Kala of Hawaii - Book Illustration from Children from Foreign Lands - Vintage Illustration by Ninon MacKnight c.1936 - Japanese Unryu Rice Paper Art Print (Unframed) 12 x 16 in

Pacifica Island Art uses an environmentally-friendly Unryu Japanese rice paper made by the Awagami Factory in Tokushima, Japan. Unryu, which translates to 'cloud dragon paper' in Japanese, features long strands of kozo fiber and is made from natural mulberry and hemp fibers using traditional Japanese Washi techniques - ABOUT THE ARTIST - Ninon MacKnight - Ninon MacKnight (1908-2000) Ninon Galloway MacKnight was born in Sydney, Australia, on April 5, 1908, one of the six children of Harold MacKnight, a wool broker, and Bertha Faning, an opera singer. Ninon showed signs of restlessness early on. By age 11, she had begun publishing verse in Australian Young Folks. A gifted natural artist, she won a competition at age 12, and her sketch of Sydney Harbor was printed on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. Girl’s schooling in Australia at that time fell into three categories: languages, art, and homemaking. Ninon chose art, and was trained by some of the best-known Australian and English watercolorists of the day. By 15, she was a regular illustrator for four major Sydney newspaper Sunday supplements, drawing children, elves, fairies, animals, cartoons, as well as publishing poems and stories. At the same time, unbeknownst to her family, she was doing cartoons and sketches for what was considered at the time a “naughty' men’s magazine, basing her work on American cartoons of flappers.Ninon had pursued her career as a watercolor artist and illustrator, doing greeting cards and children’s books. Her income picked up when she discovered that greeting card publishers paid “by the head,' that is, by the number of faces on a card. So she painted a lot of well-populated Christmas parties!