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MEET DOUG HANSEN
by Bonnie O'Brian

Are you primarily an author or an illustrator?

Doug Hansen

My name is Doug Hansen. My book is MOTHER GOOSE IN CALIFORNIA. It is an ABC picture book that uses words from Mother Goose Rhymes. On the cover of the book it says “ Conceived and illustrated by Doug Hansen.” That’s because I can’t claim credit for the Mother Goose Rhymes but the idea, visual approach, and content of the book are all mine.  I am primarily an illustrator so I’ll respond to the Interview questions from my artistic point of view.

What did you most like to do when you were a child?

I had a wonderful childhood. I was the eldest of six children and never lacked for playmates. My father was a United States Naval aviator and we lived in California, Texas, Hawaii, and Maryland before we moved back to Fresno, California in 1970. My mother is an artist and we never lacked for art materials or the opportunity to use them. To the amazement of our friends, she let us draw with chalk on the linoleum floor of our “Rumpus Room.” We would “build forts” in the woods, ride bikes, and play “army.” We collected sea shells and built plastic ship and airplane models.

What books influenced you most when you were growing up?

I was influenced by a series of books called “The New Junior Classics.” I remember looking at the pictures in those books and thinking “I want to be the guy that makes the pictures! I loved our TALL BOOK OF MOTHER GOOSE and books by Lucille W. and H. C. Holling  (PAGOO, PADDLE TO THE SEA, LITTLE FOLKS OF OTHER LANDS) that had colorful and captivating illustrations. I also liked to look through the encyclopedia at the color illustrations of flags, animals, and flowers. We had a series of books called “How and Why Wonder Books” about things like science, rockets, and airplanes. I also fell in love with the “Little House” books and read them all. Later it was J.R.R. Tolkien’s LORD OF THE RINGS.

Did you write stories when you were growing up at home?

At the height of our craze for WWI aircraft (that coincided with Charles Schulz’s character Snoopy and the Red Baron and the movie “Those Magnificent men in Their Flying Machines”), my brother Brad wrote a story about a German WWI ace called Dorfdarb. I illustrated the story with crazy fanciful airplanes like the ‘Venetian Blind’ and the ‘Canteen’.

What audience did you have in mind for this book – adult or children?

Honestly, I made this book to satisfy myself. Who knew if it would ever be published? I reasoned that I should satisfy myself if I was putting so much time into each picture. Consequently, everything in the book is something I love or am interested in. Of course it’s the adults who buy books and I hoped that my classic visual approach to illustration would find a sympathetic audience in people of my generation who may have enjoyed Mother Goose and storybooks like I did growing up. On the other hand, I have never forgotten what it’s like as a child to dive into a beautiful picture book and find an image that compels me to return again and again. So I loaded each picture with visual information that I hoped would allow new discoveries with each reading.

When you went to college, were you already pursuing a career in illustrating? Or just art in general?

In college I was a fine arts major at Fresno State and received my BA in Art in 1974. But at the same time, after seeing my work published in the college paper, I wanted to be a cartoonist. I started my career as a visual artist drawing “Underground Comix.” I carried on that work on a freelance basis for years while I worked as a commercial artist.

What gave you the idea for MOTHER GOOSE IN CALIFORNIA?

I wondered what I could do with Mother Goose that was original. Hundreds of artists have illustrated Mother goose rhymes. I had to find a personal interpretation of the rhymes. I asked myself - “What would Mother Goose and her rhymes look like in a different setting. What if Mother Goose packed her carpet bag and flew to California?” I’m a native Californian and I appreciated that the larger-than-life history of my state and the unlimited variety and drama of the landscape was my path to re-imagining the well-known nursery rhyme figures.

Do you enjoy researching?

I enjoy research very much. It’s fun to learn about new things, what they look like or how they work. Each painting required loads of research. I research the animals, scenery, and costumes and gather reference pictures. Some come from magazines and books, some from my own photos and sketches, and some from the Internet. When I could, I visited the places in the pictures. For example, the shield of the kings’ soldier (In the Humpty Dumpty picture) is in the museum at Mission Carmel in California. One of my hobbies is vexillology (flag study) so you can imagine how much I enjoyed painting the flag in that picture. Sometimes I use props from home. The seashells in “She sells seashells” are mostly from my own collection that I began as a child in Hawaii.