Meet Troupe 21’s Leah Hong
Meet Troupe member Leah Hong! Leah’s lifelong love of drawing and storytelling led her to create her picture book debut, HAPPY DREAMS, LITTLE BUNNY (Little, Brown Young Readers), which publishes Feb. 2, 2021.
A graduate of Emily Carr University of Art + Design with a visual arts degree in painting and drawing, Leah has worked both as an illustrator and graphic designer. To learn more about Leah and her journey to publication, check out the Q&A below:
Get to know Leah!
What is your earliest picture book memory?
Some of my childhood treasures.
My earliest picture book memories are of reading to my youngest brother. He’s 6 years younger than I am and we spent a lot of time together when we were kids. We were very lucky because in retrospect we had a very well curated picture book library at home. The books I remember reading over and over include Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are and In The Night Kitchen, also Harold And The Purple Crayon and The Carrot Seed. One of our favorites was a book called A Tiger Called Thomas by Charlotte Zolotow. I’m not sure what happened to the rest of the books we had but I recently rescued A Tiger Called Thomas and In The Night Kitchen from my parent’s giveaway pile.
One of my favorite spreads from “A Tiger Called Thomas” by Charlotte Zolotow and illustrated by Kurt Werth.
What themes and ideas will readers find in your stories?
As a child I always had my head in the clouds, and when I wasn’t daydreaming I was reading and drawing. So much so that I didn’t play with toys very often or have much of an interest in them. Imagination and the intersection between imagination and reality are themes that always manage to sneak into my stories.
Where do you typically work?
I’m very lucky and have a dedicated studio space at home. It’s a small room but has windows all along one side and looks out onto our backyard so it’s quite peaceful. Best of all I have plenty of light to draw by during the day. The one thing it doesn’t have is a door, which is fine when I have the house to myself, but these days my kids are doing 50% of their schoolwork remotely so it’s been challenging to tune out the background noise.
My studio (which isn’t usually this tidy).
What are your favorite writing snacks?
I have two kids and so I get the bulk of my work done when they’re at school or day camp in the summer. Since my workday is condensed I tend to forget to eat until I’m famished and then I hurriedly throw something together right before the kids get home. However, I do have favorite beverages. I always have either a mug of tea (usually green), or a glass of kombucha with me while I’m working. I’ve even started making my own kombucha!
What advice can you share with pre-published authors and illustrators?
Try to carve as much time out of your day as you can to write and draw, but don’t be too hard on yourself especially if you have kids. You’d be surprised how much you can get done in fits and spurts. Try to enjoy the process, and when you’re not enjoying it take a break, but then get back to it. Don’t quit. You’re the only you in the world so that automatically makes your voice unique—use it!
What can you share about your illustration process?
I work primarily with pastel and colored pencils. I tend to start with very rough thumbnails done in pencil and work up to more finished drawings with usually 3 or 4 drawing stages in-between, before I begin my final artwork. I really love working traditionally and I feel so at peace when I can lose myself in making a finished drawing, but my process is really s-l-o-w. I’d like to work towards speeding this up by sketching digitally. I don’t think I’ll ever entirely give up working traditionally though. I enjoy it too much.
Some early sketches for “Happy Dreams, Little Bunny.”
A final spread in process.
And a peek at some final art proofs.
Leah’s picture book debut HAPPY DREAMS, LITTLE BUNNY is available for pre-order!
Place your order today, HERE!
Be sure to follow Leah on Twitter at @leahhongdraws. And visit PB Debut Troupe 21 often, for more about Leah’s debut and other Troupe 21 books.
See you back soon!
