Molly Schaar Idle is an American children's book illustrator, author and animator. In 2014, she was awarded a Caldecott Honor for her picture book Flora and the Flamingo . [1]
Molly Idle was born in Los Angeles, California and moved with her family to Tempe, Arizona when she was six years old. [2] She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Arizona State University. [3] After college, she began her career as an animator for DreamWorks, working as an inbetweener and breakdown artist [4] [5] for five years. She worked on the films The Road to El Dorado , Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas . [6] She also was an animation artist for PBS Kids. [3] She left DreamWorks after the studio transitioned to computer animation. [7]
Idle's illustrated book, Emma's Gift, was published in 2003. Between 2004 and 2007, her self-illustrated books were published as part of the In God We Trust series of fiction. [3]
Idle began a wordless picture book series, starting with the publishing of her book Flora and the Flamingo in 2013. The book received a Caldecott Honor in 2014. [3]
Her drawing technique uses a layering of color pencil drawings. [4]