Posts Tagged ‘John Maslen’

From the Author: Heading to the PLA Conference in Portland Next Week

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

plalogo1Next week I’ll be heading down to Portland for the 13th National PLA (Public Library Association) Conference at the Oregon Convention Center. Of course, I’ll see the folks as well (Bobby and John Maslen), Bob Books’ original author-illustrator team.

Librarians have been wonderful supporters of Bob Books over the years. You can find the series widely available in libraries all over the country. Perhaps due to our Portland roots, Bob Books has been the highest circulated children’s book at the Multnomah County library in years past.

Every time I visit Portland I’m reminded of the origins of Bob Books, when Mom was teaching at the Catlin Gabel School and I was a teenager. After several years of developing the books in the classroom, Mom spent one intense summer creating the structure and adding polish to the stories. She shut herself away in her room to write, and even retreated to a hotel for a few weekends.

I got in on the act when it was time to paste up the artwork for the printer. I learned about using a blue pencil to mark up the art boards and was meticulous about pasting the type and illustrations so that they were lined up straight and perfect on the pages.

After high school and college I moved on to my own career. Visits home often included taking a turn collating books into the Bob Books boxes, designing a brochure or helping out with the business in some way. Now I am working for and with Bob Books again and it has been an honor and a true pleasure. It’s hard to believe it’s been over 30 years since the original Bob Books were created.

Watching my own daughter learn to read has given me a new appreciation of the power of Bob Books. I never cease to be delighted upon receiving an email from another proud parent detailing the story of their child making that magic first step into reading.

Oh, and by the way, if you plan on attending the PLA conference, please drop me a line! I’d love to connect with you.

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Meet Children’s Book Author & Illustrator Sue Hendra

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

This week we’re delighted to bring you a Q & A with children’s book author and illustrator Sue Hendra. Sue is the illustrator of the My First Bob Books series and lives in Brighton, England with her partner, Paul and young daughter, Wanda. She has illustrated over 90 children’s books; to see a partial list of titles please visit her JacketFlap profile.sue_hendra

Q. How did you get started? Why did you choose illustration as a career?

A. I’ve always loved drawing and telling stories with pictures. Art was definitely my favorite subject at school and I went on to receive a degree studying illustration at The University of Brighton in the south of England. I’d always had a fascination with children’s books and so that’s what I decided to specialize in.


Q. How many books have you illustrated?

A. I think it’s about ninety something now. Some that stand out include: Scary Party, which I wrote and illustrated (Walker Books, 1998) and Monsters don’t eat Broccoli by Barbara Jean Hicks (Knopf, 2009). I think monsters and aliens and dinosaurs are my favorite subject matter so I’m always happy when I’m drawing them. A surprising big success in the UK has been a book I wrote and illustrated a called Barry the Fish with Fingers (Knopf, 2009). A slightly different version of it is going to be published by Random House in the U.S. next year. The book I’m most excited about is Wanda and the Alien (Random House, 2011). I wrote it when I was expecting my little girl who is also named Wanda. In the story Wanda is a little rabbit who befriends an alien. I really enjoyed illustrating that one because it’s for my daughter who is very lovely. It will be out in May 2011 which will give her time to learn to read it . . . with a bit of luck.


Q. Tell us about the process of illustrating My First Bob Books. What was it like to work with the Maslens?

A. The process is that author Lynn Maslen Kertell draws totally amazing pictures of how she wants the spreads to look.  Scholastic has comments, and eventually I get the go ahead to do a finished version. I felt extremely honored to be given the job of illustrating Bob Books. Initially it was very daunting as John Maslen’s drawings are so fantastic, what a tough act to follow! John helped me a lot at the beginning with the drawing style; he was very patient. I’ve tried to draw like him but inevitably my drawings are bound to look different. All I can hope is that my illustrations have a little bit of that special Bob Books humor that makes them so much fun for parents and children to read.


Q. What do you like best about illustrating? Describe your creative process.

A. I get to draw monsters and dinosaurs and aliens! I get to be immature for a living– who wouldn’t love that? It’s really great fun. My partner Paul is also an illustrator so together we come up with funny ideas, work out page layouts and have heated discussions about how the illustrations should look. I think the fact that we brainstorm about storylines and visuals makes the end product much better. We have a lot of fun making books together.


Q. What are you working on now?

A. The publishers that I work for like me to keep the details under my hat but I can say that one is about a little slug called Norman and the other is about a very unusual farm. The farm book is one that’s been knocking about in my head for years so I’m very excited about it.


Q. How are you balancing your career and motherhood?

A. It’s a bit hectic, I did try and work during the day when Wanda was awake but I just couldn’t get anything done. Now Paul and I start work at 8 o’clock after Wanda has gone to bed. This way we get lots done and dance around to silly music at two in the morning feeling a bit bonkers due to lack of sleep. We feel very lucky to be able to set our own schedule and do a job that we love.


Q. Anything else you’d like to share?

A. I think Bob Books are fantastic and I’m so glad they came into our lives. They will definitely be part of Wanda’s education.

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Meet Bob Books Illustrator and Master Watercolor Painter John Maslen

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

This week we bring you part 2 of our interview with John Maslen, Bob Books illustrator and award-winning watercolor painter.

Q: How did you become interested in art and painting?

A: Art has always been something I’ve been interested in. I think my earliest paintings began in 4th grade after my aunt bought me an oil painting set. I used it to paint scenes of German and Japanese planes crashing into each other and pilots with blood dripping from their mouths. Typical 4th grade boy kind of stuff, I suppose.

Then I attended Rhode Island School of Design for college. While at RISD I didn’t take any painting classes but instead studied women’s clothing design. I never did use that degree professionally—in hindsight I figure the only purpose of that coursework was to find a wife (this is how I met my wife, Bobby [Bobby Lynn Maslen, Bob Books author.])

While at college, I needed to make a little money and I got a job painting Italian-style furniture. Bobby would visit me in this tiny studio and we would hang out and talk—I didn’t have much money at the time so we didn’t go out on many real dates. I remember that I got in the habit of wiping my paintbrush off on my blue jeans to clean off the paint; after a while, those jeans were so thick with paint and gold leaf that they stood up by themselves!

After college I joined the Armed Services and served as a PIO (Public Information Officer) right around the time that the Korean War was winding down. Because of my art background, I was charged with the task of creating troop education posters.

Then I returned to RISD for my degree in architecture. Bobby and I married, moved to Portland, Oregon and I spent 20 years as an architect. I felt the urge to paint during my architecture career but it was difficult to find the time while there were four kids living at home. We were also busy with the Bob Books.

Q: How did you go from being a full-time architect to a full-time artist?

A: We saw some tough economic times in the early 1980s, not unlike what we’re seeing now. Architecture clients were hard to come by and I wasn’t getting paid much for the work. The kids were getting ready to leave the nest and I thought it was time to pursue something different, like painting.

Q: What did you paint?

A: Well, I thought that perhaps I wanted to be an oil painter so I put visqueen on my living room floor and started on a big oil painting… oh, it was a huge mess–- and resulted in an outrageously bad painting. After that, I decided to paint in watercolors; it was much less messy. And I could throw my clothes in the wash afterward.

Q: What kind of paintings do you do now?

A: Exclusively watercolors. I started out with a marine focus and then moved to non-objective art.

Q: What do you mean by non-objective art? Is it like abstract art?

A: No, abstract art still contains shapes and forms that are recognizable. In non-objective art, no figures or objects are recognizable.

Q: What is the process like, how long does it take you to create a painting?

A: (chuckles) Oh, as Winslow Homer once famously said… “about 3 hours and 40 years.” It can be a long process. First I sketch my painting out on paper. I did a lot of sketching for Bob Books so this comes naturally. For my non-objective and abstract art, I keep sketching and putting color on the paper until things start to evolve.

Q: Have you won any awards?

A: While practicing architecture, I won an American Institute of Architects award for design of the solar community where my family lived.

Currently I’m a signature (juried) member of several arts organizations: the National Watercolor Society, the Transparent Watercolor Society, the Watercolor Society of Oregon, and the American Society of Marine Artists. Recently I received Master Watercolor Artist status in the Transparent Watercolor Society, which means that my art was accepted into a juried show ten years in a row. Only about 1 in 10 artists get accepted into these shows so it’s a real honor.

Another award I received recently is the Diamond Award from the American Art Society of Oregon. It’s based on a point system; every time your art gets into a show or you win an award you win points. Once you’ve reached a certain number of points, you win the award.

Q: Where can we see your art?

A: The Portland Art Museum Rental Gallery has several of my paintings, and there are also paintings at The Attic Gallery in Portland (although I’m not currently on their web site).

Q: And you also teach workshops?

There is a beautiful facility on the Oregon coast, Sitka Center for Arts and Ecology, where I teach a watercolor art class once per year. It’s a week-long course and it’s terrific. A number of my students return year after year. One of my students has attended the class all eleven times I offered it.

For more information on John Maslen’s architecture and watercolor artist career, please see:

Wikipedia

Watercolor Society of Oregon

Hellenic-American Cultural Center and Museum


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Q & A With John Maslen, Bob Books Illustrator

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

This week we bring you part 1 of our interview with John Maslen, Bob Books illustrator. John and Bobby Lynn Maslen are currently retired and living in Portland, Oregon. We spoke to him via phone last week.

Q: How did you get started illustrating the Bob Books?

A: It wasn’t until Bobby had already written 12 of the Bob Books that I was asked to do the illustrations. Things were busy in the house. We were raising 4 children. I was working as an architect. Bobby was teaching and creating the Bob Books. One day I came home and Lynn, our eldest (and now author of the My First Bob Books series) was doing the lettering on one of the books. I think she must have been in high school at the time. I saw the book “Ten Men Went to the End of the Land” and the pictures just started popping up in my head, so I did a few drawings. Bobby saw my illustrations and she was so pleased with them, she asked me to redraw all of the illustrations.

Q: What direction were you given?

A: Bobby was very specific about the drawings being line art without color. That way the children could color their own books. The style and approach was to be very simple, non-intimidating and non-distracting for the reader. We added color in 2006, but we wanted to keep that simple feeling so we only added one color per book.

Q: What was the process like?

A: Well, Bobby was and still is my wife, so the process was not without a few discussions. But I always thought of Bob Books as her project so I took her direction. The illustration process was fun. Bobby would write the stories. In the beginning I demanded that I have the freedom to illustrate any way I wanted. She could then accept or reject my art and I would listen to her reasons.

Q: How often did she reject your work?

A: Not very often; maybe not ever. If she didn’t like something, it was usually very subtle. Like the way the eyes or noses were drawn. We can still look back at parts of Set 1 and tell who drew the eyes, nose or mouth on a particular character in a particular book.

Q: How did you develop your style?

A: I think I intuitively knew that I wanted to do the illustrations loose, fast and sketchy. Not drawn too carefully – not as if I were doing an architecture drawing. I used a Sharpie pen and computer paper. I couldn’t slow down—otherwise the lines would get too fat in some places. When I was ready to create the final drawings, I’d put the paper on a light table and create the illustrations there until I achieved the right effect.

Q: Of all the Bob Books illustrations, which ones are your favorites?

I think my favorite is still Ten Men Went to the End of the Land. And I’ve always liked Mat, Sam and Dot – those are the original characters that I really enjoy. Peg and Ted as well– they really have an ability to catch kids’ eyes.

Next week: Learn more about John’s architecture, illustration and watercolor painting career in part 2 of our interview.

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