{"id":5118,"date":"2018-01-12T02:30:50","date_gmt":"2018-01-12T07:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=5118"},"modified":"2018-01-12T02:31:19","modified_gmt":"2018-01-12T07:31:19","slug":"jannie-ho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2018\/01\/12\/jannie-ho\/","title":{"rendered":"How Jannie Ho Illustrated Her New Picture Book \u2018Bear and Chicken\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having illustrated more than 60 picture books\u2014from \u201cThe Great Reindeer Rebellion\u201d and \u201cWhat Does Cow Say?\u201d to \u201cRoad Work Ahead\u201d and \u201cBunny and Bird Are Best Friends\u201d\u2014Jannie Ho<\/a> describes her style as \u201cfun. It\u2019s very character driven. I\u2019m inspired by a very graphic look and a vintage look at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Needham artist and author favors anthropomorphic animal characters and creating spaces and filling them with all sorts of characters and things. \u201cI do like all the little details because I do love books where you can stay in a piece of art and get immersed in the world,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"Jannie<\/a>
Jannie Ho. (Courtesy of the artist)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ho has two new books: \u201cBear and Chicken,\u201d which was published by Running Press Kids in November (\u201cWhen Bear finds a chicken frozen in the winter snow, he brings it home to try to defrost it. As Chicken thaws\u2014um, awakens\u2014he fears that Bear is actually prepping to eat him.\u201d) and \u201cChicks In the Barn,\u201d out Jan. 16 from Little Bee Books (the children\u2019s song \u201cThe Wheels on the Bus\u201d rewritten to sing about barn animals).<\/p>\n

She reads from her work at Brookline Booksmith<\/a> in Brookline at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 14, and then with Cambridge author Alison Goldberg (\u201cI Love You for Miles and Miles\u201d) at Newtonville Books<\/a> in Newton at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 27.<\/p>\n

\"Jannie<\/a>
Jannie Ho’s “The Chicks in the Barn.” (Courtesy of the artist)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ho was born in Hong Kong, moved to Philadelphia when she was 9, then went to New York to study illustration at Parsons School of Design, graduating in 1999. Her first job was designing textiles for a children\u2019s wear company. Then she worked as a graphic designer for Nickelodeon Magazine and Scholastic Book Club and as an art director for Time Magazine for Kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the meantime, I was working on my illustration again,\u201d Ho says. \u201cI got an agent and that\u2019s when I was kind of leading a double life\u2014art director by day, illustrator at night.\u201d That was until about a decade ago, when her first two picture books were published\u2014\u201cThe Penguins\u2019 Perfect Picnic\u201d (\u201cIt’s the perfect day for a picnic, so the penguins pack their things and go. But when the weather turns bad, the penguins find out what it really means to have the perfect picnic.\u201d) and \u201cThe Mixed Up Alphabet\u201d\u2014 and she left Time to pursue illustration full-time.<\/p>\n

I recently spoke to Ho about how she created \u201cBear and Chicken,\u201d the first book that she not only illustrated, but authored as well. \u201cIt\u2019s my baby,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Jannie<\/a>
Jannie Ho’s pencil sketch for a page from \u201cBear and Chicken.” (Courtesy of the artist)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pencil Sketch<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Among the first steps in creating \u201cBear and Chicken,\u201d Ho says, was drafting \u201clittle thumbnails I did using pencil and paper.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two characters came to me when I still had a Blogspot account on my blog and I made a header with these two characters,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The bear and chicken resonated with her audience. She\u2019s long had a thing for chickens (\u201cI love chickens,\u201d she says), including naming her website ChickenGirlDesign.<\/p>\n

When she needed to create a new header, she featured the critters again. \u201cA lot of people commented again: “These characters need to have their own story,\u201d she recalls. She expanded the idea in her contribution to a sequential art exhibit and then this book.<\/p>\n

Why was the Chicken out in the snow? \u201cWhen I was writing this story, I spent a lot of time trying to explain that situation,” Ho acknowledges. \u201cIt actually made the story very complicated.\u201d So she got rid of the setup, but if you want to know, her idea is that Chicken ended up in the snow because she was \u201cvisiting a friend and this not being her place to be, so she got lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of Ho\u2019s work is done digitally. But she likes to begin in pencil, which gives her the flexibility to make changes if needed and to try to keep her art from getting too precious.\u201cAuthor-illustrators, we just love to jump into the art,\u201d she says. \u201cWe will work the art to death and if it doesn\u2019t serve the story we don\u2019t want to let go of the art.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Jannie<\/a>
Jannie Ho’s grayscale Illustrator sketch for a page from \u201cBear and Chicken.” (Courtesy of the artist)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Grayscale Sketch<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Ho’s next step is to make a sketch in grays directly in the Adobe Illustrator graphic design program.\u00a0\u201cIllustrator is all vector based,\u201d Ho says. \u201cIt\u2019s basically a series of shapes, shapes building on shapes building on shapes. The great thing about illustrator is I can scale things up and down and it\u2019s not going to lose it resolution. \u2026 You can easily move things around. To that helps me with the layout, the composition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trees are not well developed,\u201d she notes. But it\u2019s \u201ca little bit more polished and a sense of what I want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Jannie<\/a>
Jannie Ho’s grayscale dummy page from \u201cBear and Chicken.” (Courtesy of the artist)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Grayscale Book Dummy<\/strong><\/h4>\n

As Ho develops the grayscale sketches for the book, she prints out a dummy, or model of the planned book. \u201cTo assemble an actual book really helps\u201d she says. It gives her sense of how the images relate to each other as one turns from one page to the next. \u201cIt\u2019s very rough, but obviously somewhat worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Jannie<\/a>
Jannie Ho’s color dummy page from \u201cBear and Chicken.” (Courtesy of the artist)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Color Book Dummy<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\u201cAs I move to color, I make another mockup with the color pages, with the Post-its on top because I\u2019m still rewriting the text,\u201d Ho says. She’s beginning to add tree bark and shadows.<\/p>\n

\u201cBear and Chicken\u201d is an example of her \u201ctrying to age up my work, to do a little bit older books.\u201d For books for the littlest kids, publishers tend to want green grass and blue skies, she says. Basics. \u201cThey want everything very bright.\u201d<\/p>\n

A sign of how she\u2019s trying to speak to a bit older kids here is her color palette, \u201ca little bit more muddy colors, a little bit more neutral colors. \u2026 A little bit older. Like Bear\u2019s shirt on the cover is a little bit more muddy blue. If it was for a board book, it would be this bright blue, this clearer blue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Jannie<\/a>
Jannie Ho’s final page artwork from \u201cBear and Chicken.” (Courtesy of the artist)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Final Artwork<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In the final page artwork, Ho has changed the color of the sky and added a cardinal perched in the tree.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to add a little bit of detail that\u2019s not mentioned in the text,\u201d she says. \u201cThe fun part of being an illustrator is adding something not in the text that doesn\u2019t take away from the story. \u2026 Kids like to find the little details. They like to find out. It\u2019s like a little secret.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why is the chicken so afraid that the bear will eat her? \u201cThe bear\u2019s a lot bigger than the chicken, but it\u2019s a happy story in the end.\u201d (Spoiler: They become friends.)<\/p>\n

Is the chicken in the story a sort of alter ego for Ho?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was before. But I don\u2019t know if she is now,\u201d Ho says. \u201cIt\u2019s very comforting to draw myself as a chicken. I\u2019ve done a comic in the past of my experience of moving from New York City to Michigan for three years. I drew myself as a chicken and my husband as a rooster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, the couple\u2019s daughter has just turned 6. Ho says, \u201cWe call her nugget\u201d\u2014as in chicken nugget\u2014\u201cor nuggie for short.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Help WONDERLAND keep producing our great coverage of local arts by contributing to Wonderland’s Launch Fundraiser<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having illustrated more than 60 picture books\u2014from \u201cThe Great Reindeer Rebellion\u201d and \u201cWhat Does Cow Say?\u201d to \u201cRoad Work Ahead\u201d and \u201cBunny and Bird Are Best Friends\u201d\u2014Jannie Ho describes her style as \u201cfun. It\u2019s very character driven. I\u2019m inspired by a very graphic look and a vintage look at the same time.\u201d The Needham artist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,107,192],"tags":[209,211,208,210],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5118"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5118"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5188,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5118\/revisions\/5188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}