Featured Illustrator: Ben Hodson
 
Bibliography at Orca
Jeffrey and Sloth: Jeffrey can't think of a thing to write, so he doodles instead, only to have his doodle begin to order him about. Jeffrey struggles with the situation until he discovers that the most strong-willed doodle is powerless against a well-told tale.
Interview
Why do you illustrate children's books? I have always loved and collected kids’ books. I loved them as a child and love them at least as much as an adult. (Maybe even more!) To create a children’s book is a HUGE challenge and involves a lot of HARD work! They may only take a short time to read, but to write or illustrate one is a big job. Bringing a written text to life with pictures over the span of a 32 page book is tricky business. Maintaining the same characters in different poses from variety of angles with consistent colours, moving the action from page to page with some sort of flow and continuity, and all the while adding smaller visual stories within and around the main story are not small feats! Each book is a marathon for my imagination. A great brain workout.
How do you begin illustrating a book? When I first sit down with the pages of the story (the manuscript) I really have to focus. I can’t have music playing or anything. I sit there and read the story and I draw tiny pictures (called thumbnails) in the margins of the manuscript. These little drawings are my first impression and a lot of the time they are very close to what the final art will look like. I love this first reading of the story. It’s pretty magical to read something and watch the story come alive in my head and then scribble those images on paper and make a book out of it. Wow! What an amazing job!
What kind of research do you do before you illustrate a book? The research is very different for each book. Some books need very realistic and accurate drawings of animals, people or landscapes, while others rely more on my imagination.
My favorite books to research are the ones where I get to make stuff up.
To do the research, I have a large library of books and filing cabinets full of pictures and photos which I have collected over the years. Even with all of this information I still have to go out and find new images for each project. I go to the library (which I can spend hours and hours in), or to the used bookstore (which I can also spend hours and hours in), or to the local bookstore (which is dangerous for my wallet because I love buying books), and I look on the internet. The internet is not my favourite because the pictures are so small, but it is still very useful, especially if I need to find something quickly.
Do you put your family and friends in your books? In Jeffrey and Sloth, Jeffrey actually looks a lot like my brother, Ted, when he was young. I think they do make it into my drawings, though a lot of the time I don’t even realize it! After I’ve drawn something I think "Hey, that looks like so and so…"
What is your favourite children's book? I have MANY favourites. Here’s a small list: The Lorax (Dr. Seuss), Frog and Toad Are Friends (Arnold Lobel), Hug Me (Patti Stren), The Pokey Little Puppy (Janette Sebring Lowrey), Arnie the Donut (Laurie Keller), Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak), The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats), The Paper Bag Princess (Robert Munsch), Stella Fairy of the Forest (Marie Louise Gay), Who Needs Donuts (Mark Alan Stamaty), Jamela’s Dress (Niki Daly), The Jolly Postman (Janet And Allan Ahlberg), HUG (Jez Alborough), Goodnight Gorilla (Peggy Rathmann) and many, many more!
What are the best and worst things about illustrating?
The best things about illustrating are:
1) I get to use my imagination every day.
2) Holding a finished book in my hands is an incredible feeling.
The not so best things about illustrating are:
1) It takes a long time to complete a book and sometimes getting everything finished in time can be stressful.
2) Because it takes so long to finish a book I can only do a couple of books a year when I’d love to do one a week!
Biography
Ben Hodson is an artist who loves a good adventure, like hiking the Rocky Mountains with rescued wild burros, living in a mountain village in Nepal, or drawing comics with youth in South Africa. These experiences bring inspiration and new perspectives to his craft. Ben illustrates mostly for children in books, magazines and textbooks. His books include I Love Yoga: A Guide for Kids and Teens; Pigs Aren’t Dirty, Bears Aren’t Slow and Other Truths about Misunderstood Animals; How the Moon Regained Her Shape; In Arctic Waters; Jeffrey and Sloth; and most recently What I Be, with musician Michael Franti. He has also contributed to Lines in the Sand: New Writing on War and Peace. He is the 2004 recipient of the Glass Slipper Award from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’ Canadian Conference. Ben lives in Ottawa, with his wife, May and daughter, Zoe and illustrates full time from his home. Please visit his website at www.benhodson.ca.
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