Jill McElmurry (1954 – August 3, 2017) was an American painter, book illustrator, and sometime writer-illustrator of children's picture books.

Biography

McElmurry was born in Los Angeles, California and moved to

Taos, New Mexico Taos () is a town in Taos County, New Mexico, Taos County, in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Santa Fe ...

with her family as a child, where they stayed for six years. She came from a family of artists, including her father, a character designer for film companies including

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney ( ; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer, voice actor, and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the Golden age of American animation, American animation industry, he introduced several develop ...

; her mother, a fashion illustrator; and her grandfather, an

RKO Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, is an American film production and distribution company, historically one of the major film studios, "Big Five" film studios of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood's Clas ...

scenic painter. McElmurry studied briefly at

SUNY Purchase The State University of New York at Purchase, commonly referred to as Purchase College or SUNY Purchase, is a Public college, public Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Purchase, New York. Established in 1967 by G ...

and at the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by Silas ...

in New York. She was the illustrator of numerous books for children, including the ''Little Blue Truck'' series written by Alice Schertle and the self-penned ''Mad About Plaid''. Her style features detailed

gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouach ...

paintings with distinctive characters. As a fine art painter, McElmurry initially worked in editorial illustration and later became known for her

landscape paintings A landscape is the visible features of an area of Terrestrial ecoregion, land, its landforms, and how they integrate with Nature, natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Diction ...

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

. McElmurry lived with her husband in Taos and in Good Dog Island,

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

until her death from breast cancer on August 3, 2017.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mcelmurry, Jill 1954 births 2017 deaths American children's book illustrators American women children's writers American children's writers American illustrators 21st-century American women artists Artists from Los Angeles 21st-century American artists American women children's book illustrators