A Brush Full of Color: The World of Ted Harrison by Margriet Ruurs & Katherine Gibson

A Brush Full of Color is the picture-book biography of artist, teacher and author, Ted Harrison. Edward (Ted) Hardy Harrison was born in 1926 in Wingate, County Durham, England. Ted was a twin, sharing his birthday with sister Mary Algar (Olga). Ted's father was a coal miner, a dangerous job that did not pay well and which he did not like. Despite the black, drab countryside, the Harrison home was a happy one, that was clean and warm. Ted's mother cooked good meals and they were kept well dressed.

Ted's father enjoyed sketching and he encouraged Ted to draw as did his Latin and English teacher, when he was older. Because Ted's father had quit school when he was twelve to work in the mines, he was determined his children would receive more of an education than he had. Ted and his twin sister Olga loved the encyclopedia set their father gifted them and Ted loved to read.

During World War II, Ted first saw a crate of apples that had been sent to County Durham from British Columbia, Canada in his uncle's store. During the war, Olga became a nurse while Ted enrolled in the Hartlepool College of Art. After the war, in 1946, Ted sailed to Bombay, India as part of British military intelligence. There he spent time drawing the rich culture of India. He also travelled to Egypt, Kenya in East Africa before returning home to England. These travels showed him both the happy and sad side of life.

Ted next took a position as an art teacher in Malaysia where he found the rich colours of flowers, waterfalls and tea plantations. In Malaysia, Ted met his wife Nicky who was from Scotland and was the administrator at the school where he taught. When Ted's mother died in 1965, he and Nicky, and their adopted son Charles moved back to England. But teaching at Wingate wasn't rewarding, so Ted and his family moved to Wabasca, Alberta where he was a teacher.

In Alberta, Ted enjoyed teaching his Cree students who often brought him unique gifts like a bird's egg. Ted would draw pictures for them and tell them funny stories. He found the Dick and Jane readers used to teach students to read were not relatable to the young Cree students so he made his own book filled with his drawings.

Ted and Nicky moved to Carcross, Yukon where he taught mathematics, science and reading to elementary students and Nicky became a kindergarten teacher. In the Yukon, Ted's style of painting changed from the strict rules he had been taught in England. Instead he decided, "I'm going to paint my Yukon!" Using the styles and techniques he had encountered in his many travels to Africa, Asia and New Zealand, Ted began to paint in the way that he felt captured Canada's North. In 1981, Ted retired from teaching to become a full-time painter. Ted was asked to illustrate the Robert Service poem, "The Cremation of Sam McGee", he designed the Yukon Pavillion for Expo '86 in Vancouver and had his art exhibited in galleries and in many private collections.

Discussion

A Brush Full of Color is a colourful, engaging book about British-Canadian artist and author, Ted Harrison. Ruurs and Gibson provide readers with Harrison's life story, showing how his love of learning saved him from work in the mins, and portrays how his life experiences ultimately influenced his art.

Although his experiences living in Africa and Asia would come to influence how he would paint the Canadian North, it was Harrison's experience living and teaching in northern Canada that had the most profound effect. His life experience in the North compelled him to change his style in order to capture the landscape and life in the Yukon. The impetus for this change seems to have been triggered by his recognition that the old style readers written for children who lived a very different life  simply did not reflect life in northern Alberta and the Yukon. These readers did not reflect life in the North and the style of painting Harrison was taught in England did not allow him to capture the beauty of life in northern Canada. 

A Brush Full of Color portrays Harrison's artistic transition by offering readers plenty of images of Harrison's art prior to coming to Canada, his work when he first came to Canada and then many images of his paintings after living and working in the Canadian north for a time. His paintings are filled with unique colours for houses, sky, clouds, the sea and the sun. Ordinary, everyday items like houses have unusual shapes. His flowing freestyle of painting captures the wind, the movement of the sea, the sun and the people. Harrison's paintings offer a vibrant perspective to northern life that many who live in Canada's south may never have realized.

The strength of this picture book is the portrayal of Ted Harrison's artistic journey, and the numerous pictures of  the artist's artwork, allowing readers to become very familiar with his unique style. Author Katherine Gibson spent four years interviewing Harrison for her biography, Ted Harrison: Painting Paradise. It's obvious she knows her subject well and this is conveyed to readers, young and old.

Book Details:

A Brush Full of Color: The World of Ted Harrison by Margriet Ruurs
Toronto: Pajama Press     2014

40 pp.