Floyd Cooper celebrates his birthday on January 8th. He was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma and earned a fine arts degree from the University of Oklahoma. His earliest memory of drawing (somewhere around the age of three) was when he picked up a piece of sheetrock and used it to draw a picture of a bird on the side of the house his father was building. He began his career as a greeting card designer for Hallmark but an agent led him in the direction of children's books. His first picture book was Grandpa's Face by Eloise Greenfield.
Cooper creates his pictures with a unique oil wash-on-board technique which he happily demonstrates in his classroom visits. He covers illustration board with a wash of oil paint and, when dry, he begins to erase his images out of this ground of paint with a pliable kneaded eraser. When asked by parents how to get their children involved with art his reply is "I happen to believe that you shouldn't push your child into anything. But with art, I always say just stand back and watch it grow and give them everything else they'll need – love, math, geography, science, and everything else, which goes into feeding their imagination and keeping it well honed and sharp."
Cooper has had two Coretta Scott King Honor books: Meet Denitra Brown by Nikki Grimes and Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea by Joyce Carol Thomas. He lives and works in West Orange, NJ.
