Bill Peckmann &Books &Illustration &Peet 25 Mar 2011 07:41 am
Peet Sampler – 1
- Bill Peckmann owns 26 of the children’s books by Bill Peet. We’re coming to the finish of posting his beautiful book, Capyboppy, and we thought as a follow-up it’d be best to post a sampler from each of these 26 books. We’ve taken a double page spread from each that Bill has scanned and forwarded to me. I’ve done my best in photoshop to link the two together.
Here, in chronological order, are the first 13 of the books in Bill’s collection. By putting them in order, we can see the development and growth of his illustration style.
“Hubert’s Hair-Raising Adventure” – 1959
“Smokey” – 1962
“The Pinkish, Purplish, Bluish Egg” – 1963
“Kermit the Hermit” – 1965
“Chester, the Worldly Pig” – 1965
“Farewell to Shady Glade” – 1966
“Capyboppy” – 1966
“Jennifer and Josephine” – 1967
“Buford the Little Big Horn” – 1967
“Fly, Homer, Fly” – 1969
“The Whingdingdilly” – 1970
“The Wump World” – 1970
“How Droofus the Dragon Lost His Head” – 1971
on 25 Mar 2011 at 7:52 am 1.Don Cox said …
The result of your posting the Capybopper scans was that I bought a copy.
Now I will have to buy all these.
on 25 Mar 2011 at 11:59 am 2.Sandro Cleuzo said …
These are beautiful and I can’t help thinking how wonderful these stories and drawings would be as animated shorts.
Thanks for posting this and for the inspiration, Michael.
on 26 Mar 2011 at 5:39 am 3.Stephen Macquignon said …
I’m very disappointed in my self for not finding Bill Peet on my own. You would think with all the time I spend in the children’s section of a book store I would have stumbled across his work thanks for introducing me to him.
on 26 Mar 2011 at 11:18 am 4.Carolyn Bates said …
Absolutely gorgeous. Thank you and Bill Peckmann for sharing these gems.
on 27 Mar 2011 at 12:01 pm 5.Tim Rauch said …
Really happy to be seeing these and the earlier posts. Bill Peet was a huge hit in our house growing up and it’s wonderful to see these images again so many years later. Besides telling wonderful, quirky, human stories based on creatures real and fantastic, he did it with such extraordinary personal visual style. I’m not sure I really appreciated it all – the amazing, layered compositions, the fresh and personal mark-making, the sophisticated use of lighting and value, the direct and clear “acting” of the characters – but I sure as hell loved these books anyways. Makes me want to buy the entire set!
on 27 Mar 2011 at 9:17 pm 6.Elliot Cowan said …
I have all these wonderful books in a shed in Australia.
It is surprising to me how few of my students know his work.