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My Friend Eric Rohmann
Q&A with the 2003 Caldecott Medal Winner for Illustrationby Vicki Arkoff & Stephanie Gwyn Brown
Eric Rohmann is this year's recipient of the prestigious Caldecott Medal for illustration for his book My Friend Rabbit (Roaring Brook Press), a lighthearted celebration of friendship illustrated in robust, expressive prints. In the book, Mouse lets his best friend, Rabbit, play with his brand-new airplane—and trouble isn’t far behind.
A painter, printmaker, and fine bookmaker, Eric Rohmann was previously feted in 1995 with a Caldecott Honor for Time Flies, his first book for children. Rohmann holds degrees in fine arts from Arizona State University and Illinois State University, is a former teacher, and has exhibited his artwork at numerous galleries and museums. He generously took time to share his experiences with SCBWI-LA Kite Tales just days after he received the exciting news of his big win.
How did you begin your career as an illustrator, and what was your big break?
Rohmann: I've always made pictures that told stories—pictures that are like still frames of a film—small bits of a longer narrative. Over time, it made sense that I'd string these bits together and make a book. In 1993, I took a portfolio to New York. I had called 14 editors and art directors and asked for a few minutes of their time. My soon-to-be editor at Crown, Simon Boughton, saw the dummy and two paintings from Time Flies, and decided to make the book. Previous to that, Time Flies had been rejected a dozen times by various publishers.
How do you decide your approach to a picture book?
Rohmann: It all begins with what you want the book to say. What is the tone of the story, the mood, the desired audience response? The choice of art media, book dimensions, composition, pacing, text placement, etc. must be decided by what best serves the story. I try hard to find the ideal pairing of images, text and book form. They shouldn’t say the same thing, but should complement and strengthen one another.
You've worked in relief printing and oil painting. What other illustrative techniques have you experimented with in picture books?
Rohmann: For My Friend Rabbit, I took a few weeks to experiment and tried just about every medium I could think of. I made linocuts, woodcuts, scratchboard, gouache, collage, 3-dimensional paper sculptures, watercolor, pastel, pen and ink. Some media were more effective than others—often depending on my skill and experience. Finally, I decided on the relief prints because the bright watercolor and chunky, active relief-cut line made most sense with the story.
Which medium is your favorite?
Rohmann: Oils and various printmaking techniques are the media I use most; my preliminary work is done with pencil, ink, watercolor and oil washes. No surprise, these are also the media I know best. I dislike acrylics—they dry too fast and because the pigment is ground so fine, the paint is flat with little character, although I realize that these very characteristics are why some people like them so much!
Illustrators are often advised to stick to one style as it helps with marketing or branding their work, but your work defies that logic. What is your opinion?
Rohmann: I know I sound a little like a broken record, but I use the style/media/technique that works best with the story. My Friend Rabbit would not have worked using the more elaborate, naturalistic oil paintings of my other books.
With "Rabbit," I needed the change to stay interested. A few years ago I made a painting for a book jacket and when I had finished I hardly recalled making the painting. I had become so facile, so practiced at my way of painting that I had stopped inventing and began to copy myself. I answered every question with an answer I had used before. I felt I needed to try something different, to shock my system. It’s what Ray Bradbury once called, "Jumping off a cliff and making wings on the way down."
I think that an artist's "style" must develop naturally. It is not artificially invented or chosen. As an artist works, the hand, eye and mind begin to work in a certain way—in a characteristic manner that is unique to that artist. As a young artist I did a lot of copying, searching for a voice, trying to borrow the look of other people’s work that I admired. Many of those influences are still present, but my own way of making art emerged as well. A book is more than just a container that holds text and images. The book form—its shape, its materials, its heft, its binding—all influence the overall effect of the book.
Which of your books do you feel was a personal artistic breakthrough?
Rohmann: This is a tough one because each book has some discoveries, surprises that I never would have imagined, and some failures, pictures that I never made quite right. I suppose the first book, Time Flies was a breakthrough because it was the first time my work was seen by a larger audience.
My Friend Rabbit has been described as having a "living ladder" at the climax of the narrative, and a view that requires the reader to tilt the book. Why did you choose to use this technique?
Rohmann: I tried the tower of animals on the normal two-page layout and it simply looked too short and squeezed. Then I tried tipping the tower—angled from lower left corner to upper right. That worked better and it eventually sparked the idea to turn the book vertically. What I hadn't expected until I saw the book turned was the way the story slows, makes the reader look more closely—it makes you physically change the position of the book. All this, I hope, gets the reader more involved. At one time in the making, I had the idea to make the reader turn the book all the way around, but that was too much. Once you've involved the reader in your story you don't want to make something so clever that they leave the story to say, "Look how clever the author is!"
In The Cinder-Eyed Cats, did you have a basic idea of how you would compose and render the illustrations?
Rohmann: I knew I wanted to paint with oils. The shape of the book, its size, number of pages, the composition of each page, came about through the discovery process of making sketches and rough paintings. It’s difficult for me to imagine an image I haven't seen. I need to put it to paper and go from there. I also looked at lots of reference books, brochures of South Sea Islands, and visited the zoo whenever I was stuck.
In your wordless picture book Time Flies—a 1995 Caldecott Honor book—how did you present the concept to the publisher?
Rohmann: With a small dummy (photocopies of the preliminary drawings put in simple, side-sewn book format). Also two larger 2" x 3" transparencies of finished paintings. For the dummies submitted by mail, I used normal 35-mm slides.
What pitch or submission approaches have you found work the best to impress editors and art directors?
Rohmann: Put only your strongest work in the portfolio—if you want to illustrate books then your samples should demonstrate your abilities to that end. Demonstrate your understanding of how narrative works in a picture book. Other things are obvious, but bear repeating—know your craft, have an interest and some knowledge of picture books, care about your audience.
In hindsight, what career mistakes have you learned from the most?
Rohmann: I should have drawn more. Drawing is seeing and to make books that take place in the world you have to be aware of what's around you. Drawing makes you look closely, not to just see, but to behold and understand. I’m still trying to catch up. For me, it all begins with good drawing (or fails with bad drawing).
What sage advice can you offer to unpublished illustrators looking for their first book deal?
Rohmann: Make sure that what you love about the work is the work itself. So often I meet authors and illustrators more interested in being published than in making books. After you send your work out forget about it and work on the next project. You'll find the bite of rejection is diminished by the excitement of making something new.
Illustrator Stephanie Gwyn Brown's first picture book, "Professor Aesop’s The Crow and the Pitcher" has just been published by Tricycle Press. Author Vicki Arkoff has newly joined the roster of children's book reviewers for Kirkus Review.
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