Willy's Pictures (Willy)

Rating:
Summary: Terrific...
Review: I found this book while I was doing a classroom project about books that would get kids to enjoy art. Honestly, I can think of no better book. Kids will love Willy. The pictures are absolutely beautiful, and there are explanations of the sources of each of the paintings Willy renders in the back. What more could you want?

Rating:
Summary: Terrific...
Review: I found this book while I was doing a classroom project about books that would get kids to enjoy art. Honestly, I can think of no better book. Kids will love Willy. The pictures are absolutely beautiful, and there are explanations of the sources of each of the paintings Willy renders in the back. What more could you want?

Rating:
Summary: Humorous Chimp-Painting Transformations!
Review: If a thousand monkeys sat at a thousand typewriters, could they ever recreate Shakespeare? That's the obvious premise for this book. This surface joke contains a more serious purpose, to encourage you to look more closely and think more about an artist's purpose and effects. After the laughter settles down, there's a wonderful opportunity to study these cartoons for their fine-art roots, and to learn about great paintings. I have seen no finer book for introducing children to paintings. Adults who would like to extend beyond a simple understanding of some important paintings will find this book rewarding as well.

"Willy likes painting and looking at pictures. He knows that every picture tells a story."

Willy is a chimp and appears to have visited many of the world's great art museums, because he knows their contents very well. The book is a series of chimp-based paintings. One or more chimps are in each image, often simply replacing where a human model would have been placed. That creates the first level of humor.

At the second level of humor, each image is also based on a famous painting. For example, the chimp painting of The Kind Women is based on The Gleaners by Millet.

At the third level of humor, the painting is further transformed by changing the sequence a little. For example, The Kind Women has the chimp women actually painting in the foreground with brushes rather than picking up the loose grains.

At the fourth level of humor, the works are renamed and subtitled. For example, The Kind Women (instead of The Gleaners) has a subtitle "I had been getting a bit bored with painting all that grass." This is based on the idea of the women in the painting helping Willy finish the painting.

At the fifth level of humor, each work also has one or more fragments of other paintings juxtaposed onto the composition of the primary transformation. For example, Lots and Lots and Lots of Dots is inevitably based on Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte but also contains part of the cobblestone pavement in the center of Caillebotte's Paris, A Rainy Day. So, these are a little like jigsaw puzzles, fitting different works into the same image in unexpected and humorous ways.

At the end of the book are small images of the paintings that the chimp images are drawn from, so that you can match up the works, even if you don't already know them. This is a good excuse to look at some great art.

Here are my favorite images from the book:

The Birthday Suit: "Quick, cover yourself up!" The primary inspiration is The Birth of Venus by Botticelli.

My Best Ever Sand Castle: "I had an odd feeling that the castle was trying to warn me of something." The primary source is The Tower of Babel by Peter Brueghel the Elder.

Lots and Lots and Lots of Dots (see above)

The Kind Women (see above)

Coming to Life: "I was just finishing the painting when I heard a small voice say, 'Give us a hand.'" The primary model for the painting is Creation of Adam by Buonarroti.

The Mysterious Smile: "Can you solve this mystery?" The main reference is to Mona Lisa by da Vinci.

The Fruitful Fishing Trip: "We hadn't caught anything all day and were on our way home when we cast our net for the last time." This painting is based on The Herring Net by Homer.

My only complaint about the book is that fitting in the secondary images did not always elevate the overall impression. In other words, the humor aimed unnecessarily too low at times.

I am in awe of Mr. Browne for conceiving of and well executing this work, though. It is a remarkable accomplishment, and one that I hope will find its way into many homes.

After you finish enjoying this book, you might want to do what my youngest child did. She took actual paintings and created her own studies of them, and we hung her studies next to the originals. Having done this at age 5, she definitely captured the key elements of composition, color, and emotion in a way that made these paintings hers forever. She was proud that we wanted to display her work as well. After doing that, you might want to ask your child if he or she wants to take a crack at creating her or his own chimp paintings. That would be a worthy challenge that would drive the lessons home much deeper. You could use the paintings at the end of the book as the models to draw from.

See the potential all around you, and integrate it into your own life!

Rating:
Summary: Humorous Chimp-Painting Transformations!
Review: If a thousand monkeys sat at a thousand typewriters, could they ever recreate Shakespeare? That's the obvious premise for this book. This surface joke contains a more serious purpose, to encourage you to look more closely and think more about an artist's purpose and effects. After the laughter settles down, there's a wonderful opportunity to study these cartoons for their fine-art roots, and to learn about great paintings. I have seen no finer book for introducing children to paintings. Adults who would like to extend beyond a simple understanding of some important paintings will find this book rewarding as well.

"Willy likes painting and looking at pictures. He knows that every picture tells a story."

Willy is a chimp and appears to have visited many of the world's great art museums, because he knows their contents very well. The book is a series of chimp-based paintings. One or more chimps are in each image, often simply replacing where a human model would have been placed. That creates the first level of humor.

At the second level of humor, each image is also based on a famous painting. For example, the chimp painting of The Kind Women is based on The Gleaners by Millet.

At the third level of humor, the painting is further transformed by changing the sequence a little. For example, The Kind Women has the chimp women actually painting in the foreground with brushes rather than picking up the loose grains.

At the fourth level of humor, the works are renamed and subtitled. For example, The Kind Women (instead of The Gleaners) has a subtitle "I had been getting a bit bored with painting all that grass." This is based on the idea of the women in the painting helping Willy finish the painting.

At the fifth level of humor, each work also has one or more fragments of other paintings juxtaposed onto the composition of the primary transformation. For example, Lots and Lots and Lots of Dots is inevitably based on Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte but also contains part of the cobblestone pavement in the center of Caillebotte's Paris, A Rainy Day. So, these are a little like jigsaw puzzles, fitting different works into the same image in unexpected and humorous ways.

At the end of the book are small images of the paintings that the chimp images are drawn from, so that you can match up the works, even if you don't already know them. This is a good excuse to look at some great art.

Here are my favorite images from the book:

The Birthday Suit: "Quick, cover yourself up!" The primary inspiration is The Birth of Venus by Botticelli.

My Best Ever Sand Castle: "I had an odd feeling that the castle was trying to warn me of something." The primary source is The Tower of Babel by Peter Brueghel the Elder.

Lots and Lots and Lots of Dots (see above)

The Kind Women (see above)

Coming to Life: "I was just finishing the painting when I heard a small voice say, 'Give us a hand.'" The primary model for the painting is Creation of Adam by Buonarroti.

The Mysterious Smile: "Can you solve this mystery?" The main reference is to Mona Lisa by da Vinci.

The Fruitful Fishing Trip: "We hadn't caught anything all day and were on our way home when we cast our net for the last time." This painting is based on The Herring Net by Homer.

My only complaint about the book is that fitting in the secondary images did not always elevate the overall impression. In other words, the humor aimed unnecessarily too low at times.

I am in awe of Mr. Browne for conceiving of and well executing this work, though. It is a remarkable accomplishment, and one that I hope will find its way into many homes.

After you finish enjoying this book, you might want to do what my youngest child did. She took actual paintings and created her own studies of them, and we hung her studies next to the originals. Having done this at age 5, she definitely captured the key elements of composition, color, and emotion in a way that made these paintings hers forever. She was proud that we wanted to display her work as well. After doing that, you might want to ask your child if he or she wants to take a crack at creating her or his own chimp paintings. That would be a worthy challenge that would drive the lessons home much deeper. You could use the paintings at the end of the book as the models to draw from.

See the potential all around you, and integrate it into your own life!

Rating:
Summary: Great fun
Review: Willy the Chimpanzee unveils a gallery of his own paintings, and introduces the famous artworks that inspired each one. An art lover's delight.