Elisha Cooper’s Beach is summer encapsulated in his characteristic lovely and poetic watercolors. For today’s #littlelitbookseries, we’re celebrating the upcoming warm and lax season of summer, the time where the pace of life slows down even just a little bit and we have more moments to sit and reflect on all that’s happened so far in the year.
“Away to the beach! Away to sand and salt water, to rolling dunes and pounding waves. Away to swimsuits and sunscreen, to lying on towels and listening to the sound of the ocean. As the day begins, the beach is empty, waiting to be filled.“
Elisha Cooper on Beach: “I did most of the drawings for this book on Lake Michigan. Our home in Chicago was near the lake, and I’d go there with my daughters to play and swim, and sketch bathers. Since there are salty aspects to beaches, I flew back East and sketched seaweed and crabs. I remembered beaches I loved when I was young, from Fire Island to Cape Hatteras. Then I put all these sketches together into one summer day at the beach. So the beach in this book looks like the Hamptons but has Midwestern roots (the lighthouse here is at the head of the Chicago River). Even a city beach has details that make a beach a beach: sand, seagulls, and bathers in funny swimsuits.”
Take a look at everyone else’s summer posts in #littlelitbookseries on Instagram.