Ashley Wolff: Great Questions From Kids

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Why do you put a black and white dog in so many of your books?

	zzzAbove is my dog Pumpkin. She was a Border Collie and I had her for 15 years. For more about Pumpkin visit Who is Miss Bindergarten and Why is She a Dog? zzzBelow is our new dog, Lucy. She is also a Border Collie. She makes her first appearances in Stella and Roy Go Camping and Each Living Thing. She loves rolling onto her back, running in the park and cuddling on the bed.

How old were you when you wrote your first book?

zzI wasn't planning on becoming an author. I started out wanting only to illustrate other people's stories.
zzzBut I met an editor at a small publisher called Dodd Mead who saw one of my pictures. It was of a little girl in a red coat, feeding birds in the snow. She said "Why don't you go home and write a story about that little girl and her home and her life and her family?"
zzzSo I did, and that book became A Year of Birds and I became an author as well as an illustrator on my very first book. I was 27 years old.
zzzA Year of Birds was an ALA Notable Book and sold pretty well and so I've been writing and illustrating books ever since.

Where do you work?

zzI work at home in a little blue house in San Francisco. My studio is one of the upstairs bedrooms. Out of one window I see my garden where I grow trees and vines and lots of flowers.
zzzOut of the skylight across from my desk I can look over San Francisco towards the west. The view is always changing as clouds roll in from the Pacific Ocean and the sun crosses the sky and sets behind Twin Peaks.

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Are you married?

zzzI've been married for many years to Sabin Russell, a journalist and children's book author. You can sometimes spot Sabin in my books. He is the man with the dark hair and beard. One year he shaved off his beard and so he is also the clean-shaven father in Stella and Roy. See if you can spot him in at least seven books.
zzzI have two sons whose names are Brennan and Rowan. They go to school in San Francisco. They are also in lots of books.

Rowan and Brennan in Yosemite

How do you carve and print your "Giant Rubber Stamp?"

zzMy stamps are flat sheets of linoleum that I carve out by hand. First I create a drawing in pencil on tracing paper. I usually do many versions of every drawing, trying to get the composition just right. I often use references to help me. The photos on the left are of my son Brennan, posing as Stella climbing the tree. zzWhen I am happy with the drawing, I turn it face down and trace it directly through the back onto the pale grey sheet of linoleum. This gives me a reversed version of the original.

		zzSince linoleum-block printing is a form of relief printing, just like rubber stamps, the image will print as a reverse of the block. zzI now carve the block using very sharp, U-shaped metal gouges. I carve everything away that I do not want to print. This leaves me with a design formed of raised ridges that will be covered with ink when I print this "giant rubber stamp."
click here to see the book this picture is in.	zzI roll ink onto the block using a hard rubber brayer that looks like a miniature rolling pin. The ink covers only the surface of the raised ridges. After I tack the block to a wooden board, I lay a sheet of heavy white paper on top of the inked-up block and tack it down all around so that it can't slip. I use an old wooden spoon as a printing press. The pressure from rubbing with the back of this spoon transfers all the ink from the block to the paper, creating the print. zz When I peel up the paper I have a black and white print that is ready to be colored. I use watercolors to paint the prints and I always make enough copies so that if I make a mistake, I can always throw it away and try again.

These are some of the many wonderful questions children ask me when I do school visits.
If you would like me to come to your school click here for more information
or email me a shley@ashleywolff.com

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