Meet the Artist: Alice Ratterree

While pairing pictures with stories is a practice that has existed almost since humans began writing, it was not until 1658 that the first illustrated book specifically for children was written—Orbis Sensualim Pictus by John Comenius. While early picture books were almost entirely created for educational purposes, in 1866 Alice in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll with illustrations by John Tenniel, was published and truly opened up the world to the idea that children’s books with pictures could be works meant for entertainment and imagination. Since then, publishing children’s books has become a nearly three billion dollars a year industry in the U.S. alone.

Breaking into the picture book market as a career can be hard to do, but one local artist has found success in a way she did not imagine when she first entered the art world. Alice Ratterree is an Upstate native, growing up in Spartanburg. She ventured outside the state for college, training to be a classical vocalist, and working primarily

Drawing from The Wolf Keepers by Elise Broach

in the performing arts. However, after returning to Greenville, she found her calling not in music but in illustrating books for children.

The first book for which she provided the illustrations is Lilliput by Sam Gayton. The book is primarily for middle school age children, and is inspired by the Lilliputians in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. In this book, Ratterree’s illustrations bring a fantastical sense of scale to the story of a tiny Lilliputian escaping London to return to her homeland. Her next work was for a young adult novel called The Wolf Keepers by Elise Broach which features more realistic illustrations which tell the story of a young girl who lives at a zoo in California and teams up with a runaway to solve the mysterious deaths of wolves in the zoo. Her most recent work, Dangerous Jane by Suzanne Slade, is aimed at a younger audience and is a biography of the pioneering social worker and activist Jane Addams.

Ratterree finds that her work for older audiences “create[s] moments in time and dive[s] a little deeper” into scenes in the book, while working on a picture book (where the audience includes those who aren't able to read the words yet) means "a little bit more of an authorship duty.” Since the audience for picture books includes those who may not be able to read the story, the illustrations carry more of the narrative and keep readers moving from one page to the next.

"Ultimately, you can’t have a good painting without a good drawing."

Although Ratterree attended school as a vocalist and enjoyed success in that area, she could never quite leave behind her passion for drawing. She honed her skills in a wide range of venues and mediums including portraits for private clients; posters, costume and set design for the theater; and even illustrations for greeting cards. Eventually she was contacted by an educational publisher to compose drawings for their activity books, which was her first taste of the world of children’s publishing. Despite her apparent change in artistic outlets, Ratterree really sees a connection between the two art forms. “My background in music and in the theater has laid the foundation for a lot of my illustration work…as a voice student, every piece of music that I studied was a narrative...and ultimately that’s what I liked most about it—telling a good story and conveying emotion—and that’s what a good children’s book does.” She adds that her favorite part of being an illustrator is “getting to know the characters...that is what we all want…we want to feel like we are not alone, and that is why we read.”

Drawing from Lilliput by Sam Gayton

One of the unique aspects of the children’s book industry is the fact that most books are not written and illustrated by the same person. Further, according to Ratterree, the author and the illustrator often times don’t even meet or speak to each other during the process. Typically, it is the job of the art director at a publishing house to take the finished story and match it to an artist. In some cases, publishers may match more famous artists with emerging writers to give those new Drawing from Lilliput by Sam Gayton. writers a boost, but often the process can simply come down to timing— which artists are available when the book needs illustrations. Once the artist receives the manuscript, it can take a fair amount of time to complete the illustrations. For a nonfiction book like Dangerous Jane, Ratterree says it can take even more time since she has to do research into the time period to make sure that she portrays details like clothing and backgrounds accurately. In Ratterree’s experience, the process can take from nine months to a year (once the publisher has received the text of a book) to select an artist, compile completed illustrations, and send the book out to be published, and then, it can take up to another year for final checks on the manuscript and for the book to actually be printed.

For her own artistic practice, Ratterree says she likes to keep it old fashioned. “I love the way a pencil feels running across a paper. A simple drawing is really the source from which springs everything else. Ultimately, you can’t have a good painting without a good drawing. There’s no amount of wonderful painting that can fix a bad drawing.” She says that she does sometimes use a tablet for doing quick sketches and really enjoys how easy it can be to manipulate the digital images, including the ease of deleting mistakes, but she always returns to the real tactile sense that she gets from putting a pencil on paper.

A look inside Ratterree's Greenville studio.

For those seeking a career as a book illustrator, Ratterree strongly recommends making peer connections and connections with others in the industry. When she was first considering becoming an illustrator, she attended the conference for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCWBI) and met many like-minded people who were passionate about illustrating, and that really inspired her to believe that she could be successful in the field. Conferences are also a great way to meet industry professionals such as agents and publishers who can help new artists get paired with writers. She also suggests learning about children’s books and using them as a way to think about your own art. “Buy a lot of children’s books, first of all, and study them and know them and know what it is that you love about them.” Perhaps most importantly, though, is practice. “Find a way to draw every day,” she says.

Something Ratterree truly loves about the field is the fact that children’s illustrators come from diverse backgrounds, not necessarily just visual arts, and are able to be successful. Being a great illustrator, she says, is “not always about knowing how to draw perfectly; it is about ideas.”