77InsIghts from IllInoIs Authors

Insights from Illinois AuthorsRonda J. Brown

About This ColumnWelcome to a column devoted to informing readers about children’s authors and illustrators who draw inspi-ration from their Illinois roots. “Insights from Illinois Authors” presents interesting facts about authors and their books, along with other relevant information such as their availability for author visits and their e-mail addresses. We hope this column serves as a resource for author studies and other literacy activities.

A Conversation with Terri Murphy

Terri Murphy does illustrations for children’s books, magazines, and educational materials. She is also a part-time children’s librarian and the Illinois Illustrators Network Coordina-tor for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. In 2010, she began presenting Young Artists Workshops to library groups, art camps, and at senior centers. This summer, she will be the premier artist for the Illinois Library Association’s iRead summer reading program for adults. Her art will be featured in all Illinois libraries and in U.S. military base libraries in 24 countries. She also writes poetry and short sto-

ries. Educated at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, Terri lives in the Chicago area with her husband, two sons, and a dog named Rosie.

Ronda Brown: Will you tell me about your child-hood and growing up in Chicago?

Terri Murphy: I grew up on Chicago’s south side in a culturally diverse inner-city neighborhood. My parents were Polish immigrants who were displaced from their homes after World War II. We didn’t have much in terms of material things and, consequently, my siblings and I became very creative in our playtime. When my mother made kluski (dumplings), she’d always save some raw dough for me and I’d form little animals from it. Crayons and paper were always available, even though sometimes the paper was a grocery sack or the cardboard that shirts came packaged with. My favorite pastime was exploring outside with a pair of second-hand binoculars.

Terri Murphy

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RB: How did you start illustrating children’s books?

TM: One can say all the stars were aligned. Both of our sons came to my husband and I by adoption. When our first son was very young, I decided to write and illustrate a little book for him, telling him how before he was born, every time we thought of him a sparkle grew in our hearts. As I wrote it, I thought, “Why not create a book for all adopted children?” I learned about making a book dummy and approaching publishers. The manuscript never got published . . . (good thing too, I still had a lot to learn!). I joined SCBWI, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and met some wonderfully talented and generous people who guided me. I often think of how the sadness of infertility turned into the joy of becoming a family and launching a career I love . . . truly a blessing in disguise!

RB: Children will surely enjoy the story, Dance, Y’all, Dance, told in a two-step rhythm, of small

town folks gathering together to listen to music on a Saturday night. You have depicted the people and the dance hall so well with the warm colors, facial expressions, body lan-guages, and the clothing. What type of research did

you have to do to complete this book or did you sketch pictures for a while?

TM: Thank you for the compliment! Dance Y’all Dance was a labor of love! The story is set early in the 20th century, and I found myself researching answers to questions like, “What did dance halls look like in the 1920s? How did country folk dress and wear their hair then? What did phones and radios look like? Did bubble gum exist and was it pink?” But cer-tainly the most fun I had with this book was the embedded visual stories I added to author

Kelly Bennett’s verse. My thoughts were that in any large dance hall setting there are smaller individual dramas happening. So while the story points to the larger picture of meeting the folks and various dance steps, the astute reader will see an undercurrent story happening in the pictures only!

RB: The publisher, Bright Sky Press, did well by pairing you and author Kelly Bennett together again in the rhyming picture book, One Day I Went Rambling! I love how Zane eventually draws all of his friends into his imagina-tive game as he goes rambling around the neighborhood finding something magical in the ordinary. Will you talk about how you began the process of illustrating the story once you received it?

TM: Both stories are populated with many char-acters. In One Day I Went Rambling, I researched popular kid groupings of the past . . . the Cosby Kids and Our Gang in particular, to see what made them visually effective. I also chose to set this story in the inner city and have the climax of the book take place in a weedy empty lot. In the beginning, our rambler Zane goes on daily ramblings. He finds things in his environment and reimagines them into something fantastic. I chose to illustrate those scenes in full vibrant color. When he brings his treasures back to the neighborhood, and they are minimized and ridi-culed by his peers, the color is drained. What delights me is that children understand this visual device immediately, and we launch into discussions of art as a universal language.

RB: After reading this book, readers will want to take children outside to go rambling! Do you hear that a lot?

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TM: I do, from children ages 2 to 102! One Day I Went Rambling tends to spark the imagi-nations of children and adults alike. I believe the story speaks to the artist in us, to the moment when we see something and then see it in another light. When I go into schools, the book acts as a springboard into further conver-sation of finding something special in the envi-ronment, in a found object, or in relationship with others.

RB: Will you talk about what was entailed in illustrating Climb Inside a Poem: Original Poems for Children that Heinemann published?

TM: Climb Inside a Poem is an anthology of poems by various authors. The book itself is large, the kind used for reading and showing to a group of children. The illustrations were painted larger than I’m accustomed to, and they

had to be enlarged further in printing to fit the format. Assignments

like that stretch you as an illustrator because they kick you out of your comfort zone. I dis-covered that I liked illustrating in a large format, something I might have not realized otherwise.

RB: Teachers and parents must go to your website to see your link for Young Artists Workshop! Your traveling art workshops look like a great way for kids to be creative and have fun! How is the time

spent with the kids?

TM: The great thing is my studio time influences my art workshops, and the art kids create influences my illustrations! I may be researching how to bring another element to my art, for instance,

merging collage with painted imagery, and I’ll have the thought “Hey, I can do this for a kids’ workshop too!” Then it’s just a matter of how to fit it into an hour and a half program.

RB: What art mediums do you usually work in, and do you have a preference?

TM: I currently work in gouache (pronounced gwash) which is opaque watercolor, but I am always experimenting. For One Day I Went Rambling, I decided to try acrylic gouache, which is different in handling than regular gouache. It has a plastic binder in its compo-sition, so once it’s down and dry, there’s no lifting or blending it as is possible with regu-lar gouache. In that book, I also illustrated on hand-textured boards; and once the illustration was fully painted, it was scanned in and digitally enhanced using my nature texture photos. I realized at one point that I am Zane from the story! I ramble through nature and reimagine my photos into my illustrations!

RB: What do you share when you visit schools and conferences?

TM: The love of creation and the power of sto-rytelling. In a crowded room, you can quiet a crowd with a story. I think it’s in our DNA. Something settles in us, and with our receptors open, we prepare to be amused, moved, enter-tained, or awestruck. There is something about the wonder of children, how they make sense of the world, that appeals to me. Picture books are usually a child’s first introduction to story, so that’s where I reside and play with them.

RB: What advice do you have for aspiring illustrators?

TM: Don’t give up! There are many times an artist may hit a brick wall. Sometimes it hap-pens to me right in the middle of painting! My self-talk goes something like this, “It looks

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awful, you don’t know what you’re doing, why don’t you just admit it’s bad, you should just stop now.” My advice is work through that. Keep going. It will get better. Many people give up at that point, and nothing ever gets finished and then they get discouraged. Not too long ago in one of my workshops, a kid artist got so frustrated. She was painting a piece of pie and started with the cherry on top. “It doesn’t even look like a cherry,” she said, “I want to start over.” I told her my advice about working through it and asked, “If I do one thing to your painting and it looks better, will you continue?” She said yes. I took a tiny brush, dipped it in white, and put a highlight on the cherry. It was transformed. She continued and was glad she did. It turned out to be a great painting.

RB: Besides illustrating, I hear that you have had several poems and short stories published. What do you like to write about?

TM: Little snippets of life. . . . Throughout each day and within our memories, tiny moments resonate. I’ll examine those moments and see what makes them spark. And if it sparks a con-nection with me, maybe I can play with words to re-create the feeling in someone else. I like to craft stories that take the reader on a journey, and then when they least expect it, come up from behind and grab them in the heart. Some-times, I write stories and poems just for me as an exercise, just to see where it leads.

RB: What is a typical day like for you?

TM: I have the luxury of working from a home studio, so every workday is different. What remains the same is that I incorporate ritual to get into a creative frame of mind. It might be taking a morning walk with a camera, read-ing an inspirational verse, free-writing, lighting candles, being grateful. I love being cocooned in my studio; and though creating can some-times be challenging and frustrating, I live for

the moments when everything flows. If I’m on a tight deadline, I’ve been known to work until 3:00 Am and weekends. In between jobs, I’ll work on my own picture book stories, poems, and short stories or try a new painting technique.

RB: I heard that you have some exciting hobbies. What do you like to do when you aren’t illustrating?

TM: I am a born observer. I think it harkens back to when I was that little Polish girl who didn’t know English, so I observed to understand my world. Now I observe with a sketchbook or a camera. I’m a certified dragonfly tracker, and I’ll visit bogs and small lakes to record data, which helps in ascertaining the health of our wetlands since dragonflies are born in water. A few years ago, I became interested in close-up photogra-phy and patterns in nature. I would photograph light flickers on waves, a butterfly’s wings, moss, ice formations in potholes, you name it . . . . Yes, I am well on my way to being “that odd lady.” But I found I could lose myself in this process, much like losing myself in painting. Then back in the studio, I’ll zoom in more through Photoshop. An abstract quality will emerge, something previ-ously unseen, a beauty that exists quietly around us as if in another dimension, and this is what excites me most.

RB: What are you work-ing on now?

TM: I’m working on an illustration for Ladybug Magazine for Children, and five narrative illus-trations to compete for a spot in The Bologna International Children’s Illustration Fair 2013. In the works also are developing summer art workshops to go with the Illinois Library Association’s summer read-ing theme of “Have Book Will Travel.” I am the featured artist for the program in 2013, so

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you’ll be seeing a lot of me in your local librar-ies, either in person giving Young Artists Work-shops or via the three illustrated posters and assorted merchandising I created for the ILA.

RB: Thank you for sharing your time. Please tell readers how they can learn more about you, your books, and your availability.

TM: My pleasure, Ronda. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments through my website at www.terrimurphyart.com.

Books by TerriOne Day I Went Rambling (Bright Sky Press, 2012).Dance Y’all, Dance (Bright Sky Press, 2009).Climb Inside a Poem: Original Poems for Children

(Heinemann Publishers, 2008).The Centurion at the Cross (Concordia Publishers, 2007).The Ten Plagues (Concordia Publishers, 2006).Where Is My Family? (Sundance Publishers, 2005).

About the AuthorRonda J. Brown, Ed.D., is a professor at Millikin Uni-versity. Brown is past president and currently a regional director of the Illinois Reading Council and president of the Macon County Reading Council. Her research inter-ests include interviewing children’s authors and illustra-tors and studying nontraditional teachers. She can be reached at rbrown@millikin.edu.