Leo Leoni was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in 19 10. His mother is a soprano, and his home is near an art museum. His uncles are architects, painters and art collectors, so he grew up in a rich artistic atmosphere. Nature and art became the focus of his childhood life, and also played an important role in the formation of his character and the design of his career.
He is a talented person, an unrestrained creative genius, proficient in painting, sculpture, graphic design, printing, pottery, photography, but the most valuable thing is graphic design.
He once held an important position as design director in the printing industry and magazine industry, most notably as the design director of Fortune Weekly for ten years.
He has held his own personal art exhibitions and design exhibitions in Europe and America for many times. He used to be the president of American Graphic Arts Society and the president of 1953 International Design Conference.
Leo Leonie was 49 years old when he started writing picture books. Little blue and yellow was inspired by accident. 1959 One day, he took his five-year-old grandson and three-year-old granddaughter from Manhattan to Connecticut by suburban train. Because the two naughty boys were fidgeting for a while, he took a magazine and told stories to the two children. He tore the advertising page into yellow, blue and yellow. He spread his briefcase on his knee and told an impromptu story about Huang Xiao and Xiao Lan. According to his autobiography, this story not only fascinated the two children, but also attracted the adults next door.
So an unprecedented and creative picture book "Little Blue and Little Yellow" was born.
His picture books won numerous awards, among which One Inch Worm, Little Black Fish, Field Mouse A and Alexander and Clockwork Mouse were named 196 1, 1964, 1968 and1977 respectively.
The Buddha of the vole not only uses the method of tearing and pasting, but also tries to cut and paste and draw by hand. When it came to Alexander and the Clockwork Rat, the material was changed to Japanese color printing paper.
In Little Black Fish, he completely abandoned his favorite collage form and used watercolor painting techniques instead. First, the watercolor pigment is diluted with a lot of water, and then the shape and background of fish, jellyfish and seaweed are highlighted, or printed in kind. Because the water is colorful and light, the picture is full of transparency as in water.
On the page where a group of little red fish swam into a big fish, a closer look at the dense group of little red fish did not come out in one stroke, but the author carved the seal into the shape of little red fish and covered it one by one. When it is covered, it is light and heavy, in some places it is sparse, and in some places it is dense. The mighty little red fish, separated from each other and gathered together from time to time, came to the page.
There are also unique features in comic creation, and the collage of pictures is successfully applied to comics. Two of his cartoons won five awards at 1970 Teheran Film Festival, and the comic "Leonid 5 Classic" based on his five works won an award at 1988 American Film and Video Festival.