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allmadhere106's review
4.0
This book is wonderful and I love it so! It's fantastical and witty while also having amazing illustrations. Highly recommended.
sandraagee's review
5.0
How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird is an adaptation of a poem by French author Jacques Prevert. Translated and illustrated by award-winning illustrator Mordicai Gerstein, it is a beautifully poetic story that is not so much about healing or even birds, but about the power of art. The story provides instructions on capturing a bird to paint, beginning with directions to sketch an inviting birdcage to attract the bird. The fantasy of this procedure is whimsical and filled with child-like creativity as it celebrates the creative process and creative solutions to difficult problems. The illustrations are beautifully rendered and seem to call to mind the very portrait that the poem calls its readers to paint.
erine's review
4.0
The text is an adapted poem. The illustrations make this fly, however. A tribute to the creative process, patience, hard work, and the ability to pick up and do it all again another day.
satyridae's review
2.0
I appear to be the sole dissenting voice on GoodReads with regard to How To Paint The Portrait Of A Bird. This book failed to move me. I didn't love the modern, scrawly illustrations by Gerstein. I didn't even like them- except for the bird. The bird bordered on the transcendent, especially in a face-on page where its wings described a pure and glorious arc. But the bird appeared to be in the wrong milieu to my eye.
I did not find that it echoed the creative process, at least not the creative process as this artist knows it. Clearly, my mileage varies from the norm here. It simply failed to work for me.
I did not find that it echoed the creative process, at least not the creative process as this artist knows it. Clearly, my mileage varies from the norm here. It simply failed to work for me.
mat_tobin's review
4.0
I did find this a challenging read when I first went through it and wondered whether children might feel the same way too. Then I relaxed, enjoyed it and considered how poetry can be for everyone and anyone to take from it what rings clearly for them.
Adding his own interpretation to Prevert's free-verse poem on this metaphor for the patience required to master the creative process, Gerstein keeps the images simple yet wholly entertaining. To paint a bird properly, you must capture it. Once captured, you should remove all restraints from the foci and worry not if it flies away. What matters is the endurance and dedication needed to create and then such acts of original, masterful creation are constant.
Adding his own interpretation to Prevert's free-verse poem on this metaphor for the patience required to master the creative process, Gerstein keeps the images simple yet wholly entertaining. To paint a bird properly, you must capture it. Once captured, you should remove all restraints from the foci and worry not if it flies away. What matters is the endurance and dedication needed to create and then such acts of original, masterful creation are constant.
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