Given the mess the work made, he referred to the vacuum cleaner in his studio as ''Jaws.''Īfter ''Golem,'' his work grew lighthearted, first with ''The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups'' (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1998) and then with ''Tough Cookie'' (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1999), a sendup of a detective mystery. 11 blades,'' he made, by his estimate, from 800 to 1,000 cuts to do the 16 illustrations in one of his books.

Using an X-Acto knife, double-stick foam tape and, he said in an interview, ''a lot of No. His work was translated and published in many other countries. Most of his early books dealt with epic and myth, like ''Sundiata: Lion King of Mali'' (1992) and ''The Wave of the Sea Wolf'' (1994). His first book, ''The Warrior and the Wise Man,'' was in that style. Wisniewski began doing freelance illustration, first in black silhouette, like the puppets, then adding color and depth. When their children, Ariana and Alexander, were born, they stopped touring, and Mr. Six months later, he married Donna Harris, who had hired him, and they formed the Clarion Shadow Theater, a touring company that used puppets along with overhead projectors and cinematic techniques. After one semester of college, he enrolled in the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus Clown College.Īfter three years as a circus clown, he applied for a job in the puppetry department of the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission in Prince George's County. A self-taught cartoonist, he was really interested in theater. Wisniewski (pronounced wiz-NESS-key) was born in England, where his father, a master sergeant in the Air Force, was stationed, and the family moved across Europe and the United States during his childhood. He used his layered cut-paper technique to great effect in many books, including ''Golem'' (Clarion), a version of the cabalist tale about the clay creature brought to life in 16th-century Prague, which won the 1997 Caldecott Medal for illustration. 11 at a nursing home in Alexandria, Va., after a brief illness. David Wisniewski, an artist who worked as a clown and shadow puppeteer before turning to cut paper and children's books, died on Sept.

David wisniewski books