Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Amy June Bates has illustrated many books in her career, but it wasn’t until I saw a copy of The Dog Who Belonged to No One by Amy Hest (published by Abrams this September) that my attention and interest in her work was piqued. It’s not that this is the first beautiful set of illustrations she’s ever done. Hardly and far from it. It’s that I finally realized that I’ve been a fan for years, frankly, but hadn’t quite put her name and her work together. Yes, humor me here. It was my own Amy Bates Epiphany, and I’m glad I had it.

I then contacted her to see if she’d like to show us even more of her art work and chat over a 7-Imp cyber-breakfast, and lucky for us all, she said yes. Really and truly and madly and deeply, I’m just so excited to show you her art work today. I’m rather giddy, and I haven’t even had my coffee yet.

And why is that? Well, for one, I’m a big ‘ol nerdy N.C. Wyeth fan, as well as a fan of the types of illustrators with whom he worked and from whom he learned (Howard Pyle, for one). And Amy’s work has a similar Wyeth spirit to it, if you will, in my humble opinion (and you may not be surprised to see below in the interview that she cites illustrators such as Wyeth and Pyle as influences): She manages to capture so much drama in each spread, as well as a radiance, an idealism of sorts (depending on the book, of course), and great warmth. It would be difficult, I would think, to pull off the sort of timelessness she does and the feeling that you’re reading a classic when you see her work — while, at the same time, not being too saccharine about it. But Amy does it. She manages to strike that balance — and do so engagingly. There’s certainly a place for the illustrators with a more cutting-edge and postmodern style, too, and I’ve got a long list of the contemporary ones working in that vein whose work I love, but when you want eloquence and grace—when you want realism with an illustrator who can pull off spot-on body language and facial expressions from her characters—you can go to Amy. And be quite pleased. Her work is simply beautiful, and she seems to get better with each book.

Here are some spreads from the aforementioned The Dog Who Belonged to No One by Amy Hest, certainly not the only new book Amy has illustrated — but the one new title I’ve seen that made me want to contact her. (More on her other new titles in the interview below.)

And then, for this interview, Amy up and sent me these gorgeous sketches and illustrations from a publication of Swan Lake that never saw the light of day. Why? O! Why? This will remain a mystery, I suppose, but I’d gladly buy a book with these illustrations if it were to appear on a bookshelf one day:

And what are we going to have for breakfast while we chat? Well, seven cheers for Amy, ’cause she is a kindred spirit, inspired by the sheer awesomeness that a really good breakfast can be:

“Mmm, breakfast is my favorite meal of the day,” she told me. “Ideally, a cheap stack of buttermilk pancakes dripping with hot syrup and a lovely pool of fresh melty butter on top — at the diner down the street. Or how about breakfast at my place with oatmeal in or out of the bowl, possibly in your hair, compliments of my one-year-old. And a café au lait. That I am not sharing.” I get that. I really do. So, I’ll bring my own café au lait. Glad to do it. Let’s get the basics from Amy while we set the table here for our seven questions over breakfast, and I thank her for stopping by.

7-Imp: Are you an illustrator or author/illustrator?

Amy: Illustrator.

{Ed. Note: Pictured here is Amy’s version of Alice and The White Rabbit, not necessarily for publication: “My own work. [I was] playing around with time and place.”}

7-Imp: Can you list your books-to-date?

Amy: About forty books. The last five are:

• Hillary Rodham Clinton: Dreams Taking Flight by Kathleen Krull
• You Can Do It! by Tony Dungy
• The Dog Who Belonged to No One by Amy Hest
• Martin’s Dream by Jane Kurtz
• Abe’s Fish: A Boyhood Tale of Abraham Lincoln by Jen Bryant

7-Imp: What is your usual medium, or -– if you use a variety -– your preferred one?

Amy: I usually use watercolor and pencil. I also like mixing watercolors with gouache and colored pencil, though I love experimenting on my own: pastels, oils, brush and ink, but I feel watercolor is very expressive for my books.

{Ed. Note: Pictured here is Wolf, an illustration for Cricket Magazine from a Russian folk tale about a wolf who turns into a prince.}

7-Imp: If you have illustrated for various age ranges (such as, both picture books and early reader books OR, say, picture books and chapter books), can you briefly discuss the differences, if any, in illustrating for one age group to another?

Amy: I‘ve illustrated early readers, chapter books for eight-year-olds, and everything in between. I just love the process of composing the visual story from the manuscript I get. I love making a visual narrative that reads as its own story. Picture books for younger children allow that best. With older picture books and chapter books, on any given page/chapter I choose from multiple events what I feel is most important or best demonstrates the characters’ emotions, although sometimes the most interesting things happen “between the lines.”

7-Imp: Where are your stompin’ grounds?

Amy: I live in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, right on the Appalachian Trail. I have lived in many states and even Japan. I just like being outside, discovering new things and new places.

7-Imp: Can you briefly tell us about your road to publication?

Amy: I started out illustrating books for an educational software company. A good friend of mine became my agent when I went solo. And we both have worked really hard.

7-Imp: If you do school visits, tell us what they’re like.

Amy: I love visiting schools and meeting kids. I like talking about creating a character and doing some drawing with the kids. I love their point-of-view. They might think you are a hero and that you look like Big Bird in one breath. When I was little, James Marshall came to my school. I was really lucky. He drew lots of pictures, which I loved. It amazed me that everything he drew, even my classmates, looked like it came from the worlds he created in his books. I guess I’d just like to pass that on.

7-Imp: If you teach illustration, by chance, tell us how that influences your work as an illustrator.

Amy: I don’t teach illustration. My grandma and my father are artists. My uncle, Robert Barrett, is an illustrator and teaches it as well. I grew up with a cousin who loved to draw. So illustration and art run deep in my family. I don’t know that I would be a great teacher myself, but I love to think and talk about it. Over a lovely cup of coffee perhaps.

7-Imp: Any new titles/projects you might be working on now that you can tell us about?

Amy: I am working on a book, The Bear in the Air, about a boy who loses his bear. Another is about a boy with a big imagination and who has a hard time discerning what is real. And also ***MY OWN PROJECT*** I am not really sure what that is but I have a lot of ideas and I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. It is going to be GREAT!

Okay, the table’s set. We’re good-to-go with our pancakes and oatmeal (I will gladly handle that wee one of hers! Oatmeal-in-hair hardly makes me flinch), and I’ve got my café au lait. Now we’re ready to talk more specifics . . .

1. 7-Imp: What exactly is your process when you are illustrating a book? You can start wherever you’d like when answering: getting initial ideas, starting to illustrate, or even what it’s like under deadline, etc. Do you outline a great deal of the book before you illustrate or just let your muse lead you on and see where you end up?

Amy: After I get a manuscript, I read it through and underline crucial details. (I always hated it when there were mistakes in the illustrations in books I read or characters who didn’t look how I imagined them.) Reading the manuscript also gives me an idea of my constraints and the gist of the book. I let my impressions bounce around in my brain for a few days and get images on my morning walks. I also love doing research, which can be Internet, library, or just keeping my eyes open, watching the way people interact. I don’t usually use models; I feel like my work begins to feel too posed or photographic if I do. As my children grow up, I use a lot of their facial expressions and emotions to inform my work. Kids are great the way they just wear their emotions on their sleeve.

It really comes together when I start putting pencil to paper. My ideas flow the more I work. I like to let the gesture of the character tell the story and use the composition in the rest of the picture to emphasize that feeling.

2. 7-Imp: Describe your studio or usual work space for us.

Amy: I work in the attic of my house, which is 130-years-old and built by a woman artist, apparently a “character.” It is bright and quiet, though I sometimes feel like the crazy lady in the attic, à la Jane Eyre. I have a place for my kids to work up here, too, so that they feel that it is their space as well. But I work best when I am by myself. I should add that it is an unholy mess absolutely always, with stacks of books that I love and use for reference.

3. 7-Imp: As book lovers, it interests us: What books or authors and/or illustrators influenced you as an early reader?

Amy: I’ll try to make this as short as I can: One Monster After Another (Mercer Mayer); {The Story of} Ferdinand; In the Night Kitchen; Beatrix Potter. One of my favorites is Trina Schart Hyman’s Peter Pan. My dad had a book on Howard Pyle, and I was fascinated by the illustrations, trying to figure out the stories that might have gone with the pictures. Often there was a single unexplained tag line, like “The buccaneer was a picturesque fellow,” or “I thought of you as I fell.” Other things I loved: Mad Magazine. My dad had a bunch of old 1960s-era Mad comics that I pored over, with artists like Mort Drucker, a great caricaturist. Other influences include, of course, N.C. Wyeth, Norman Rockwell, Maurice Sendak, Charles Dana Gibson, Winslow Homer (an illustrator as well). SO SO many.

4. 7-Imp: If you could have three (living) illustrators or author/illustrators—whom you have not yet met—over for coffee or a glass of rich, red wine, whom would you choose?

Amy: This is hard. Komako Sakai, Lisbeth Zwerger, Helen Oxenbury. They might have a hard time communicating, though, so we would have to draw pictures to communicate, and then I would get to keep them all.

If I could meet absolutely anyone ever? Harpo Marx, without hesitation.

5. 7-Imp: What is currently in rotation on your iPod or loaded in your CD player? Do you listen to music while you create books?

Amy: When I am storyboarding, I can’t listen to anything. It would make my brain rupture. When I am painting, sometimes I listen to music — Blur, Beatles, Aimee Mann, Cowboy Junkies, Manu Chao. Mostly, though, I am a story fanatic, and I love listening to books. Right now I am listening to P.G. Wodehouse. I like This American Life, too.

6. 7-Imp: What’s one thing that most people don’t know about you?

Amy: I haven’t grown an inch since fifth grade.

7. 7-Imp: Is there something you wish interviewers would ask you — but never do? Feel free to ask and respond here.

Amy: “Would you please accept this kind donation of one million dollars?”

And, yes, I would.

7-Imp: What is your favorite word?

Amy: “Callooh Callay,” “booger,” “punk rocker,” “scaliwag” — words that sound like what they are.

7-Imp: What is your least favorite word?

Amy: “Tinkle.” Or “unitard.”

7-Imp: What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

Amy: A breeze, a hike, a storm, the desert, dessert, caffeine.

7-Imp: What turns you off?

Amy: Being tired, people judging me.

7-Imp: What is your favorite curse word? (optional)

Amy: “Frickin'” (although my husband thinks that might be a little unrealistically tame).

7-Imp: What sound or noise do you love?

Amy: Happy baby babble.

7-Imp: What sound or noise do you hate?

Amy: Wheezing, Styrofoam rubbing together.

7-Imp: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Amy: Tap dancer — but only if I could be really frickin’ good.

7-Imp: What profession would you not like to do?

Amy: A corrupt politician.

7-Imp: If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

Amy: “Right this way. Norman Rockwell and N.C. Wyeth have been dying to meet you.” Or maybe, more realistically, “you’re late.”

All photos (with the exception of the café au lait and PETER PAN book image) courtesy of Amy June Bates. All rights reserved and all that good stuff.

Illustrations from THE DOG WHO BELONGED TO NO ONE by Amy Hest. Illustrations © 2008 by Amy Bates. Published by Abrams Books for Young Readers. Posted with permission of illustrator. All rights reserved.

Illustration from MARTIN’S DREAM by Jane Kurtz. Illustrations © 2008 by Amy Bates. Published by Aladdin. Posted with permission of illustrator. All rights reserved.

Book cover ilustration from HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: DREAMS TAKING FLIGHT by Kathleen Krull. Illustrations © 2008 by Amy Bates. Published by Simon & Schuster. Posted with permission of illustrator. All rights reserved.

Illustrations from SPEAK TO ME (AND I WILL LISTEN BETWEEN THE LINES) by Karen English. Illustrations © 2004 by Amy Bates. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Posted with permission of illustrator. All rights reserved.

Illustration from PUMPKIN CAT by Ann Turner. Illustrations © 2004 by Amy Bates. Published by Hyperion. Posted with permission of illustrator. All rights reserved.

All other illustrations and sketches, including the ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER images, published with permission of illustrator. All rights reserved, dear readers.