Children’s Book Author-Illustrators Terry and Eric Fan with Brian Wilson

As a children’s librarian who loves discovering exciting and cinematic picture books, I am a major fan of the brilliant Terry and Eric Fan (aka The Fan Brothers), who live in Toronto, Canada. With their evocative, panoramic illustrations, rendered in graphite and colored digitally, the Fans create dream-like images that enthrall readers of all ages. Their stories about a mysterious gardener who creates amazing topiary sculptures (The Night Gardener), a child embarking on a cosmic journey in memory of his grandfather (Ocean Meets Sky), a diminutive elephant-mouse creature attempting to break out of a science lab (The Barnabus Project, co-created with brother Devin) and an insect community confused by the strange object that appears in their midst (It Fell from the Sky) all possess a sense of meticulously crafted wonder. They have also illustrated books written by others.

As brothers and collaborators, they have a unique artistic relationship in the children’s picture book world. So when Jamie Thome asked “who would you like to interview for The Artists Book House?” I instantly thought of reaching out to them, and thankfully they said yes to an interview! 

Here is that interview:

Could you tell us a little about what brought you into the fantastic world of picture books?

Terry: Thanks so much for interviewing us, Brian! We had a somewhat circuitous path into picture books. Eric and I went to the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, but after graduating, we drifted into other jobs that weren’t art-related. Many years passed, but we finally started selling our art on various online platforms like Society6 and Threadless. One day, out of the blue, we were contacted by our agent, Kirsten Hall, who was starting a new literary agency and was looking for new artists. Within a year of that serendipitous meeting, we had published our first book.

Eric: For me, getting a children’s book published was always my dream, but I had no idea how to break into the field. When I was still at OCAD, I sent out a children’s book manuscript I had written and illustrated with my younger brother Devin. We were very naïve and inexperienced, so we sent it out unsolicited to a bunch of large publishers. Unsurprisingly, most of the manuscripts were returned to us unopened, but we did receive two responses from editors. They were rejections, but they weren’t just form letters – they included some very encouraging notes and even an offer to speak with us on the phone. In retrospect, we should have been over the moon, but instead, we were crushed that our book wasn’t going to be published, and so we gave up. There’s a lesson in there somewhere about persistence and humility and opportunities squandered. 

You have a unique artistic partnership in the picture book world. Yes, we have the Pumphrey brothers (The Old Truck) collaborating, but it’s a rare combo. How did this all come to be, with you two working together as a team on picture books?

Eric: I think it came about naturally because we’ve been collaborating for so long, ever since we were kids. While we were in art college we worked on films together, and later collaborated on t-shirt designs and illustrations. Our first picture book, The Night Gardener, was actually based upon a t-shirt design we collaborated on years ago, so when it came to doing a book, it felt like a natural extension of that. Neither of us was experienced at making a picture book, so in some ways combining our talents helped to mitigate our inexperience somewhat - or at least, it felt slightly less daunting to have someone else to fall back on.

Terry: I think our strengths as illustrators complement each other, and we also help balance out our respective weaknesses. We have similar aesthetics and interests, so there’s a natural harmony in what we’re drawn to in terms of the art and story. Also, art can be a somewhat lonely, solitary pursuit, so it’s nice to collaborate with another person to bounce ideas off. 

How does your process work in terms of coming up with ideas? Do you brainstorm together? How do you reach a consensus about which stories you want to mutually tell? 

Eric: Yeah, we typically brainstorm our story ideas together, and the consensus is arrived upon naturally when we’re both equally excited by an idea. Often our ideas will come from stand-alone illustrations we’ve done in the past. When we’re thinking about a story, we try to start with an image that already has a certain narrative density to it. As mentioned, The Night Gardener was inspired by a t-shirt design Terry and I had done many years ago, before even getting into picture books:

Photo courtesy of Threadless.com

To use a cooking metaphor, that initial image acts the way a bouillon cube does when making a soup - reconstituting the story from something that is narratively dense and suggestive of a story in some way. 

Terry: It’s not quite as simple as “just add water,” but we do find it very helpful to have that initial visual springboard for our imaginations. The hardest part of writing is being faced with the dreaded empty page, so by starting with something visual, you kind of bypass that mental roadblock. It’s helpful if the image is somewhat open-ended and seems to ask questions of the viewer. As we go through the process of interrogating the image, the story tends to emerge from that slowly.

Once you agree on an idea, how does the actual artistic process play out? 

Eric: Once we have the basic story outline, we’ll create a rough dummy of the entire book so we can get a feel for its length, page turns, and pacing. To give an example of that, here was our very first dummy we did for The Night Gardener:

After we’ve completed the dummy, the editor and art director will weigh in with their notes, and we’ll usually do a few drafts of the dummy before proceeding to finals. Our process for the final art is a bit like being in a band vs being a solo artist. We each make our contributions, but it all kind of melts together in the same way that different instruments contribute to one song.

Terry: We also share a Dropbox where we keep all our design files so that we can collaborate almost in real-time. If we happen to be together in the studio, we’ll sometimes work on the same piece of artwork together. Still, more often than not, we’re each drawing separate parts of an illustration and then compositing the elements together in Photoshop.

I have learned, from being Facebook friends with you and also from a beautiful letter you sent to our Caldecott Club kids at the library (when they chose your Ocean Meets Sky as their favorite that year),  that your family history plays a big role in your works The Night Gardener and Ocean Meets Sky. Can you tell us about this?

Eric: Family has always been very important to us, and I think it just naturally found its way into our books. Even The Barnabus Project is about family ultimately, albeit an unconventional one. Our dad is quite a colorful character, and served as inspiration for the character of the Night Gardener, along with the grandfather in Ocean Meets Sky.

Terry: Growing up half-Chinese wasn’t always easy, especially since being mixed race was fairly uncommon when we were kids. There was a feeling of not knowing quite where you belong or how you fit in. Visiting our ancestral home in Taiwan was very impactful for me - to see our extended family and how important those family connections continue to be. We only met our Chinese grandparents a few times growing up, but our dad always told us many stories about his childhood, so the idea of stories being a connective force kind of comes from that. 

Some of your books, such as The Barnabus Project and It Fell from the Sky, have a more allegorical feel. What led to the creation of these works? 

Eric: There were allegorical stories I loved as a kid, like Animal Farm, but I don’t think we expressly set out to make an allegorical story. It Fell from the Sky feels very symbolic, but that naturally grew as we developed the story, specifically when we introduced the spider into the story, and it became about greed and materialism.

Terry: The challenge was also to make it humorous, because we didn’t want it to be excessively heavy-handed or didactic.

Speaking of The Barnabus Project, your younger brother Devin became involved. How did that come to be and how did that change your process?

Eric: Over thirty years ago, Devin did a little drawing of a creature named Barnabus who was half-mouse and half-elephant:

Even back then, we felt like there was a potential story around this little character, but we didn’t really know how to go about querying a publisher, aside from our first failed attempt. Over the years, we slowly developed the story idea, and I even did a rough dummy at some point. It wasn’t until Terry and I had two books already published that we remembered Barnabus.

Terry:  We happened to have one of our publishers, Tara Walker, over for dinner, and I brought up Barnabus, and we gave her the elevator pitch of the story. She loved it, and the next thing we knew, she acquired it for Tundra Books/Penguin Random House Canada. In many ways, it felt like coming full circle because, over the years, the three of us had embarked on so many creative collaborations together. To see one of them finally come to fruition was very gratifying.

I also must give a shout out to your sister Larissa who created a terrific book called Ten Little Dumplings. There is so much artistic talent in one family. How did art become such a major part of your lives?

Eric: I think it’s partly a consequence of growing up in an environment where art was valued. Our mom was a professional harpist and also loved art. She encouraged us in our artistic pursuits ever since we were kids. Our dad is a retired philosophy professor but also had a very creative side and loved to invent stories.

Terry: Thanks for giving a shout out to Larissa! I love Ten Little Dumplings, and it was so exciting to see that book take shape from its earliest stages. We read the first draft and saw the illustrator’s - Cindy Wume’s - initial sketches. As Eric said, we grew up in an artistic household where we all supported and encouraged each other over the years. I was as excited about seeing Larissa’s book get published as I have been about getting our own books published. 

Sometimes you illustrate the works of other authors. How is that process different?

Eric: There’s maybe a little more pressure because you’ve been given the enormous responsibility of visually bringing someone else’s imagination and words to life. No doubt the author already has images in their mind of what their story should look like, and so there’s always the worry that your interpretation won’t reflect their vision. With your own story, there’s no danger of that, other than not being able to render what you see in your imagination. 

Terry: What Eric said is all very true, but on the other hand, it’s easier in some ways because all we need to do is focus on the illustrations, which can be rather nice for a change! There's also a lot of responsibility when both writing and illustrating a story, which comes with its own set of challenges.

Do you have anything new on the horizon?

Terry: We have a picture book with Simon & Schuster coming out in May, which we're very excited about, called Lizzy and the Cloud. It’s about a little girl named Lizzy who is raising a pet cloud. 

Eric: I also have a book coming out in the Fall with Tundra Books/Penguin Random House Canada called Night Lunch that I wrote but didn’t illustrate. It’s being illustrated by the brilliant Dena Seiferling, who did a fantastic job. To go back to your previous question, I’ve always wanted to write a story and then see it illustrated by someone else. You don’t get to experience that kind of creative alchemy as an illustrator, so it was fascinating to see the book slowly take form from the other side of the fence, so to speak. 

What are some of your favorite picture books past and/or present?

Eric: There are so many it’s hard to list them. Growing up my favorite book was Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. My other favorites were Bread and Jam for Francis by Russel Hoban and Lillian Hoban, Go Dog, Go! by P. D. Eastman, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig. As far as contemporary picture books, there are too many to list. A small sampling of illustrators I admire: Isabelle Arsenault, Sydney Smith, Dena Seiferling, Carson Ellis, Christian Robinson, Akiko Miyakoshi, Daniel Miyares, Julie Morstad, Matthew Forsythe, Matt James, Jon Klassen, the Pumphrey Brothers, Julie Flett, Phoebe Wahl, K-Fai Steele, Tom Gauld, Brendan Wenzel, Esme Shapiro, Rashin Kheiriyeh, Eliza Wheeler, Felicita Sala, and many more. 

Terry: Like Eric, Where The Wild Things Are was also my all-time favorite picture book growing up. Along with his other childhood picture book picks, I also loved Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, Richard Scarry books and Dr. Suess. Some other favorite artists/authors, off the top of my head: Tomie dePaola, Anne Hunter, Paul O. Zelinsky, Chris Van Allsburg, Dan Santat, Jillian Tamaki, Chuck Groenink, Shaun Tan, Oliver Jeffers, Michaela Goade, Benji Davies, Sophia Blackall, Rebecca Green, Aki, Natalia & Lauren O’Hara, Kenard Pak, Cindy Wume, and many others!

Brian: Thank you so much for telling us more about your process and your works!!

About Terry and Eric Fan

Terry and Eric both attended OCAD University in Toronto where they studied illustration, film, sculpture, and photography. They are the authors and illustrators of The Night Gardener, Ocean Meets Sky, The Barnabus Project (with their brother Devin), It Fell from the Sky, and the upcoming Lizzy and the Cloud. They are also the illustrators of The Darkest Dark, written by Chris Hadfield and Kate Fillion, The Antlered Ship, written by Dashka Slater, and The Scarecrow, written by Beth Ferry. Along with their brother Devin, they were the recipients of The 2020 Governor General’s Award for Young People’s Literature - Illustrated Books, and were shortlisted for the 2019 Kate Greenaway Medal.

Eric has a passion for vintage bikes, coffee, watches, and impossible dreams. Terry spends his days (and nights) creating magical portraits, paintings, and prints. 

http://www.thefanbrothers.com/

About Brian Wilson

Brian, a Children’s Librarian, has worked at the Evanston Public Library since October 2001. He has served on the Monarch, Bluestem, 2015 Odyssey, and 2017 Caldecott committees and chaired the 2022 Children’s Literature Legacy Award committee. In addition to admiring works by the Fans, Brian loves a LOT of picture books. Please check out what he likes on his blog Mr. Brian’s Picture Book Picks.