Lois Ehlert, born on October 9th, had a seamstress as a mother and a carpenter as a father, both supplying her with endless art materials for her craft. She always preferred working with her paper and fabric scraps to drawing—the beginnings of her love for collage— cutout pieces of paper, fabric, or objects glued to a backing. Ehlert usually starts with a dummy book of pencil drawings to figure out what she wants to illustrate on each page. Then she extensively studies her subject matter. Sometimes she begins by painting white paper with watercolor washes and then cuts it up, and sometimes she uses paper with just one tone or texture. Ehlert says that she writes and draws about things that she knows and cares about. Ehlert is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and the Layton School of Art. She has a studio in her home in Milwaukee. Hands, Growing Vegetable Soup, Red Leaf Yellow Leaf, Leaf Man, and Chick a Chick a Boom Boom are some of her titles.
