Nicole Rubel’s infectious
smile may be stronger than the gravitational pull of the
moon.
Almost every person who
walked into the storytime room at the Wilsonville Public
Library Wednesday night seemed magnetically drawn to the
Aurora author and illustrator, giving her hugs and praise
for her 30 years of work – and her ability to make friends
with anyone.
Rubel was onsite to celebrate the 30th “birthday” of
Rotten Ralph, a character she illustrated as a college
student at Boston Museum’s School of Fine Arts and Tufts
University. Since that first book, “Rotten Ralph,” in 1975,
there have been many others she has created with author Jack
Gantos. In fact, they are set to release another one, “The
Nine Lives of Rotten Ralph.”
But Rubel has spent much of the past year visiting
libraries and schools, sharing the story of her life as an
illustrator, her artistic style and what makes Rotten Ralph
such a lovable character after all.
It was actually a “dark and stormy night” when Rubel made
her appearance at the Wilsonville library, yet the young
children in the room seemed captivated by her energy and
enthusiasm for her craft.
Rubel presented a slide show filled with her own artwork,
some jokes from another book she illustrated, “Batty
Riddles” (“What famous flying mammal lived in ancient Egypt?
Cleo’bat’tra!”), and some home video of her dog, cat and
stuffed alligator – she grew up among the sharp-toothed
reptiles in Florida and can’t seem to escape her youth.
For the 54-year-old Rubel, art seems to imitate life. Or
maybe it’s the other way around. Her home is reported to be
bathed in bright colors, filled with her artwork and other
quirky designs. She’s drawn to red, patterns, twins and
animals, often filling her storybook pages with all of these
items.
“I like little details,” she told her audience. “I
usually try to include some of my favorite things in my
designs. I fill up the whole page with my artwork. I talk
about detail.”
Take Rotten Ralph, for example. He’s red. Rubel loves the
warmth of that color and includes it often. She remembers
when she first saw the work of Paul Gauguin, and the way she
felt when she saw his use of warm colors. But red is also an
“angry” color, and Rotten Ralph did, in fact, often find
himself doing things to annoy the people around him.
But Rotten Ralph is also surrounded by patterns. Again,
Rubel draws from her love of fine art, this time she points
out the work of Vincent Van Gogh, and the way he repeated
images to create a soothing pattern. She also talks about
the black outline he used, and she even mentions that she
grows bearded irises in her own garden at home.
“I’m trying to show that relationship of what my art
style is,” Rubel said later. “I ask them, ‘Why do I like
it?’ and all the hands go up, at every school. They’ll start
to see the relationships between my work and the paintings
I’ve selected to show. I try to entertain, but I do a few
other things too.”
Rubel also references Henri Matisse, whom she loved for
his use of pretty colors and patterns. In her earlier years
as an artist, she couldn’t get enough of either. But times –
and artists – change.
“I’m very in love with white right now,” she said. “It’s
really funny. It will be in the next Rotten Ralph book,
there’s a lot of white on the page, so he really stands
out.”
In fact, she admits that if she were creating Rotten
Ralph today, she wouldn’t have even considered red.
“I’m a different person today,” said Rubel. “You evolve
as an artist, you lose something, but you gain something
else. If you’re alive, then you’re open to new
ideas.”
