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MEET KATHRYN HEWITT
by Bonnie O'Brian

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

Kathryn Hewitt

If I were captured by pirates and left on a desert island, I could be perfectly happy as long as they left me lots of books.  I began to fall in love with books when I was very young and every other week my mother took my brother and me to the Santa Monica library and let us each choose ten books.  I especially loved Ferdinand the Bull, Dr. Seuss, Beatrix Potter, and endless fairytales and folktales.

Roller skating, climbing trees, and riding bikes were things I enjoyed doing when I was a kid, but I was happiest when I was reading and drawing and making things.  We had a collection of classic children’s stories, MY BOOK HOUSE, that we inherited from a cousin, and I loved them as though they were an extra set of friends.

What books influenced you most when you were growing up?

 We didn’t have a school library at Saint Joan of Arc Elementary, but my third grade teacher, Mrs. Shutt, solved the problem by lending us her own books to read.  I worshipped her because not only did she trust us with her personal books, but she always seemed to know what sorts of books we would love.  She got me hooked on Scott O’Dell, Marguerite Henry, and all of E.B White’s books.  Mrs. Shutt was also my first art teacher.  Every Wednesday she would turn on the National Parks Radio Program, an hour of classical music, pass out crayons and paper, and tell us, “Draw what you feel.”  It was my favorite hour of the week.

When you were young did you ever have moments when you decided that you were going to be a artist when you grew up?

My drawing skills never advanced beyond the level of a third grader drawing stick figures until I entered tenth grade at Santa Monica High School.  There I had inspiring teachers who taught us all sorts of tricks to improve our art.  I had decided at an early age that I wanted to be an artist, but I didn’t know how, and I knew I wasn’t very good.  My eleventh grade teacher, Mrs. Jean Campbell, shocked me when she told me I was one of the best artists in the class.  I couldn’t see it, but it gave me hope that maybe one day I might get better.

When you went to college, were you already pursuing an artistic career?

I studied literature and art in college, and then spent many more years trying to improve my art and writing while working full-time at other jobs.  I worked in hospitals, a china repair shop, and boring offices, and painted in my spare time.  Finally, after ten long years my husband told me to take a year off my regular job and paint full-time to see what I could come up with.  I was ecstatic and created over 250 paintings.  At the end of the year my painting had improved and I actually began to sell some pictures.  Around that time I happened to walk through a bookstore and discovered the beautiful art in children’s books.  I knew I loved books and painting—and children—and decided that was the job for me.

Was your first book accepted immediately? or did you experience a number of rejections?

I submitted samples of my work to different publishers and after a number of rejections Harcourt Brace said they were interested in my work.  I began writing and illustrating Two By Two, the untold story of Noah’s Ark.  I made every possible mistake, but after two years of patient editing the book was published.  That same year our first child was born, our son Paul.  It was probably the most exciting year of my life.  I began creating about one book every year, and after five years our daughter Annelise was born.  My kids have inspired my work mainly by their sheer goofiness, but they also are useful for helpfully pointing out glaring errors in a story or a picture.

Biographies have always fascinated me and I am extremely fortunate to be able to work with a great biographer: Kathleen Krull.  We started working on LIVES OF THE MUSICIANSdetermined to add a bit of levity to a generally stuffy subject.  She would find the most interesting stories about Mozart, Beethoven and many other musicians, and I would paint them with big heads—caricatures.  I think painting people is the most challenging subject matter, but for me also the most fun.  In the LIVES OF… series we’ve explored the lives of artists, writers, athletes, presidents, and next we reveal everything about famous pirates.  Some of them were actually quite literate and refined—but they were still thieving scurvy dogs.

Where do you get your ideas?

Ideas come from all sorts of places.  I’ve illustrated a couple of books beautifully written by Eve Bunting that were inspired by gardens: FLOWER GARDEN AND SUNFLOWER HOUSE.  Since I started a large vegetable garden in our backyard I find all kinds of inspiration
coming out of the ground.  I have a picture book idea with bugs and
birds and crawling things sitting on an editor’s desk right now that I hope will blossom soon.

I often get ideas by imagining myself in someone else’s place.  My book NO DOGS HERE was inspired by putting myself in my dog’s place.  After a walk to the market where Henry had to be tied up outside (No Dogs Allowed), I came out to see two more dogs tethered to the same post looking equally unhappy.  I tried to imagine what they would say to one another if they could talk, and figured it would most likely be, “How come we’re stuck out here while humans get to have all the fun?”  The story grew from there.

What gave you the idea for UNCLE SAM’S AMERICA?

A recent book I illustrated, UNCLE SAM’S AMERICA, was written by my husband David who is a history fanatic.  A friend suggested we create a picture book that gives an overview of the history of America.  The challenge he faced was how to fit all that history into 40 little pages.  The other challenge was, I was hogging most of the space on the page with my artwork.  He succeeded, and we are still married even after I gave him many unsolicited helpful tips about his writing.

The artwork I created for the book combines painting with old-fashioned drawings and old postage stamps.  My grandmother Catherine, who I was named after, emigrated from the Ukraine with her brother when she was seventeen.  When they settled in Philadelphia she began collecting stamps.  I used some of her old stamps in my artwork.  I also included portraits of many of our family members in the illustrations.  Our extended family tree reaches from the Ukraine, to Africa, Korea, India, and the British Isles.  Like America we represent a patchwork quilt of cultures.