After a visit to an art museum during college, she set aside her dream of becoming an Olympian to focus full-time on becoming an artist. She also enjoyed the work of Howard Pyle, an artist she discovered on a trip to the college art museum. She specifically credits the period when she was ill for motivating her to develop her artistic skills in a serious way. Her childhood goal was to become an Olympic rider, and after she recovered from her illness and was no longer bedridden, she was rekindled her love for horseback riding.ĭuring her childhood, she became an admirer of the works of great artists, particularly that of Michelangelo, as her parents had large replicas of his paintings that she particularly enjoyed.

During the enforced physical inactivity, she used the time to refine her drawing ability by working through several 'learn-to-draw' books. Her interest in art grew more serious during the summer after she turned 11, when she contracted rheumatic fever and was confined to bed for the entire summer. She began copying cartoons she found in comic books, drawing on anything she could find, including her school books, her desks, and even getting in trouble for drawing on her clothing. As a young girl, her brother, whom she admired greatly as an artist, taught her to draw a tree and a simple cartoon. Primavera was born in West Long Branch, New Jersey.

Over the course of the last three decades, she has been a prolific illustrator and has written and illustrated several well-received books of her own. She arrived on the literary scene in 1981 as an illustrator for Atheneum, Putnam, and other publishing houses. The Secret Order of the Gumm Street GirlsĮlise Primavera (born ) is an American author and illustrator of children's novels. West Long Branch, New Jersey, United States

Auntie Claus by Elise Primavera