Born in Dallas, Texas, Hardie made a name of himself as first an animator for Walt Disney in 1939 and then as an acclaimed painter / watercolour artist, earning an honorary academician in the National Academy of Design. It was during his time in New York that he caught sight of a small Moran tugboat "that didn’t seem to want to work", which inspired him to write his first children's book - "Little Toot" - and has since become a literature classic.
Hardie wrote various other stories on character vehicles - including Hercules the old-fashioned Fire Engine, Loopy the Airplane, Creeper's Jeep and Sparky the Trolley Car - but it was Little Toot who became the most familiar. Hardie wrote and illustrated five more stories in the series, which has seen the little Tugboat visit the River Thames of Britain, the Grand Canal of Italy, the Mississippi River, the Golden Gates of San Francisco and the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland. All accompanied by Hardie's beautiful artworks.
The original "Big Toot", Little Toot's Father |
Disney's Vision - Little Toot and Big Toot |
LINKS OF INTEREST:
View further extracts from some of the Little Toot books courtesy of Our Little Library Blog
Don't forget to also check out TUGS and Theodore Tugboat for other nautical adventures!
Don't forget to also check out TUGS and Theodore Tugboat for other nautical adventures!
Chris
ReplyDeleteYou may want to see this....
http://www.californiawatercolor.com/paintings/hardie_gramatky/?