There was once a very hungry caterpillar. He ate through the week, apples and strawberries and name it. Finally he grew into a beautiful butterfly. The simple story of Eric Carle which has been translated into more than 50 languages and is a hot favourite with kids not just for the natural progression of the story but also for the splurge of colour and presentation of the book says, “One day I was playing with an innocent punching machine and made three holes. When I saw the holes I thought of a bookworm. The first version of The Very Hungry caterpillar was ‘A Week with Willi the Worm’ and it was just the way it is today except that Willi grows into a big fat worm. Then when I showed it to my editor she did not like the worm…we talked back and forth about bugs and worms and went over many other creatures and then she said why not a caterpillar and I said, a butterfly it is. Aside from the essential story of the growth of a caterpillar into a butterfly you have the counting part, the week days. You visually see the addition of one hole, two holes three holes and so on. So this an ideal combination of graphic elements that pleases me as a graphic designer of trying to teach something, the butterfly-caterpillar is a story my father could have told me…and then the heart of the book is the butterfly appearing at the end.”
Carle says the process of creating the book is the fun part. “First comes the idea. A child wrote to me asking me where do the ideas come from.
In that very same letter the child provided the answer, some ideas come from inside and some from outside.”
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Then comes the step of bringing life to the ideas.
“I buy tissue papers and I paint all kinds of colours and all kinds of textures on them.” Carle shows you how he puts browns and greens together and makes a green but a green that has depth and texture. When you see him cutting shapes off these tissue papers to make the body of his caterpillar you see the magic he has created. “That is my palate,” says Carle about his tissue papers and shows us the very many he has created, pink, red, blue, green…
“Other picture book artists create collages so it is into anything so new but is probably new that I use tissue paper and I have created a style that is easily recognizable. I draw the caterpillar on tracing paper, put my tracing over and cut out the head…” Carle shows us how he puts the tracing paper on a predominantly red collage that he has created, traces out the head, cuts it out and sticks it on a new paper. He does the same for every part of the body of the caterpillar including its tiny legs.
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“I remember when I was little I thought I would never grow up and do what grown ups do, I would never make it and so on. I think, aside from the story, aside from the graphics, you know the touch and learning, I feel this is a book of hope. You can grow up in the world with your talents.”
Carle says his favourite colour is yellow.
“Children always put yellow sign on their books. Secondly yellow is a very difficult colour for me. When you mix yellow with another colour it quickly becomes muddy. Whereas when I put red and put another colour it remains red. So it poses a challenge for me.”
Thus in three short interviews, the children’s author talks of his work, not to mention his difficult growing up years when his father was taken prisoner in World War II and the punishment he got in the first few days of his schooling that turned him away from school forever and how his actual education recommenced when he started illustrating books for another author.
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Web link:
http://www.scholastic.com/bookfairs/books/hungrycaterpillar.swf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5aJRzDYijw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmiBW305rsE