The theme of September’s kids art competition is “Gorilla“. The closing date for entries is 7 October 2009.

Anthropomorphism is, of course, one of the staples of nursery art. Here is a rather nice example which we have recently incorporated into the material regarding our children’s art gallery. Incidentally, the Look and Learn children’s art gallery is growing apace, with some 250 pictures added in the last week.

Today we are announcing the winners of the December 2007 children’s art competition on the theme of “Lion”. While there are some magnificent lions in the Look and Learn picture library - for instance this picture by G W Backhouse - generally, we think, the children’s art compares surprisingly well. To see the winning children’s pictures, click here.

It is not clear who nowadays would want an illustration of yaks, but I doubt whether there are many finer illustrations extant of these wonderful beasts of burden. The artist is sadly unknown.

In Europe, we call it the elk, in North America it is the moose, but either way it is the largest living member of the deer family. Sometimes growing to a height of seven feet, and maybe weighing more than 1,000 lb., the male, or bull, moose has a set of antlers which is second to none. The antlers are curious in that they branch out from the side of the head, and grow sideways rather than forwards. They do not reach full size until the moose is eight or nine years old; then they may be as much as five feet across from tip to tip. Each January the adult moose sheds its antlers, and the new pair are not fully grown until August.

Other points which make the moose easy to recognize are its long and thin-looking legs, a strange pouch of skin, called the “bell,” which hangs from the throat, and a drooping muzzle which gives the moose the appearance of having a very Roman nose. The female (cow) moose in winter has a lighter-coloured coat than the bull, whose long, coarse hair varies in shade from dark brown to a dirty grey. The coats of both the bull and the cow are finer during the summer months.

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When we are photographing or scanning magazine artwork it is generally not too difficult to identify the issue of the magazine from which the picture came. This is because the editors typically wrote the day and month (though, irritatingly, not generally the year) in the border of the painting. But sometimes the dates are wrong, and sometimes there is no date at all meaning that it can be difficult to identify even the subject matter of the picture. Quite a few pictures in our our picture library are in various ways as “unidentified”. Indeed, if you do a search for this word you will come up with just over 300 pictures. Who, for instance, call tell us what animal this is?

Kraken

For centuries, sailors have told of the kraken, a giant octopus capable of capsizing a ship. Scientists doubt its existence — yet still the fear persists.

The artist is Oliver Frey.

With so many of our native birds declining in numbers and some even disappearing altogether, it is good to know [ie in 1973] that at least one species is on the increase. One hundred years ago the Great Crested Grebe was in danger of extinction, chiefly because it was the fashion in Victorian times for ladies to wear hats that had been trimmed with grebe “fur.” Towards the end of the last century the number of breeding pairs of these birds was estimated at less than 50. Today, nearly every large sheet of fresh water supports at least one pair of these attractive birds.

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If you take a walk in the woods and keep very quiet, you may be able to eavesdrop on a strange and secret conversation. As you pause among the trees, you may hear a tapping sound made so rapidly that it seems like a roll of drums. This will be the Pied Woodpecker, or Greater Spotted Woodpecker as it is also known, communicating with another woodpecker, who may be a considerable distance away. This bush telegraph is worked by the bird’s striking the trunk of a tree with its beak with great rapidity.

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This fine picture of a hippopotamus, having its teeth cleaned by egrets, was used on the cover of an issue of Look and Learn in 1979.