TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1999

Illustrator tells colorful tales

By Jackie Quintanilla

Special to the On-Line Forty-Niner

The hardest part of illustrating is keeping the characters consistent said Ashley Wolff, illustrator of children's books during a lecture on Friday at the University Library.

"The hardest part about illustrating is keeping your characters consistent, because your character on page one has to look the same as your character on page 33." Wolff said.

Wolff, illustrator of "Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten" and "Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the 100th Day of Kindergarten," likes to use pictures as reference material because she is constantly trying to figure out how things look and then changing them to fit her style.

"I use very many different techniques when I illustrate, I'm easily bored, so I'm always switching around trying to find a new way to work," Wolff said.

Wolff grew up in Middle Berry, Vermont. She attended the Rhode Island School of Design and then went to art school in Providence where she studied illustration and print design.

Wolff then moved with her husband to California, where she worked in small newspapers doing paste-up with wax, she then decided to go to New York in 1983 when the children's book industry had not yet developed.

"I said, 'I'm sick of being employed, I'm going to quit my job, take my portfolio to New York and show it around'," Wolff said.

At that time, books were still being illustrated by hand separation but when Wolff published her first book in 1984, "A Year of Birds," the technology had just changed to laser separation.

"I'm not a good photographer and I certainly don't frame any of my pictures, but I take enough so that when I'm done I have what I need," Wolf said.

Wolff believes the only way to paint watercolors is to have good paper, good paints and really good brushes but she brainstorms by sketching first sketching with pencil.

"I do lots of pages in pencil on tracing paper for studies, because this is where I try to make all of my mistakes," Wolff said. "The way I like to think of my illustrations is that I'm in an airplane, I'm zooming in and focusing on what is really important in the picture."

Wolff likes to use people and animals that she is familiar with in her illustrations. Her dog Pumpkin was her inspiration for several of her illustrations.