What did I like as a kid?

[PenAndrew]

@Kristen-Lango I am now collecting images to make one of these boards.

[PenAndrew]

@Patricia-Dishmon Yes, I am like you. I mainly consumed cartoons, comics and movies so my board will reflect this.

[Kristen Lango]

@PenAndrew That's awesome!! I'm glad I could get the ball rolling

[Patricia Dishmon]

Here is my mood board! @PenAndrew it's mostly cartoons! I threw a couple of dolls in there lol

I went for things that I LOVED as a kid vs things I enjoyed or just kinda liked. I chose things that made my kid brain go haywire. They inspired me to be creative back then and still do now!

[PenAndrew]

Here's more of an illustrator that appeared at the end of my childhood but I loved and his work bridged comics with children's books. That's probably why I loved the idea of doing both. I discovered most of my love of children's books through my nephews and nieces. I really love Tony Ross's illustrations. I found this old copy of Jim and The Beanstalk. Anthony Brown is the king of animal illustrations.

[Kristen Lango]

@PenAndrew Love the Gruffalo and Scheffler's work!

[kirsten-mcg]

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This is such a good idea! Something I've been thinking about lately is how who we were as children is often the most authentic version of who we are. So I just had to put together my own mood board! It's funny looking back on everything I loved. My parents were anti-television, so mostly it's just books. (though I did occasionally watch movies at my grandma's house!)

[Robert Henderson]

@Kristen-Lango

I like this idea, it keeps inspired and on track plus it is just so much fun to muse through all the creative work.

Thanks for posting and have fun with your studies.

[Kristen Lango]

@Robert-Henderson @kirsten-mcg I'm glad you both like the idea! It's great to see what others were influenced by, thanks for sharing!

[LauraA]

@Kristen-Lango I love this idea! I don't know if I have time to do this exercise right now, but I'll just say that you guys could all be my kids!

As a kid I liked: The Snowy Day, Walter Farley, Garth Williams, Tasha Tudor, and Trina Schart Hyman. And anything that had folk costumes in it.

You can do the math if you want...

[Kristen Lango]

@LauraA thanks for sharing Laura! I'm totally with you on the folk costumes! I used to be involved with a polish folk dance group in Milwaukee, and my goodness the color and design inspiration from those folk dresses

I still revisit it in my work sometimes when I play with gouache

[PenAndrew]

@Kristen-Lango I really like this style.

[Kristen Lango]

@PenAndrew Thank you! I definitely want to do more full spread illustrations in just gouache

[Kristen Lango]

Here are some books I've recently rented for inspiration

[HeatherB]

This was a really fun little dive, I am still highly motivated by almost all of these lol

[Kim Rosenlof]

@Kristen-Lango I love the colors on the Wildfire and Mel Fell books. I haven't see the Wildfire book before, I will have to go look for it.

[Kristen Lango]

@HeatherB This was so awesome to see! I love that someone else shares my love of Fozzie Bear and Gonzo
Gonzo's mysterious identity is one of the things that really stuck in my mind as a kid... Is he a bird? Is he an ant eater? Probably he is neither and yet he is such a strong character

[Kristen Lango]

@Kim-Rosenlof Right? The Wildfire book is one I found strolling the stacks at my local library and it really is so striking, but has a nice balance at the same time, which we all know is incredibly difficult to do.

[HeatherB]

@Kristen-Lango yes! The first time I learned that sometimes the best of something is in the mystery of it was when they had that movie where Gonzo was supposed to be an alien. I don’t accept that as canon.

[Kristen Lango]

@HeatherB What a great lesson! And goodness I don't think I've seen that film, now I'll have to go watch it!