Interview with G. Brian Karas for SCBWI Bologna Conference ‘Words across Pictures and Picturing Words’, April 12, 2005.


SCBWI international: Can you tell us in a little about your childhood? What was it that drew you to writing and illustrating for children?

My childhood was a relatively uneventful one. I grew up in suburban Connecticut. I lived in a small town on Long Island Sound and then moved to a smaller town which was, at that time, wooded and undeveloped. To make up for the lack of real adventure I had to rely on my imagination. To my young mind the Sound was the great open ocean with wild shores and the woods were a vast uncharted forest waiting to be explored. Simple stone walls were the remains of ancient fortresses and unusual plants were alien life forms ready to take over our planet. I believed in the worlds I created, and to a certain extent still believe in the places where I go daydreaming. Children’s books were a look into other worlds that were just as real to me. In art school we were taught to draw from life but I always had one foot in fantasy. I was fortunate to have teachers who were children book authors and illustrators, including Leonard Everett Fisher and Jean Zallinger, who taught me how to apply practical know how to my storymaking.


SCBWI international: Was there a particular drawing/book/illustrator that you remember being particularly affected by when you were a child?

There were a few books that made big impressions. One was a book about vikings. I can’t remember the title or artist’s name but the paintings were graphic and fragmented, like a mosaic. I remember feeling that the men in the pictures were fierce warriors and their world was cold. Another was TOO MANY POCKETS by Dorothy Levenson and pictures by Ruth Wood, a story about a curious baby kangaroo who liked to hop away from home and find other pockets to live in. He eventually decided home in his mother’s pocket was the best. And to a great extent de Brunhoff’s THE STORY OF BABAR and Charles Schulz’s PEANUTS.


SCBWI international: What is your favorite medium to work in? Why?

Pencil. It’s the tool I use to start visualizing with, when I have to see the idea that’s going around in my head. I also finish many of my pictures with pencil. Pencil can be an expressive single stroke or light subtle quivery lines or deep and bottomless dense shading. It’s the single tool I can use to go to all of those places.


SCBWI international: Can you tell us a little about how you developed your distinctive drawing technique?

I learned many techniques in art school but I’ve always drawn the way I draw now. I don’t see my work as distinctive, though I’m aware it must be -- many people tell me how easy it is to spot something I’ve done, and after all my attempts to disguise it! I think personal style is sometimes a result of an artist’s way of controlling the medium. The important thing is to get something down on paper and not think too much about how it looks. There are many artists that influence and inform my art and I’m sure that has a way of shaping my work.


SCBWI international: You participated in the 24th Annual Exhibition of “The Original Art” show at the Society of Illustrators last October. Connie Epstein wrote in the January/February SCBWI Bulletin that “Artists tweaking stories with natural childlike humor is an increasing trend too, some examples being G. Brian Karas (I like Where I am by Jessica Harper)”. . . Would you see ‘the tweaking of stories with natural childlike humor?’ as important in your work?

Humor is essential to life, don’t you think?! That my work seems childlike may have more to do with my childlike mind than trends!


SCBWI international: What grabs you in a manuscript someone else has written and you are being invited to illustrate; what makes you say, “Yes!”

It sounds cliche, but when a story allows me to forget what room I’m in or where I am because I’ve gone someplace else. I know I get hooked in to a manuscript when I draw my breath in because someone has written something so honest and beautiful, or has captured a feeling on such a visceral level. Of course all of the books I choose to work on have elements of what I like in particular – funny likable (or unlikable) characters, interesting places, situations that ring true.


SCBWI international: What kinds of things prompt a new idea for one of your own books?

I wish I knew! It’s usually something that I see as a child might see it, or if a child reminds me of how I felt at a young age. THE WINDY DAY was written from the memory of a day in my childhood. HOME ON THE BAYOU came to be from the feeling of living somewhere far from what I thought of as home. I grew up near the Atlantic and my book ATLANTIC was about something that meant so many things to me growing up. I spent a lot of my time by and in the water.


SCBWI international: Which of your books presented the biggest challenge to create? Why?

All of my books have been a big challenge. That may sound evasive but it’s true. I arrive from the same place each time I sit down and begin – how can I make this the best book it can be, how do I remain true to the text while adding my own vision, what if I don’t have anything left to say, how do I keep it original ... these are the questions that go in circles in my mind. I do a good job of convincing myself I’ll fail, not every time but most.


SCBWI international: What do you most enjoy about writing and illustrating books for children? What aspect do you find the most difficult?

I don’t know why but this is the hardest question for me to answer. I love what I do and feel so lucky to be able to do it. I’m able to draw and paint pictures that can make me laugh, that frighten or intrigue me. I can make up stories that help me understand why people do what they do, or take me far from everything that I want to get away from. To be able to share that with someone else, especially a child, is so gratifying to me. If I can open a door for someone else it makes me feel good.

I think we live in a golden age for children’s books. There is a tremendous amount of freedom to write what we want and how we want to say it that coincides with the technology to reproduce artwork with beautiful results. There is an appreciation for variety and diversity that hasn’t always been as generous as it is now. What I find most difficult is meeting a child whose mind is closed. It’s not that I want them to see things the way I see them but to tell them it’s okay to see things differently. And, making a living at this can be the most difficult part of all!


SCBWI international: Are there any artists/book designers/illustrators/ authors whose work you’d like to single out for any reason?

It’s difficult to single out any one, or twenty – there are so many talented and daring voices, but I would have to include on my list John Burningham, M.B. Goffstein, Maira Kalman, James Marshall and William Steig. They each have a direct and honest way of speaking to children.


SCBWI international: What do have up on the walls of your studio?

Bookshelves take up most of my wallspace. What few walls I have left are almost bare. I have two high windows that allow me to see only the treetops when I’m sitting down. There is another window that I’ve blocked with a rice paper screen so I can’t see outside. My son has dug up all sorts of old rusty farm tools and objects from the yard (we live in a rural area that used to be farmed) that I’ve put up on the windowsill. Other than that there are a couple of paintings of my own, though not book illustrations. They are big and messy oils on canvas, wood, tin, or whatever else I find to work on. Sometimes I like to get my big brushes out.


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