Leonard Weisgard Children's Book Illustrations

When searching for illustration inspiration on Pinterest, we found ourselves looking at the same artist time and time again. At first, it was hard to tell it was the same artist, with the impressive vastness of illustrations of different styles, but a little research proved that all of the work was indeed from one artist, Leonard Weisgard. Weisard was a prominent children's book illustrator of the mid-1900's. This award winning illustrator (and sometimes author) illustrated over 200 books, many of which were collaborations with author Margaret Wise Brown.Leonard Weisgard first became interested in children's book when he was just 8 years old. According to his biography, "As a schoolboy in New York, he was dissatisfied with the books supplied by the public schools he attended. He found the illustrations monotonous and thought that the world could not be all that dreary and limited to only one color." From then on, he pursued and career in illustration. In order to make sure his work wasn't "dreary and limited," Weisgard used many colors and different types of media in his books, such as gouache, poster paint, crayon, chalk, decoupage, stenciling and pen and ink. His goal was to improve the current stock of children's books and education. To do so, he worked closely with many talented authors of the time, and even wrote his own stories under the pseudonym "Adam Green." Weisgard even worked with the American Library Association to influence children's education through literature.His collection of work is so vast that it is hard to choose just a few examples of his talent, but check out the images below for a small sampling of the illustration work of Leonard Weisgard.