Thursday, November 29, 2012

Read All About Denise Brunkus



Read All About Denise Brunkus!




You name it and Denise Brunkus has done it! She worked for a museum copying illuminated manuscripts, designed stickers, toys, and greeting cards. She has appeared in national magazines and has even airbrushed art on motorcycles! She has illustrated more than 60 books. Her most famous work is the Junie B. Jones series by Barbara Park. Brunkus currently lives in Massachusetts.

            As a child, she practiced drawing by copying the comics out of the Sunday newspaper. As she got older, the world around her inspired her to draw more and more.  At seventeen, the local PTA asked her to illustrate a booklet for them, and they paid her! That was her first art job and the start of her career. The art director at Parents magazine asked Brunkus to do an illustration for the magazine after she saw her greeting card designs. For many years after that, she appeared regularly in an assortment of national magazines. A publishing house noticed her illustrations and gave her the opportunity to illustrate her first book. She has been illustrating children’s books ever since. Brunkus’ favorite part of being an illustrator is being able to settle into a particular world where she gets to spend time with some very interesting characters.


  
 
Creating a Style
All Her Own

            Making art has always been Brunkus’ favorite thing to do. As a young artist, she used crayons and paints to make pictures and cards. She also created dolls and puppets using sticks, Kleenex, and scraps of fabrics. Now days, Brunkus creates her illustrations using several types of medium. The most common are watercolor, color pencils, and pencil. Her illustrations in Junie B. Jones are black and white and the majority of her other works are in color. Her work has a style of its own, and you can typically pick her characters out of a crowd!


A Few
 ((of her many))
Good Books!

Swallow, Pamela Curtis. Groundhog Gets Say. Illustrated by Denise Brunkus. 2005. Scholastic Inc.
Groundhog is tired of being forgotten after Groundhog Day is over! Groundhog enlists his biggest fan and reporter to get the truth out about Groundhogs! Groundhog teaches the reporter how groundhogs dig their holes, what species they belong to, what they eat and much more! I love the illustrations in this book, these characters are full of personality, and the illustrations reflect that!

Isaacs, Anne. My Teacher for President. Illustrated by Denise Brunkus. 2004.
Scholastic Inc. 
A boy thinks that his teacher, Mrs. Robinson, would make the perfect president! To get the word out, he writes a letter to Channel 39 to let them know why she is the woman for the job! Mrs. Robinson loves white houses, goes to a lot of meetings, and thinks health care is important. She is a good listener and possesses many other qualities of a good president. His only request is that she does not leave until the end of the school year!




Park, Barbara. Junie B., First Grader (at last!). Illustrated by Denise Brunkus. 2001. Scholastic Inc.
It’s a brand new year for Junie B. Jones. Goodbye kindergarten, hello first grade! A new year means new everything, a new classroom, new teacher, and new children! Junie B. is not sure how she feels about all the change, and things seem to be getting worse. When everyone else is reading the words off the board, Junie B. can’t seem to do it. Could it be that Junie B. needs glasses? No one in the class will like her with glasses…or will they?


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