Lauren Stringer

Illustrator

         Author

1. ★ The first line, “One night it happens,” may be the model for many students’ future poems. Stringer’s acrylic paintings give large scale to objects such as oak leaves that require nearly a full page to be expressed. The artist makes a pair of grimy feet jump for joy and feel good to be alive. A lyrical celebration of the cycle of the seasons.”
   

                                                   --School Library Journal

1. ★ The unjustly neglected subject of “gooey, gloppy, mucky, magnificent mud” requires a unique perspective to transform it from the mundane to the celebrated. That perspective is right here, especially in newcomer Stringer’s inspired artwork... Wallow in it.
   

                                                   --Kirkus Reviews

1. ★...Stringer, in her auspicious picture book debut, portrays a solitary child viewing the brown leaves that “loosen/from their frozen drifts and run/rattling in the flapping wind,” then playing in a gigantic mud puddle... The bold acrylic paintings burst from their full-bleed spreads like tulips, with skewed perspectives and scalloped, abstract designs representing the grass and clouds.
   

                                                   --Pubisher’s Weekly

A Little Bit About...

How I Came to Illustrate Mud:

I was digging in my front garden with my two-year-old daughter when the manuscript for Mud arrived in the mail. As soon as I read it I immediately fell in love with Mary Lyn Ray’s poetic text that begins in winter and ends in spring, with “mud” as the main character. Since it was my first picture book, I had no idea what I was doing, but just let the words inspire me to paint and draw mountains of sketches; all of which I sent to the publisher in no particular order. Thank goodness I had an editor who was equally enthusiastic and patient enough to help me organize them into the book, Mud.

A Day in My Studio While Working on Mud...

Whenever I dig in the garden I am reminded of painting and I know why... there is a direct connection to the process of creation. Spring was returning as I finished Mud. A tray of seedlings sits in the sunlight while I hold up one of the illustrations. Behind me are several of the initial studies painted before painting the originals for Mud.