The Artist

I ordered this book the day it was released.Our book arrived yesterday 😍 My 8 year old daughter and I snuggled up on the sofa as soon as it was delivered and read it together. Being an artist and my daughter a mini-me, this book could have been written through our eyes! ♥️🎨🖌 Loved it, connected with it, and felt emotional.Such a beautiful book!

I bought this for my own children but as a teacher can see the huge possibilities of this book in school too. Wonderful story, beautiful illustrations and a terrific message.

An artist who sees the wonder and the joy and the beauty of the world and puts it in her art. She leaves her home and her loved ones to share her pictures with the world and comes to a big city, which has big buildings that are perfect for her work. As the city’s inhabitants come to see what the artist paints next, she has a disaster when she accidentally paints outside the lines! Horrified and embarrassed the artist doesn’t want to share her work any more - can the people in the city change her mind?Ed Vere’s self-illustrated picture book conveys all the joy and creativity of making art and how it doesn’t really matter if you stick within the lines or not. I enjoyed the colours and the way he conveys the excitement of sharing ideas and the artist’s horror and embarrassment at not doing it “properly”. This is one of those books that would really encourage young readers to express themselves through art, which is a great message to take away.I really loved the colours that Vere uses in this book - the artist literally has every colour of the palette within her and Vere does a great job of conveying her enthusiasm and love for sharing her work with people (I especially loved how she pokes her tongue out while she draws, which is something so many young readers do). At the same time, there are a lot of very small touches that just bring the book to life (e.g. the way some of the scenes have artist’s tape on them to show how Vere has been creating them).Vere has dedicated the book to the memory of Jan Pieńkowski (whose work I loved as a child) and I think this is a really fitting tribute that will hopefully inspire a generation of budding artists.

This is a lovely picture book with a really good message for young children - mistakes are great for us. This book is full of colourful pictures to engage readers. The illustrator has been very clever with the colours within the book, making some dull and others bright. This would be perfect to use in the classroom when encouraging children to embrace mistakes, to be brave and have a go.

The book is aimed at small children, I got it for a 6 year old who loved it. Thinks a bit of artist themselves so enjoyed the story, especially the bit about it being ok to make mistakes and paint outside the lines.The front cover is very vibrant but inside it's not as vibrant due to the type of paper it's printed, more of a dull type so not as vibrant as the cover. Each page is mostly covered by a illustration and then some words so you will need to talk through the scenes on the page. Might not be to everyone's taste but my kid enjoyed the book but then they have an interest in painting which helps.