Ellen Raskin
Ellen Raskin was a writer,illustator,and designer. She was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and grew up during the Great Depression. She primarily wrote for children. She received the 1979 Newberry Medal for her 1978 book, The Westing Game. Ellen Raskin describes herself as a "self-critical, running-scared, compulsive perfectionist" since the age of ten. At the Berkeley symposium she spoke of her schooling as "rigid," which consisted of learning entirely by rote. "Being a good memorizer, I did well," Raskin said. She did a lot of coloring, copying and drawing but cannot remember ever drawing from her imagination as a child. This came later. Ellen Raskin entered the University of Wisconsin-Madison at the age 17 with the intention of majoring in journalism. However, during the following summer, she visited the Chicago Art Institute and saw her first major exhibition of nonobjective art: " I was astounded by what I saw. I was awed." She changed her major to Fine Arts and studied the fundamentals of anatomy, perspective, light and shade, color, and techniques of painting and sculpture. After her studies, Ellen Raskin married, had a daughter, Susan. She moved to New York City and took a job in a commercial art studio where she learned to prepare other people's artwork for print. As a free-lance illustrator/designer, style and technique were important, but the more important thing for Raskin, was finding the one graphic symbol which would best convey the message of the writing. Raskin illustrated for The Saturday Evening Post, pharmaceutical journals, and book publishers. During these years, she made illustations of all kinds, including the design and illustration of more than 1000 book jackets ( including the original jacket for the 1963 Newbery winner, A wrinkle in time by Madeleine L'Engle ) and more than a dozen children's books by other authors.