“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”
Edgar Degas

“Creativity takes courage. ”
Henri Matisse

“The artist is not a different kind of person, but every person is a different kind of artist.”
Eric Gill

Have you ever thought about how you see the world?

In colours, in lines, in shapes

We all see the world differently

Through our own eyes

Our own experiences, emotions and imaginations

An Artist’s Eyes by Frances Tosdevin and Clemence Monnet

Is a beautifully written, magical story

About seeing things differently

Jo and Mo are walking together in nature

Admiring everything that they see

Jo loves the way that Mo talks about the world around her

She has artist’s eyes

She sees the “world in dazzling duck-egg blue,

A swirl of peacocks and the inky, indigo of evening.”

Jo does not see any of these things

He sees the blue sea, the green forest

He does not see springy zingy moss

And he wishes he had artist’s eyes like Mo

Mo is gentle and patient and she encourages Jo

To keep looking

To keep seeing

Jo tries so hard to see mellow yellow like Mo

But he cannot

Jo sees a blue sea with sparkly bits

He sees points and swirls

He cannot see colours the way that Mo does

But as he learns to trust his eyes

He realises that he can see shapes and patterns and lines

The more Jo looks

The more Jo sees

Swirly circles of sunshine

Sparkly squiggles of sea

Jo and Mo walk and talk to together

They sit and stare together

Describing what and how they see

As the sun sets

Jo and Mo watch happily

Seeing everything

But seeing it all quite differently

Through their own eyes

With their own experience, emotion and imagination

We love this book

We love the empowering message of the story

To find the courage to see the world

And share your unique interpretation of what you see

In words, in pictures

In colours, shapes, patterns and lines

Through dance, drama, song

We are all artists

We all experience the world around us in different ways

We can all share our creative responses to what we see

We are all different

We all have something unique to share

We all have artist’s eyes