2004 News:

Kids' ideas inspire illustrator

By Tiffany Pakkala, March 18, 2004
Thursday, March 18, 2004; The Sentinel, Carlisle, PA

It's not every day that an underwater doctor who happens to be a cow works at Sea World.

But then a bald eagle airport mechanic — who wears a baseball cap to hide his baldness — is a little out of the ordinary, too.

Both were crazy combinations Ethan Long created with the help of Bellaire Elementary School students and a "magic box."

A children's book illustrator who grew up in Camp Hill, Long drew the strange characters as part of workshops he offered during the students' art classes Monday and Wednesday. On Tuesday, the "illustrator in residence" offered slide shows as part of a school-wide assembly.

Each student began hatching ideas Wednesday with three blank scraps of paper. Long told them to name an animal on one paper, a type of job on another and a place on the third.

The papers were thrown into a "magic" cardboard box and shaken. Long pulled out random humorous combinations to draw.

Before his first drawing, he did jumping jacks and pretended to stretch as if preparing for a physical workout.

The students giggled throughout the entire presentation, throwing out more ideas as Long worked. He occasionally changed the drawings on the classroom's smart board to incorporate new features to characters the students helped him create.

"You see how the story changes?" he asked. "It's up to you what you put in your drawings."

Work is challenging

One major challenge for illustrators is to make a character look similar in each image, he said. And every illustrator battles with images he or she can't picture.

"If you can't draw something, find a way to learn how to draw it," Long advised.

He looks at books, learns about the thing he is trying to draw and attempts to draw it realistically. Then he is better equipped to create a cartoon-style version, he explained.

Long, 35, has illustrated several books, including one he wrote himself, which is in the publication process.

Publishers send him the words for books via e-mail or fax, then he creates a "thumbnail" book, which is only two or three inches tall, to draft ideas for what the larger book will look like. He makes a "book dummy" for the publisher, "but it's not very dumb," he jokes. "It's actually kind of smart because it shows the publisher what he wants to see."

Then, he draws the final sketches and works the details until he is satisfied with the final product.

Long says it takes about two years from the time a publisher selects a book to the time it is completed. His illustrations take between 10 and 12 months for larger picture books and about three months for novels.

Some character poses take seven or eight tries before they look right, he says. Others look right on the first or second try.

He uses several different methods and mediums in his designs, which include both digital and hand-drawn pieces.

In addition to books, he creates illustrations commercially for magazines and posters as well as Landfill, a weekly cartoon. Children's books are his favorite.

He visits schools at least once each year, but he may offer student workshops more often in the future.

Has lots of ideas

Long has 20 to 25 journals full of ideas scattered through his house and garage in addition to sketchbooks full of artwork. He emphasizes that practice is necessary to be successful at anything.

"I tell kids to practice and love what you do, whatever it is," he says.

As he finished one workshop, he told students, "The point here is to get you excited about life and about writing and drawing. Good drawing and writing comes from doing it over and over and over again. If you like to do it, you'll find the time."

Long grew up in Camp Hill and began drawing when he was 3; he attended Cedar Cliff High School before he moved to Connecticut and finished high school there. He went on to the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida

Now he lives in Orlando, Florida, with his wife and three children, ages 9 years, 2 years and 7 months. He says many of his ideas come from his children and two cats, Barnum and Bailey.

Other ideas come while "sleeping, sitting on a bus, climbing a tree... They come from everywhere. God, walking in the woods, meeting someone new," he told students.

The illustrator was invited to the school by his childhood friend, Bellaire Principal Patrick Byrne.

Leaves kids laughing

Students were still laughing as they left the classroom.

Second-grader Austin Marks said Long was a good illustrator, adding his favorite illustration was the cow doctor's nurse, a leopard.

"When he made it mad, it looked so funny," Austin said with a giggle, noting Long erased the leopard's facial expressions to change its moods.

"He's mad because he wants to work in a movie theater instead of being a male nurse," Long had joked as he drew a new face for the leopard. "And his wife makes him take the garbage out when he gets home and that makes him mad and he brings that to work with him."

Fifth-grader Jazmine Wallace said she wanted a copy of another one of Long's workshop drawings.

It featured a killer whale lawyer on Mars and his assistant, who was a beaver head with no body. Their clients were Martians.

"I don't know how to draw at all," Wallace said, "but now I want to learn."

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