Posted on by Loree Burns

Robert’s Snow and Sherry Rogers

Meet children’s book illustrator Sherry Rogers.

Sherry illustrated these great books for kids …

and created this snowflake for Robert’s Snow.

Sherry also agreed to let me help the “Blogging for a Cure” effort by interviewing her here on my blog.

I just read IF YOU WERE A PARROT for the first time … and loved it. I know an African grey parrot (he’s a friend of a friend!) and recognized a lot of his curious habits and expressions in your art. How did you capture that in your art? Did you work with live parrots? Hang out at the zoo? Research still photographs? Do tell!

It is so wonderful when people tell you they love something you’ve illustrated. Thank you so much for that!

Most of my research for PARROT was done via the Internet on parrot sites and groups run by owners of parrots. I didn’t want to represent only the factual part of the parrots in the book. I wanted the people who read the book to see the fun side of owning and pretending to be a parrot. I thought by looking at parrots and their owners interacting together, that would give the feeling I was looking for.

I was surprised to see how compassionate parrots are with their owners and how much the owners really cherish their parrots and nurture their relationships with them. Parrots are wonderful creatures. In fact while illustrating IF YOU WERE A PARROT I had fallen in love with parrots and I had a really hard time not wanting to own a bird myself. I have two dogs and two cats, throwing a bird into the mix was a real consideration, but I decided against it.

A while after the book was published, I attended a parrot expo locally in Sacramento, California. It was so much fun to see the actual birds that I had illustrated talking and interacting with people. It was fun to see them being the animated creatures they really are.

The other thing that struck me about IF YOU WERE A PARROT was the concept … it would make a great series. Are there other IF YOU WERE books in the works?

No, not as of yet. It would be great to do books of that type though. I think if I illustrated another one I might actually do the features of the animals more like masks and costumes.

Do you have other books you would like to talk about?

I illustrated a board book, COUNTING LITTLE GECKOS, which was published by the RGU in 2005 and it has done remarkably well.

I have been fortunate to work with Sylvan Dell Publishing on the other four children’s books I have illustrated. BURRO’S TORTILLAS just came out June 2007 and is a Hispanic take on the Little Red Hen. I recently heard from the publisher that it was just translated into Spanish which makes me very excited.

KERSPLATYPUS, which is about a baby platypus and group of animals who try to help him find where he belongs, will be out early 2008.

I am currently working on the sketches for my fifth children’s book. It is titled SORT IT OUT. It is about a family of packrats and will be out the end of 2008. SORT IT OUT has been a blast to illustrate. Why, you ask? Well, you’ll have to wait to see!

And I have two books, BREAKFAST FOR EVERYONE, and THANK YOU GOD FOR RAIN, which are currently in contract phase with Zonderkidz, a Christian Publisher. All three of the books—SORT IT OUT and the Zonderkids books—are due out next year. Working with a Christian publisher is a dream come true and an answered prayer. So the next seven months are going to be very busy for me! But I love that and am very grateful for all the jobs I get.

I have also done educational books for McGraw-Hill, Oxford University Press
Houghton Mifflin, and Harcourt School Publishers.

From reading your blog, I know you are a gardener. Do you ever combine your passion for gardening with your passion for art? Do you draw or paint in your garden? Do you like to draw or paint flowers and plants from your garden? Or are these two parts of your life separate?

I think one lends into another. I majored in Graphic Design/Graphic Art in college and I use the skills I learned there in both gardening and illustrating. The part that is interesting is that I usually don’t draw or paint outside, which makes me think I do divide the two a little too much. Perhaps I need to go outside and draw more. I do bring in branches, rocks and things from my garden to study them as I draw. I also study the leaves and plants while I am in the garden attending to them. Sometimes I use my digital camera to take pictures of trees and plants for reference.

How did you get involved with Robert’s Snow?

You know, I think I must have read about Robert’s Snow on a blog. I heard about it a couple of years ago, but the artists had been chosen for that year and then they didn’t run the auction the following year. I was delighted when I was chosen this year! It is such an honor to paint a snowflake for them, especially because my children’s art is usually painted digitally and I had the opportunity paint the snowflake traditionally with acrylic paints. It was really fun!

What inspired your “Deck the Halls” design?

I wanted to paint a snowflake that really represented me and my job in the children’s market. I wanted to make it something I would enjoy putting on my own tree; And for me, the holidays have always been about kids and singing Christmas Carols.

Your snowflake will be auctioned off with lots of others created by artists from across the children’s publishing industry. Have you looked through the other snowflakes? Have you got any favorites?

The minute I got the e-mail that said they were up on display I went and checked them all out. They are all just so wonderful it’s hard to say I have a favorite. That said, Mark Teague painted one and I must admit he is one of my all time favorite illustrators so it has a special place in my heart.

Speaking of favorites, do you have favorite books you’d like to mention?

Oh gosh I have so many books in my collection. They fill several bookshelves. The art in them is just so wonderful that I consider it fine art and I collect them. I guess if I were to pick a favorite it would be STAND TALL, MOLLY LOU MELON by Patty Lovell and illustrated by David Catrow. It is a wonderful story with incredible illustrations.

How can you help “Blogging for a Cure”? You can start by visiting these illustrator and snowflake features today:

Then head over to the Robert’s Snow online auction site and, in the words of Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blogger, Jules, “buy a snowflake already!”