box cut down to 2″ deep. We decorated the back of our frame with patterned paper (but you can also have kids draw the background on with markers). Next, we offered different brown poster board shapes to glue around the edges of the box:

finished portrait frameTo hang the frame, twist a pipe cleaner into a loop, then attach it to the top of the box with tape. Want to make it extra secure? Cut a slit in the top of the box, thread the pipe cleaner ends through the slit, then tape them to the interior top of the frame. Here’s a shot of our frame from the back, hanging loop in place:

back of finished portrait frameHang your frame in your favorite room of the house, place your little family inside it, and  feel the love!

An Homage to Three Irish Poets

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THE LAKE OF INNISFREE
William Butler Yeats

william butler yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

THE FOGGY DEW
Katharine Tynan

katherine tynanA splendid place is London, with golden store,
For them that have the heart and hope and youth galore;
But mournful are its streets to me, I tell you true,
For I’m longing sore for Ireland in the foggy dew.

The sun he shines all day here, so fierce and fine,
With never a wisp of mist at all to dim his shine;
The sun he shines all day here from skies of blue:
He hides his face in Ireland in the foggy dew.

The maids go out to milking in the pastures gray,
The sky is green and golden at dawn of the day;
And in the deep-drenched meadows the hay lies new,
And the corn is turning yellow in the foggy dew.

Mavrone! If I might feel now the dew on my face,
And the wind from the mountains in that remembered place,
I’d give the wealth of London, if mine it were to do,
And I’d travel home to Ireland and the foggy dew.

ON THE VOWELS
Jonathan Swift

jonathan swiftWe are little airy creatures,
All of different voice and features;
One of us in glass is set,
One of us you’ll find in jet.
T’other you may see in tin,
And the fourth a box within.
If the fifth you should pursue,
It can never fly from you.

Poetic portraits lovingly rendered by master crafter, Katie Zondlo.