Many of our readers may recognize Kathi as a writer in an earlier issue of CommonSense2. Others will recognize her as the dynamic leader of the progressive Kutztown Area Democratic Club. Some will recall this year’s CS2 Christmas card that was painted by Kathi featuring Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi opening a Christmas gift that was a backbone. Here is a side of Kathi that we bet you’ve never seen: Kathi Ember-Children’s Book Illustrator.

Chuck: Book Illustration. As far as I know the public thinks that this is probably a thing of the past, taken over by the computer revolution.

Kathi: Almost all graphic design is done by computer these days, but there are still many illustrators who work traditionally. Most people don’t understand the difference between “graphic design” and “illustration”. When you talk about graphic design, you’re referring to the “design” of a pamphlet or a business card, the layout of a magazine. All of these things lend themselves to the computer. But illustration is a different animal (pardon the pun). It crosses over toward fine art. Some illustrators have a style that lends itself to the computer, but many still prefer working traditionally. In fact, I know some that had switched to computer several years ago and then gone back to paints and paper because they missed it. They missed the hands-on feeling. I’ve thought about making the switch, but actually I’ve gone the other way.It could still happen though.

Chuck: How did you get into this? When did you first know that you wanted to be an artist?

Kathi: I was one of those kids who at 5 it was an obvious skill. My parents encouraged me. I was the kid in grade school who did the Charlie Brown drawings for all the poster boards.

Chuck: You had to say Charlie Brown.

Kathi: (laughing) Anyway, by the time I was ready to apply to colleges, I didn’t know what area I was going to go into, but I knew art was going to be part of my life. When I was at Kutztown University I was a Communications Design major. I had started out as an Education major and later switched to Communications Design. This resulted in my not having an illustration class until my senior year. All my illustration classes were lumped together in my senior year, and that’s when I started thinking about it. This one up here (pointing to wall) of the Statue of Liberty I did in my senior year. The assignment was to “make a political statement”. I painted the statue of liberty with her eyes bloodshot and her tongue hanging out. Kind of prophetic when I think about it. I remember my professor looked at me and said . “that’s one hell of a statement”.(laughs)

Chuck: So then you got out of school. Now you’re an independent artist. You’re not working for a particular company, are you?

Kathi: Well, even when I graduated I don’t think that I really understood that you could make a living as a free-lance illustrator. I was in school in the 70’s, and all my friends were in the fine arts painting department. And they were doing this really abstract stuff. I almost felt embarrassed that I could draw well. And that was what my particular little gift was. When I got out I felt at a loss, kind of. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I got an internship with the Department of Education in the field of Graphic Design. What that field was at that time was much different than today because it was before computers. Later, I had all kinds of stupid little jobs in and around Allentown-malls and such. I was without direction until I landed a job at Rodale. There was an art director at a new magazine called New Shelter Magazine, and he was looking for local illustrators. At the time, Rodale used local illustrators, and he actually put an ad in the paper looking for illustrators which is unheard of. I happened to see the ad because I was looking for a job. I went in with my college portfolio. By that time I had done a couple of illustrations for friends and had a few published illustrations in my book. Anyway, we hit it off, and I ended up getting hired by him as a paste-up artist and did some illustration work on the side.

Chuck: What is a paste-up artist?

Kathi: That’s another antique term. Before everything was done on computer, that was when you actually took pages of set type and rubber cemented it on the page in place. That was the way everything was done. Basically, it was laying out the magazine by hand. You would indicate to the printer where a photo would go and add any graphic elements. It was a really good experience because I got to see how things worked in magazines. Plus, I got to see other illustrators show their work. I got to see the whole process. Eventually, I was given the title of Assistant Art Director. That job helped me move into the field of editorial illustration. Before I became a children’s book illustrator, I spent years and years illustrating magazines. At first I did gardening books for Rodale. You know, pen and ink drawings of broccoli (laughs). That kind of thing.

Chuck: Do you still eat vegetables?

Kathi: (laughs) Yeah, amazingly. As the years went on I would look at what other illustrators were doing and be inspired by them. Most of my growth as an illustrator didn’t happen when I was in college. It happened afterwards. It’s funny, but my work does not really reflect my personality. In life I’m very confident, outgoing, some would even say in-your-face. But in my work I’m kind of timid, cautious and controlled. My creative force just comes out in a much different way. It’s still part of me, still a personal expression, but it’s a part of me that people don’t see.

Chuck: So at some point you made the decision to be a free-lance artist?

Kathi: Right. Well, when I was working at Rodale (I worked there for about two years), one day I went over to the book division and showed them my portfolio. They really liked my work and said that If I wasn’t working full time already they would give me some books to illustrate. I went back to my art director, who was a really good friend of mine by that time, and we decided I would leave in order to pursue this. The day I left I got my first book job. I went on to do this for a number of years. I also did work for Bicycling, New Shelter and Prevention. At the time, they would use a lot of local artists. Now they use artists from all over the place. I started to break out and get magazine work from other publishing companies like Spring House. I started to get into conceptual kinds of things like illustrating an idea as opposed to illustrating objects (or broccoli).

Chuck: Who’s that pretty young girl in this photo?

Kathi: (laughs) That’s me. Here’s another one. One of the magazines I did work for was dedicated to the print industry and, in partial exchange for doing the cover, I got a “portfolio” page inside with a picture, a brief write-up and samples of my work. I made a deal to get a few hundred copies of those pages which I later sent out as promo material. That’s what you’re looking at. I’d promote myself any way I could. Every year I made up my own Christmas cards. I’d create a piece of art , photograph it, get lots of prints made and put together my own cards to send to friends. I sent a bunch of these out as promo one year and eventually landed some card work from Marcel Schurman. I always promoted myself at first. I toyed with the idea of getting an agent, but I didn’t know where to start. How do you know who you can trust for one thing. So whenever I had a conversation with an art director or someone in the field, I’d bring up the subject of agents. Through the art director at Bicycling magazine, I was referred to Harriet Kasak, and I’m still represented by the agency she founded, HK Portfolio. I was given her name but didn’t realize that she represented only children’s illustrators. The samples I sent her were of my editorial work, but she saw that my style would translate well for children’s illustration and asked me if I had done any. I said I didn’t, but I’d do whatever she wanted (laughs). So I quick whipped up a sample and sent it to her. She liked my work, but she was also impressed with my professionalism. I was lucky that she was at a point in her career where she was looking to expand her roster of artists. Before I knew it, I had an agent. Highly unlikely. It is extremely difficult to get an agent. They get bombarded with stuff every day. An artist’s destiny can depend on how good your agent is. Most illustration agents take about 25%. That’s an industry standard. A good agent keeps you busy.

Chuck: Plus they get your foot in the door when you couldn’t.

Kathi: Yeah, it’s sort of like you’re pre-approved. Art directors know they are getting an illustrator whose work has passed the discriminating eye of an agent. It’s easier to promote yourself these days than it used to be. Illustrators have their own websites and printing is cheap to do your own promo, but it still helps to have an agent. Some illustrators promote themselves and do okay with it, but it’s a lot of extra work. I’d rather pay someone to do that part for me. An agent can get you in places that would be tough to get into on your own. Harriet began getting me book projects right away. I was thrilled. I started doing some of these little learn-to-read books. Of course there was a big learning curve. It took me a little while to find my my way with “kiddie lit”. I began to discover that I really loved doing anthropomorphic little animals. It just felt right. You know how there’s a moment in many people’s lives when a realization comes over them and they say holy shit, this is what I’m supposed to be doing. That was what it felt like. I remember the moment. It surprised the hell out of me. One of my earlier projects was a Little Golden Book. When I first got the project I was unsure about it. I thought, God soon I’ll be doing the book signings in K-mart. But then I realized that a lot of these little Golden Books were not just common, but very collectible.

Chuck: I know that.

Kathi: Yeah, you do know that. Some of the work on those suckers is great.

Chuck: Is it?

Kathi: Yeah it is. There are different categories of books I’ve worked on. There is what is referred to as “text book” work in the industry. That includes beginner readers and colorful art for math and science text books. Then there are Golden Books and the type of books that you can buy at toy stores. They are referred to as “mass market” books. Some of them pay royalties. Even though they don’t sell for much, tons and tons of them are sold, and so the royalties are pretty good. Then there are regular “trade” books, the kind of book you find in a nice book store. I only started getting trade books to do the last few years.There’s a lot of work to illustrating a 32 page picture book. It’s quite an endeavor. It’s an act of love. The money is okay, but not great.

Chuck: I can imagine.

Kathi: Plus it’s not like whenever you get it done is okay. Deadlines.

Chuck: Let me ask you this. Before we get into the actual step-by-step of receiving a book job and bringing it to a conclusion, I’d like to ask a few general questions. I notice that a lot of your art has a backwards K and an E. I guess that’s your signature?

Kathi: Right.

Chuck: But I notice these signatures are not shown in the books. Are they not allowed?

Kathi: Yeah, they’re not allowed.

Chuck: I guess they don’t want you to personalize your work?

Kathi: Right.

.How Kathi Illustrates A Book

Chuck: Okay, Kathi. Explain this to our readers. You get an order to illustrate a book. What’s the first thing you do?

Kathi: It’s different from one book to the next according to what the given information is. Let me pick a particular book and describe the process to you. Take the book “Substitute Groundhog” (the one which illustrates this article). The first thing is I get sent a manuscript of the book. I read the manuscript. One of the major misconceptions that people have about illustration is that they think you’re told exactly what to draw. It’s not true although there are instances like that. My experience all along has been nothing like that. When I was doing conceptual illustration, I was given a story and I had to come up with 3 or 4 ideas on how to illustrate it. What would be the best concept to work up. Sometimes they would have an idea and I would explore that. But most times I would offer them 3 or 4 concepts and they would pick one. With children’s illustration it’s a little bit different. Sometimes an art director will have a concept. You’ll get the story and on certain pages you might get a little note that says this is what we envision on this page. Or they might even leave a sketch. But even if I get that, they always say please feel free to change this or to do something different. The more you prove that you are able to conceptualize the story yourself and do a good storyboard, they tend to let you do it yourself. So I got this manuscript for the groundhog book. Then I read it a bunch of times. I jot down little notes as I’m reading, possible themes and ideas for each page.

Chuck: Do they show you the amount of words that need to be on each page?

Kathi: No. This is more just the manuscript stage. When you get the layout, it will show you the type in place and the size it will be on the page. When they sent me this manuscript, there were no instructions. They were giving me total freedom. I asked them how they envisioned the book laying out page by page. Sometimes you seek some guidance in these areas. They even allowed me to take one or two lines and move them to another page if I thought they fit better there. The thing with picture books, and especially with children’s books, is that it’s very important that your illustrations clearly illustrate the words on the page. Because the children are learning to read, your pictures are helping to tell the story. When children are trying to figure out a word, they look at the illustration to help them.

Chuck: So you get the manuscript?

Kathi: So I get the manuscript. I go over it a bunch of times. I don’t always do this, but for this book I wrote down my notes page for page. The next thing I do is character sketches. You need a sketch for every character in the book.

Chuck: Do you need to get the character sketches approved before moving on?

Kathi: Sometimes. It’s not like approval but more like they’ll make comments and suggestions. So far I’ve been very lucky and have had few changes to my character sketches. One book I did was a fairy book. The way I did the fairies initially they were more impish looking, and they wanted the more classic looking anorexic little girl. This was for Reader’s Digest in England and apparently the Brits are particular about what their fairies should look like. Apparently there was a board meeting with all these people talking about what a fairy is. I would have loved to have been at that meeting (laughs). So I make these thumbnail sketches of the characters. Now if I make a sketch that I really like, I blow it up on my copy machine and then trace it and refine it. This gives me an idea of what I will end up with.

Chuck: The word thumbnail refers to the size of it?

Kathi: Yeah. That’s a kind of classic way of working. A lot of artists use thumbnails first. I definitely like working small. I’m really into composition.

Chuck: Why does small help composition?

Kathi: Because you’re not involved with details or how it’s drawn, just the composition of the basic shapes. You want the whole look first. When I got this groundhog book, I felt like an actor who finally landed just the right part. I was just flooded with images. So I pictured the characters in trees, in beds. I played with the images a lot.

Chuck: Okay. So you’ve made these thumbnails. What would be the next step?

Kathi: The next step is a storyboard. This is a layout of the whole book in small sketches. The important thing about a storyboard is that it makes you pay attention to the flow of the book. You can see it from beginning to end in one place. It shows you the way the whole book will lay out. You pay attention to this when you’re going from page to page. It shows you the way the action flows and the size of the art from page to page.

Chuck: So you finish this storyboard. This is the whole book and how it’s going to look.

Kathi: Right.

Chuck: Do you send it off to them as a storyboard?

Kathi: Yes, I usually do. But the things that get approved are the finished sketches for each page.

Chuck: That’s full-page drawings for every page of the book?

Kathi: Right. These full-size sketches can be time consuming. In this case they were because I knew I wanted to get into some shadow play. We’re talking about shadows the whole time because the groundhog is seeing his shadow.

Chuck: So the storyboard and full sketches are done. You send them off?

Kathi: Yes, I scan and send them. Then I wait a week or two weeks (or longer) for approval. They’ll come back to me with feedback. Sometimes there are only minor comments or changes. I’ve been lucky that way lately. While I’m waiting for approval, I fit in other small jobs or start working on color sketches, seeing which colors work with what.

Chuck: So you’ve done the color sketches. What’s the next step?

Kathi: Then I take my sketches one by one and transfer them onto my watercolor paper. Then the painting process starts. Right now I’m working in acrylics, but in the past I’ve used watercolors. My style has grown and changed over time, and so has the way I work.

Chuck: I see that you write down all the colors. Why?

Kathi: Because when I’m painting I need to reproduce the exact colors of certain elements (for example, the groundhog’s jacket) on every page.

Chuck: You can’t leave it to memory?

Kathi: No, because you need to replicate all those colors, and some are a mix. Sometimes I’ll mix two acrylic colors and so I’ll write down 50% of this and 50% of that so I can reproduce it later.

Chuck: How long does all this take?

Kathi: Well, I’m always working on a deadline and there is never enough time. In reality, I need about six months to do a 32 page picture book and also sleep and eat. I’ve done them in four months already. It’s intense. We’re talking about 12-14 hour days, including weekends, for weeks at a time toward the end. I tell people what I do for a living and they imagine this relaxed lifestyle. It isn’t. I take breaks in between jobs, but by the time I’m done, I’m totally exhausted and my house is a disaster area. I need a few weeks off just to put my life back together. I do love my work. I feel incredibly lucky to get paid for something I’m passionate about. I’m not wealthy, but I never wanted to be. I only ever wanted a roof over my head and to be able to make art. I feel my life is a success.

Print This Article
Email (and more) with