You may contact Linda here:
LINDASAnArtist@aol.com
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Please click on thumbnails to see larger view
An artful
explanation
Linda Gunn
uses her
art to help
children
understand a
tough subject
Arts
healing powers
 Soup Party((at
the top) Dr. Owl
(middle) and Friendly Village
(to the left) are
illustrations for Florian's Special Gift (which can be purchased by
calling TrinityCare Hospice at 1-800-829-8660 |
As
a child, Linda Gunn loved reading fairy tales," I would always
envision myself as the poor little princess in the paper dress," she
laughs, But the Long Beach, California artist never imagined she'd
get to help create a fairy tale of her own until the day she
received a call from an old friend. "My friend, a grief counselor for
the TrinityCare Hospice, asked if I'd be interested in illustrating
a book for charity, "Gunn explains, "She knew the authors and heard
that they wanted vibrant, happy paintings for the story, so she
mentioned me."
The book, Florian's
Special Gift, was a labor of love that started after Ned Mansour
, a retired CEO at Mattel, had spent several months caring for a
good friend dying of cancer. While in the hospice center, Mansour
became acquainted with Amanda Goodrich, whose husband had also
worked for Mattel before he'd developed colon cancer for a second
time. When Goodrich's husband passed away, the mother of two found
it difficult to explain to her children what had happened.
Please check out the rest of Florian's
Special Gift images. |
"Goodrich wanted a book that would explain
death to children in a way they could understand," says Gunn. "She
new that Mansour had written a couple of books, so she asked him for
his help." Monsour and Goodrich, with the help of a psychiatrist,
teamed up to make a children's book about loss and recovery.
While
the story and its message were important to the project, the key to
making the book appeal to a young audience would have to be the
art--and it needed to be created very quickly. "When I met with
Mansour and Goodrich, they told me they needed the art within two
months," she explains. "I said, 'I can do it'. I work best on a
deadline."
Creating so many illustrations in such a short period time was still
a challenge for Gunn, but her collection of sketchbook journals and
reference photographs helped to inspire her work and speed up the
creative process. "I write down my experiences and take lots of
pictures, and when I get home I combine my sketches with other ideas
to create my paintings," she explains. Some illustrations such as
the opening scene in the book, are an amalgam of Gunn's imagination
and photographs of real places. "I based that illustration on a tiny
village in the Cotswalds," she says. "I took bits and pieces of
references that I'd collected over the years. I just placed them
together and balanced things with the characters in the story.
That's how that opening scene, Friendly Village (above), came into
being."Now that the book is
complete, Gunn has her eye on more illustration projects, including
another book by Mansour and a storybook for a children's hospital in
London. But while she's already begun working on new and different
projects, she still has high hopes for the future of Florian's
Special gift. "We're hoping other hospices across the country
will pick up the book and put their own information in it to use as
a fund raiser," Gunn explains. "The book is raising a lot of money
for the hospice, but this is just the beginning."
( |
Credits go to:
The Artist Magazine issue September 2004
http://www.artistsmagazine.com
and Jennifer Ball, editor.
Please sign my guestbook. I would appreciate your
comments
All artwork is copyrighted ©2004 by Linda Gunn any
unauthorized use will be considered a violation of the copyright laws.
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