Synopses & Reviews
Do you enjoy watching birds? Do you like coloring and designing? Then here is a book that will provide hours of imaginative and creative fun. The designs include all kinds of birds--some in water, some flying through the air, others resting on tree branches or in grassy fields. You can color them realistically or use your imagination to create stylizes, decorative birds in unusual patterns and designs.
Created by award-winning artist/designer Ruth Heller, Designs for Coloring are unique among coloring books. The high-quality paper is suitable for use with crayons, felt-tipped pens, water paints, pencils, or pastels. You can use bold, bright colors or lighter, subtler shades. You may even want to frame an especially pleasing page--or transfer a pattern to a piece of embroidery, needlepoint, pottery, or mosaic.
About the Author
After receiving a fine arts degree from the University of California at Berkeley and completing two years of graduate work in design at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland,
Ruth Heller (1923-2004) began her career designing wrapping paper, cocktail napkins, greeting cards, and coloring books. After five years of rejection and one complete revision, Heller's first book,
Chickens Aren't the Only Ones, about egg-laying animals, was published in 1981. It was so successful that the sequel, and second book to be published,
Animals Born Alive And Well (1982), about mammals, quickly followed. In 1983 and 1984, her third and fourth titles,
The Reason For A Flower (about plants that have seeds and flowers) and
Plants That Never Ever Bloom (about plants that do not) were published.
She then began work on a collection of six books, the How To Hide series on camouflage and the magic of this phenomenon in nature, which covered the entire animal kingdom -- insects, birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and sea creatures. The next collection of books became a five-volume series on parts of speech: A Cache of Jewels and Other Collective Nouns; Kites Sail High: A Book About Verbs; Many Luscious Lollipops: A Book About Adjectives; Merry-Go-Round: A Book About Nouns; and Up, Up and Away: A Book About Adverbs. She also wrote and illustrated the unique and fascinating book Color, a charming and instructive guide to how art goes through the four color printing process.
Among the notable people who have had an influence on Heller's writing have been: Ogden Nash, Gilbert and Sullivan, Edward Lear, Hilaire Belloc, and Dr. Seuss. Heller says of her work, "All my books are nonfiction picture books in rhyme. I find writing in rhyme enjoyable and challenging, and I think it is an easy way for children to learn new facts and acquire a sophisticated vocabulary. Children are not intimidated by big words. I try to make my writing succinct and allow the illustrations to convey as much information as possible."