Good Night and Tough Luck "Getting a good night’s sleep is actually a lot more complicated than one would think." An amusing look at the problems involved in getting a good night's sleep.
posted by nooneyouknow on Oct 22, 2009 - 62 comments

Anna Skladmann's Little Adults. Photographs of the children of the ultra-rich in Russia.
posted by chunking express on Apr 29, 2009 - 51 comments

The Giving Tree (1973), animated short based on Shel Silverstein's 1964 children's story and narrated by the author. [more inside]
posted by the_bone on Mar 18, 2009 - 38 comments

Michael Mararian creates pen and ink drawings of mischievously macabre babies and children. Meet the dark and wicked little demons in his current exhibit or explore the world of childhood terrors in his phobias, foibles and fiends collection (scroll down a few) where humor and horror collide.
posted by madamjujujive on Dec 14, 2008 - 12 comments

"We create sewn art and artifacts based on the drawings of our two children using only thrifted and recycled materials. We also make custom pieces with a child's drawing provided or requested by you." Via plsj tumblelog.
posted by nthdegx on Jul 8, 2008 - 8 comments

Photographs of esteemed Sydney artist Bill Henson have been removed by police from the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, and the debate over art vs pornography vs pedophilia heats up in Sydney this week. Some of the debate is quite measured and intelligent while other sides are descending to unruly levels. [more inside]
posted by robotot on May 25, 2008 - 61 comments

Speaking of speeches, David Eggers delivers one at TED on grassroots community tutoring for kids who need help with their English homework: "There's something about the kids finishing their homework in a given day, working one on one, getting all this attention. They finish their homework, they go home -- they're finished. They don't stall. They don't do their homework in front of the TV. They're allowed to go home 5:30, enjoy their family, enjoy other hobbies, get outside, play and that makes a happy family. A bunch of happy families in a neighborhood is a happy community. A bunch of happy communities tied together is a happy city and a happy world, right? So, the key to it all is homework." Love him or hate him (mefi consensus) it's a great example of nervous energy microphilanthropy, social entrepreneurship and, if I may make the connection, machines of loving grace. [previously]
posted by kliuless on Mar 23, 2008 - 26 comments

Kathe Kollwitz, printmaker and sculptor, on The Peasants War (historical background, prints), war and death, mothers and children, herself and the death of her son Peter in WWI.
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Jan 2, 2008 - 11 comments

"A paper around her neck said she was Ida, but Ida said nothing at all." So tells the story of the saddest, unluckiest girl that ever lived. [more inside]
posted by ZachsMind on Sep 6, 2007 - 17 comments

""My Kid Could Paint That." It has been said before on metafilter about Jackson Pollock,and apparently it is being said about another artist. However, this artist is a kid. Is she a Pre-School Pollock? Or just another kid having fun with art supplies? I guess you'll have to wait for the movie to decide. [previously on mefi]
posted by nuclear_soup on Aug 10, 2007 - 92 comments

The children's book illustrators archive. Czeschka - Die Nibelungen; Nielsen - Hansel and Gretel; Goble - Japanese Fairy Tales; Dulac - Arabian Nights; Pavlishin - Folktales of the Amur; Finlay - The Ship of Ishtar; Detmold - The Arabian Nights; Crane - Flora Feast; Kirin - Croatian Tales of Long Ago; Clarke - Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination; Collard - British Fairy Tales, and; more Rackham in the gallery then you can shake a pen at.
posted by OmieWise on Dec 13, 2006 - 14 comments

Music makes you smarter if you get an early start. Certainly debatable given the incredibly small sample, but perhaps it's a prelude to an emerging 21st-century collaborative scientific suite or symphony that can explain why we love music so much.
posted by persona non grata on Sep 20, 2006 - 22 comments

The Toymaker offers over 40 free paper toys and pretties you can print out (PDFs) and make yourself, as well as "Stories to be Told by Firelight" - online versions of author/illustrator Marilyn Scott Waters' children's stories and lots of other fun goodies. For people who have kids, people who know kids, people who are kids, and people who love papercraft, illustration, toys, and tales. [more...]
posted by taz on Jul 24, 2006 - 18 comments

Inner City Youth, London "In 2002, Simon Wheatley began photographing London's publich housing developments...and was able to obtain a level of intimacy with his subjects that provides a true picture of the daunting project of growing up in the intimate confines of drug use, societal neglect, and poverty." This (Flash-based) narrated slideshow features Wheatley's work, and is a look at the culture...and also the music (grime) "as an artistic response to the place and circumstance, an expression of the violence, bleakness, and neglect..." (via Future Feeder)
posted by tpl1212 on Jul 20, 2006 - 38 comments

Dreams of Flying. Whimsical photographs by Jan Von Holleben.
posted by Robot Johnny on Apr 12, 2006 - 28 comments

The ATF has sponsored an art contest for the children of its employees. Some of the children depicted their parents as heroes. Others seemed to tell a story that’s a bit more grim. Still others were truly elliptical or perplexing. Oh, and the turtle. [via.]
posted by dersins on Mar 22, 2006 - 48 comments

Aliens and Children. This website features a series of drawings made by children who were abducted by aliens for the purpose of creating a new race of alien/human hybrids. They successfully resisted the aliens by using a thought screen helmet which blocks the telepathic control aliens have over humans.
posted by Robot Johnny on Feb 12, 2006 - 35 comments

Plan59's Demoinc Tots and Deeply Disturbing Cusine: Plan59 has a bunch of overdone goodness (in a white bread sort of way) but this is the best. Link to their main page
posted by edgeways on Jan 27, 2006 - 17 comments

The Monster Engine. Commercial artist Dave Devries has done some nifty work in comics and such, but his Monster Engine projects are just damned cool. Just too bad there aren't more samples. (via memepool.com)
posted by es_de_bah on Jun 9, 2005 - 11 comments

The mystery of Stefan Mart and the 'Tales of the Nations'. "The Tales of Nations" was not an ordinary book that you could buy in a book store, and it's mysterious narrator/illustrator disappeared into the darkness of Hitler's Germany, seemingly without a trace. Learn the background, read the stories, and view all 150 fabulous colour illustrations — "small in size, but strong in expression, each a microcosm packed with action, each a feast for the eyes like a beautifully set jewel".
posted by taz on Jan 9, 2005 - 20 comments

Move over, Gray's Anatomy! Children draw the human body.
posted by Robot Johnny on Oct 14, 2004 - 19 comments

Kodomo no kuni - children's book illustrations and songs from 1920s Japan. I found the artist's index the best way to navigate. (via the always entertaining quiddity)
posted by madamjujujive on Aug 21, 2004 - 12 comments

Three nice book links from the University of North Texas Libraries: 1. Victorian Bookbinding - Innovation and Extravagance has some gorgeous examples of bookcovers from the Art Nouveau, Victorian, and Arts and Crafts periods. 2. The Great Menagerie is an animated tour of 19th and 20th century pop-up books. 3. Pop-Up and Movable Books - A Tour, showcases pop-up book artists through the centuries, and includes the master of the genre, Lothar Meggendorfer. More about Meggendorfer inside ---->
posted by iconomy on Jul 29, 2004 - 7 comments

The grays, the mantises, the snake-skins, and the hybrids are just some of the aliens drawn by children at Aliens and Children. To note: thought screen hats will successfully prevent abduction by the mantis-like aliens, the servants of the mantis-like aliens, the snake-skinned aliens, and the Meek-Moks.
posted by iconomy on Apr 27, 2004 - 24 comments

They Still Draw Pictures. Drawings made by children during the Spanish Civil War.
posted by plep on Oct 17, 2003 - 10 comments

Shocked and Awed: A gallery of Iraq schoolchildren art. Interesting galleries of crayon works, some obviously have high opinions of the occupation while others may not. [via Dangerousmeta]
posted by mathowie on Oct 17, 2003 - 14 comments

Let's go on a rocket trip to the Moon! A collection of space art in children's books, 1883 to 1974. These books, and their evocative art, instilled in a generation the romance and wonder of space flight. I grew up in the 1950's, and as a kid I could pour over this book and its illustrations for hours, dreaming.
via A Voyage to Arcturus
posted by Slithy_Tove on Sep 26, 2003 - 8 comments

Sure, Scarlett O'Hara Barbie is lovely, and yeah, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz Barbie is cute, but for my money, it's hard to beat Marge Simpson Barbie, Medusa Barbie, or Dominatrix Barbie. The full collection, located here, clearly owes a debt to Todd Haynes, and the Barbie Liberation Army, but is still worth a chuckle.
posted by jonson on Jun 21, 2003 - 7 comments

The Russian Avant-Garde Book is an online version of the MoMA exhibit, featuring 112 books originally published in Russia during the intensely creative period between 1910 and 1934, before Stalin outlawed any style but social realism. The site is separated into three chronological themes and includes examples of futurist works, constructivist graphic design, children's books, propaganda, photography and photomontage, revolutionary imagery, architecture and industry, war themes, folk art and judaica...
posted by taz on Oct 8, 2002 - 16 comments

Sand Art: it's everyone's favorite preschool art activity, now on your PC! Go sand art! Still, with this version you can't get into sand throwing fights with your friends...
posted by unreason on Sep 21, 2002 - 5 comments

Dart Pigeon! Beware, this is what happens when you cut funding for the arts in our schools.
posted by bryanboyer on Mar 5, 2001 - 25 comments