First Impressions, From 'Willow Buds, When Toady met Ratty'
watercolor/pastel/colored pencil
16" x 16"
2008
16" x 16"
2008
May 2 through May 21, 2010
Mary Jane Begin: Back to the Future: From 'The Wind in the Willows' to 'Willow Buds'
Mary Jane Begin is a Rhode-Island-based award-winning illustrator known in particular for her acclaimed and much-beloved children’s picture books. Her portfolio includes Before I Go To Sleep, The Porcupine Mouse, and Jeremy's First Haircut. In the fall of 2005 she released her own retelling of the classic The Sorcerer’s Apprentice for Little Brown and Company, and R is for Rhode Island Red for Sleeping Bear Press, a paean to her home state of Rhode Island. The first two books in her own series for Little Brown and Company were published in 2008, Willow Buds, The Tale of Toad and Badger and Willow Buds, When Toady Met Ratty.Mary Jane Begin: Back to the Future: From 'The Wind in the Willows' to 'Willow Buds'
Her illustrating career began as a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she has now been teaching for 20 years.
She has had one-woman shows at Books of Wonder Gallery in New York and Beverly Hills as well as RisdWorks at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. She has also exhibited at the RISD Faculty Biennial, RISD Museum, Society of Illustrators (NY), The DeCordova Museum (MA), (MI), Every Picture Tells a Story, and Storyopolis (CA). She most recently exhibited in a two-person show at the Providence Art Club, a group show at the Newport Art Museum -Legends in Illustration and a solo show at the Rhode Island Statehouse. She has exhibited in the Members Gallery at the Society of Illustrators in November 2006, Imago Gallery in 2008, and has a major exhibition of works from The Wind in the Willows and Willow Buds at the National Museum of American Illustration in Newport, 2008, Fleet Library at RISD, 2008 Hasbro Children’s Hospital in 2009 and The Providence Art Club in 2010.
She is the recipient of many awards, including The Steven Donahos Award and multiple Certificates of Merit from the Society of Illustrators, multiple Awards of Excellence from Communications Arts, the Irma Simonton Black Award, the Critici Erba Prize at the Bologna Book Fair, Italy, and First Place, Juvenile Trade, at the New York Book Show, New York and the Providence Art Club’s Ruth W. Finley Award. Her work has been featured in Communication Arts Magazine, the Society of Illustrators Annual of American Illustration, and American Art in Review Magazine, Antiques and the Arts Weekly, Maine Antiques Digest, the Newton Bee.
Her advertising and merchandising work includes imagery for greeting cards, posters, prints, games, mugs, gifts, textbooks, magazines, and advertisements for such clients as Hasbro, Milton Bradley, Celestial Seasonings, Annie’s HomeGrown, See's Candies, Franklin Mint, Disney, Pearson Education, Harcourt Publishing, Scott Foresman and Company, Macmillan McGraw Hill and Dalmatian Press.
She has been a panelist and participant in numerous conferences and workshops, including the Rhode Island Festival of Children's Books and Authors, the National Family Literacy Conference, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Conference, and the NEA Teacher's Conference. She has lectured at elementary schools throughout the United States, and has also provided pro bono and charity work for the American Library Association, the Rhode Island Library Association, Save the Bay, Horizons Initiative, Gateway Healthcare, Hasbro Children’s Hospital, All Children’s Theatre, The Providence Community Health Center, and Reach Out and Read Rhode Island.
When not teaching or painting, she can be found reading bedtime stories to her husband and two children in Barrington, R.I. For further imagery and information, see www.maryjanebegin.com or e-mail mjbegin@cox.net.