Shades of Color Kids: The Art of Frank Morrison 2027 Wall Calendar

Frank Morrison was a b-boy before he was a painter. The rhythm came first: neighborhood DJs, tags running across walls, subway cars, and whatever surface the block offered; years touring as a breakdancer, where his body was the instrument. The oil technique came later, after a visit to the Louvre sent him home determined to learn what the old masters knew, and he taught himself their methods to say what he already understood. He has spent the two decades since illustrating award-winning African American children's books and building a body of work that runs Black childhood through hip-hop, graffiti backdrops, and, in his newer paintings, futuristic landscapes drawn from anime. The Shades of Color Kids 2027 Wall Calendar collects twelve of those paintings. Each month features a different painting. January is Stop the Hate, a girl launching off a graffiti wall with one arm stretched toward a red paper airplane. February is Harlem Week, a schoolgirl at a chalkboard where someone has written HARLEM RENAISSANCE in tall, careful capitals. March is Last Score, a bicycle kick in a stadium packed with confetti-colored crowds. April is Parts and Labor, two girls in tracksuits hauling a plank down the block with their bubblegum blown to full stretch. The year moves on through double dutch ropes at the top of their arc, stickball in an alley, conversation outside the corner sub shop, a boy leaning against a schoolyard wall with his cap pulled low, and more. Movement is the foundation. Morrison's figures lean, stretch, twist, and hang in the air, bodies pushed past strict anatomy because that is how motion feels from the inside. He paints lettering the same way a writer does, with letters carrying as much weight as the faces. Collectors hang his originals at home and keep his calendars for the same reason, a way to live with the work year-round and put it to use. Morrison's work as an illustrator now spans over twenty children's books, among them the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award winner Jazzy Miz Mozetta, the NAACP Image Award-winning Our Children Can Soar, The Hat That Wore Clara B, Queen of the Scene by Queen Latifah, and Long Shot by NBA all-star Chris Paul. He has since won multiple Coretta Scott King Illustrator Awards. He has over two decades of experience painting African American children and exploring themes inspired by Black Childhood. Browse the full Frank Morrison Collection for prints, originals, and more of his work. As a Black history calendar, it earns the name. Facts and milestone dates run through every date block: Bessie Coleman's birth, the founding of the Harlem Globetrotters, the Selma Freedom March, Mary W. Jackson at NASA, Lorraine Hansberry opening A Raisin in the Sun. The daily grids stay spacious enough for birthdays, appointments, deadlines, and school events, and each page carries adjacent-month mini grids for planning ahead. The calendar opens to 12 x 24 inches on the wall, with premium full-color printing and stapled binding that turns pages cleanly all year. It covers January through December 2027 and marks all major holidays alongside significant dates in African American history. It earns wall space in a home office, kitchen, classroom, barbershop, or child's bedroom. As African American calendars go, this one covers both: art worth looking at and a grid you'll actually use. Buy it for a teacher, a godchild, a coworker, or yourself. Dated calendars are a one-season purchase, so ordering ahead of January means it goes up the first week of the year.