Interview with illustrator Felicia Hoshino
by Aline Pereira*

Born in San Francisco, California, Felicia Hoshino earned a BFA degree in Illustration from the California College of the Arts. As a child, Felicia enjoyed celebrating customs of her Japanese heritage, including making gyoza (Japanese dumplings) with her mother and performing Japanese classical dance.

She has illustrated four children's books to date, including Little Sap and Monsieur Rodin and A Place Where Sunflowers Grow, winner of the 2007 Jane Addams Peace Award in the Picture Book category. Original illustrations from these two titles were featured in the Society of Illustrators' annual "The Original Art", a juried exhibition celebrating the art of children's book illustration. Felicia's prize-winning work can also be seen in children's magazines such as Cricket, Cicada and Ladybug. Most recently, she has contributed an illustration for the anthology On My Block: Stories and Paintings by Fifteen Artists, published by Children's Book Press.

She lives in San Francisco with her husband and son.

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Was becoming a children’s book illustrator a dream of yours, or did you sort of happen into it? How did your first children’s book project come about?

I can't say that I've always dreamed of illustrating children's books, but throughout my art education, that idea was probably in the back of my mind.

I grew up with supportive parents and found that, like many children, I liked to create things with my hands. I liked drawing, in particular. But it wasn't until my junior year in High School that I took my first "official" art class. My instructor, Mr. Jones, was an African American man built like a football player, whose deep voice and dark sunglasses seemed to me, at the time, like a contrast to how delicate he was with his paintbrush – he painted beautifully! He changed my perception of who I thought an artist was or should be. I remember thinking: "This guy really must be doing what he loves!"

From there I took as many art classes as I could – from ceramics, to graphic design, to monoprinting – and ended up majoring in Illustration, but my exposure to the children's book illustration world was still limited then.

After graduating, still unsure of my path, I worked at Naganuma Design & Direction for three years, where I was able to apply my illustration skills and learn a lot about the graphic design process. Now that I work as an illustrator full-time I apply the computer and design skills that I picked up there to my illustration work.

After more illustration classes specifically about illustrating children's books, I created promotional postcards and sent them out to various publishers. It took about a year before I received my first response, which came from Jennifer Fox of Bebop Books, an imprint of Lee & Low. My first book project turned out to be Surprise Moon, written by Caroline Hatton, about the Vietnamese Autumn Moon Festival (Tet Trung Thu). It was a very welcome, enjoyable challenge. And I have been welcoming more such challenges ever since.

What’s your creative process like, from reading a manuscript until the finished work?

Once I receive the manuscript I try to find a quiet place, usually outside, where I won't be disturbed, to read the story carefully. Sometimes the words inspire images that I scribble right on the page, as I'm reading.

I work out the story in small thumbnail sketches on tracing paper to start with. These very quick and loose sketches are used just to figure out what's to be depicted in each scene in terms of perspective and where the characters are (zoomed in on their face or zoomed out, etc). At this point I'm also keeping in mind the placement of the text (is it always in the same place or does it vary from page to page?). Then I present these preliminary sketches to the art director or editor and work closely with them to make sure that they represent the story in the clearest and most interesting way. Since the thumbnails are so loose, it's easier to make revisions at this stage.

Once thumbnails are approved, I move on to the research stage. Depending on the subject matter, this can be the most time consuming, but also most interesting, aspect of the whole process. Through my work-related research I have had the pleasure of learning in more detail about the Vietnamese Moon Festival, Cambodian Khmer Court Dance and the Japanese internment experience in the United States, for instance.

After I've gathered enough reference material to get started, I move on to larger, tighter and more detailed sketches, still on tracing paper. Then I scan them into the computer (sometimes manipulating them in Photoshop) and present them to the publisher again, working closely with them to address any inconsistencies. Once these are approved, I do loose color sketches in the computer, just for my own reference, to get a general sense of the color schemes of the scenes and characters' attire. Then I print these color sketches out at the size that I'm going to paint and use the printouts to transfer the images to the watercolor paper. This is similar to a graphite transfer, but I prefer to use a brown pencil so the transferred image is light and soft. Then I use pen & ink, watercolors, collage tissue paper and acrylics to paint the finished artwork.

Your picture book debut was with Little Sap and Monsieur Rodin, about a young Cambodian dancer who posed for Auguste Rodin in 1906 during the Colonial Exhibition in France. The book has shed new light on a little known meeting of Cambodian and French art, and it was selected by Bank Street College for their 2007 Best Children's Books of the Year list. What sort of research did you have to do before illustrating the story?

Having always lived in the Bay Area, I've had the pleasure of being exposed to many different cultures, so I had seen Cambodian court dance performed at dance festivals before I started the project. However, I knew nothing about its history or about Rodin's sketches of the dancers.

In order to help me with my research, Jennifer Fox of Lee & Low provided me with digital images of Cambodian historical photographs taken around the time that the story takes place, and Michelle Lord, the author, lent me some DVD's about Cambodian court dance. Then I gathered more images and information on my own, from both the internet and books, about Cambodia's ruling history, Khmer Court Dance, Auguste Rodin and  the French Colonial Exhibition. A description of King Sisowath and the dancers' arrival in France was found in Amitav Ghosh's book Dancing in Cambodia, At Large in Burma. A couple of other reference books were Dance in Cambodia, by Toni Samantha Phim and Ashley Thompson, and Khmer Costumes and Ornaments, by Sappho Marchal as well as the video, Khmer Court Dance: Cambodian Royal Court Dances.

Illustrating Little Sap and Monsieur Rodin not only enlightened me about Khmer court dance and Rodin's fascination with its movements, but also educated me about Cambodia's tumultuous history.

Through your art throughout the book we see and learn about Little Sap, the dancers’ special garments and the dance/hand poses they perform to ask the gods for peace and happiness, among other things. The book's cover art, in particular, conveys a lot and is one of those very hard to resist: it makes one want to learn about that beautiful girl and find out how she relates to Rodin, who appears in the background. What more can you tell us about the cover image?

I was very pleased with how the cover turned out. Sap's pose gives her strength and confidence, in contrast to her awkward "magpie" self in the beginning of the book – as a performer of Classical Japanese Dance since I was young, I can attest to the power of dance training to help one gain confidence. Rodin's gesture reflects how charmed he was with the dance.

I think that the swirling lotus pattern I used in the cover (which I selected early on, in my material gathering stage, not knowing exactly what its use would be) really helped to tie all the cover elements together.

The illustrations convey a lot more than what’s been communicated through the story and add a lot of depth to it. Your books create a very strong sense of place: Little Sap mixes the world of Cambodian court dancers with early 20th century Paris; A Place Where Sunflowers Grow shows a Japanese internment camp in the American desert, surrounded by barbed wire. What are some of the things an illustrator must do/pay attention to in order to accomplish that?

As an illustrator, you have the big responsibility of translating the story into images, so I try to be as thorough as possible in my research – and sometimes that includes gathering images and information that do not directly apply, but that perhaps can be incorporated later (like the bookcover pattern, for instance). Research is key, especially for historically based stories such as Little Sap and A Place Where Sunflowers Grow. And I wish that I could have done more of it in both cases (if time had allowed, a trip to Cambodia would have been helpful).

I also try to pay attention to props: a French painting on the wall at the villa, a small fountain in the garden, a flower in a glass jar on a table that I spotted in a photograph of the interior of a barrack... I like to look for small details that are secondary to the story, but that help create atmosphere and a sense of place.

Two people also should be credited for kindly helping me portray things accurately. The mother of one of the students at the Cambodian Dance Troupe of San Jose (where I was able to visit and photograph Mrs. Savary Dean's class), who was extremely generous in sharing her personal travel photos of Cambodia and lending me her daughter's court dance costume jewelry to use as reference; and Mrs. Charya Burt, Artistic Director of the Charya Burt Cambodian Classical Dance Company, who helped me correct/refine some dance poses and suggested other visual elements of Cambodian culture to be incorporated, during the final stages of my sketches.

I’ve read that you used the art of author Amy Lee-Tai’s grandmother, Hisako Hibi, as reference and inspiration for your illustrations of A Place Where Sunflowers Grow. How was that experience like and how did it affect you as an artist and as a person? 

I had the pleasure of meeting author Amy Lee-Tai's mother, Ibuki Hibi Lee. It was Ibuki's mother, the artist Hisako Hibi's memoir, Peaceful Painter Hisako Hibi: Memoirs of an Issei Woman Artist that first caught the attention of Children's Book Press and inspired the book project. The book is based on her and her family's experience in the Topaz Relocation Camp, In Utah, when Ibuki was a young girl.

Ibuki ended up providing input on my final sketches. She was very generous in this and other ways. In addition to lending me some of her mother's sketches, she also shared photos of her childhood (specifically of her and her brother, and their home in Hayward) and of her mother's paintings.

Upon reading Hisako's words and seeing her artwork, I knew that I had to visually incorporate her spirit into my illustrations for the book. In the latrine scene, I included the mother and child figures from her Homage to Mary Cassat,1943 painting. The perspective of the barracks in the dust storm scene was inspired by her The 3rd Winter in Topaz, 1944 and Snowing, 1945. In the same illustration, the red wind blown figure was picked out of Windy, 1944.

I was expecting my first child at the time this project happened, and Hisako's words as a wife, mother and artist were truly inspiring to me. She also made me think of my own grandmothers, who both had young children while in camp. In fact, my father was just two months old when he and his family were relocated. I can't imagine how scared my grandma Chizuko must have felt, cradling my father in her arms, as she boarded a train bound for such an unknown future. Hisako's stories gave me some insight into what it was like for my grandmother (whose own experience was too painful to share with me when she was still living).

Illustrating A Place Where Sunflowers Grow not only gave me the opportunity to learn more about my own family's internment camp experience in America, during World War II, but also has connected me to the experience of other families within the Japanese American Communities. The more I learned, the more compelled I felt to ask questions, not only for research purposes, but to gain knowledge about my family's history both before, during and after the war.

I hope that the book will help inspire young readers to learn about their own family history, Japanese American or not, and possibly connect with family members of different generations.

What about the Art Schools that existed in some of the camps, like the Topaz one featured in the book? It seems to be a little known part of this history...

At book signings, I like to use a quote from Hisako Hibi's memoir, "Art consoles the spirit and it continues on in timeless time." To me her words reflect how art was used in the camps to help internees of all ages get through a very difficult period. I hope that Hisako Hibi's artistic expressions inspired from her camp experiences will continue to carry on a message of hope, in A Place Where Sunflowers Grow and beyond.

A Place Where Sunflowers Grow has won the 2007 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award in the picture book category. How did it feel to receive such an important and meaningful award?

Being somewhat new to the book industry, at first I didn't fully understand the magnitude of the award. However, after learning more about the association and how much they advocate for peace, justice and equality, especially during this time of war, I'm truly honored. It was "icing on the cake" as Amy (the author) put it, to sum up a full year of promoting the book with a trip to New York to attend the reception and meet the association members in person. The attention that the award has given the book has been a nice extra pat on the back, as familiar faces in the community recognize me and ask "How was New York?".

Back to the art of illustrating children’s books…How about character consistency? Some illustrators choose models and photograph them acting out the story in order to portray them consistently throughout the story. How do you go about it in your work?

I do character studies and, whenever possible, I try to use a model to capture the poses I want to paint, especially for the main characters. These "models" are usually friends or family members – and, occasionally, myself posing in front of a mirror.

For Little Sap and Monsieur Rodin, since I didn't know what kind of poses I needed, I had to rely on the DVDs, videos and the photos that I took of young dancers at Mrs. Savary Dean's class. Little Sap's character was pretty much made up, as far as her features go.

For A Place Where Sunflowers Grow, I had most of Mari's poses predetermined, so I asked a young friend and fellow dancer, Kelly Eshima to pose for me.  

Do you have a preferred painting technique?

I would say my preferred techiques are pen & ink, watercolor and collage, and I usually like to combine them all. After transferring the final illustration sketch to the painting surface (usually 300 lb water color paper), I use pen & ink and watercolors as a base. Then I like to collage a sheet of tissue paper, usually a warm cream color, over the entire illustration – this pushes the underlying pen and ink drawing back to a ghost-like image. From there, I add more watercolors and pen & ink to bring back the areas that I want to pop forward. Sometimes I also add acrylics and other non-tissue colored papers, such as the red one I used for Mari's bandana in A Place Where Sunflowers Grow.

Who are some of the children’s book illustrators that inspire you? Any Pacific Rim/South Asian-related picture books you particularly like, either for their illustrations or stories?

I've always been a fan of illustrator Chihiro Iwasaki, ever since I read Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, when I was younger. I'm very inspired by her observations of children and nature. I hope to visit her museum in Japan, one day.

I also enjoy and admire Chih-Yuan Chen's On My Way to Buy Eggs and The Best Christmas Ever, for the simple stories and illustrations. I really love his color palette and use of shadows.  

Cynthia Chin-Lee's Amelia to Zora: Twenty-six Women Who Changed the World and Akira to Zoltan: Twenty-six Men Who Changed the World, both illustrated by Megan Halsey and Sean Addy, are a great pair to have. I admire Chin-Lee for exposing children to known and unknown people who've had a positive impact in the world. I should also mention Komako Sakai's Emily's Balloon – she captures the gestures and spirit of a little girl so perfectly! – and Nina Simonds and Leslie Swartz's Moonbeams, Dumplings & Dragon Boats: A Treasury of Chinese Holiday Tales, Activities and Recipes,which is beautifully illustrated by Meilo So.

My son also has a nice collection of Taro Gomi books that we enjoy reading together.

*Aline Pereira is PaperTigers managing editor

Posted January 2008

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