An Interview with Claudia McGehee: Part 3

Tell us about your new book!
Where Birds Live? departs from the earlier two picture books in format and amount of text, but not in spirit. This book really let me go all out and illustrate some of my favorite creatures on the planet: birds. My goal for the book is that it will serve as an early field guide for young readers, giving them an introductory glimpse of fourteen different birds and the specific habitats they live in. When the University of Iowa Press came to me with the idea of a picture book on birds, one that would include other habitats beyond the midwestern region, I was enthusiastic but a bit intimidated. There is so much environmental diversity within our country. And hundreds of different birds live in all kinds of habitats. It stretched me to learn about other bird habitats within North America. I hope that what we created will encourage kids, wherever they live, to look up in the sky and connect with what they see.

What advice do you give younger nature artists?
Find time to observe quietly, and you’ll be rewarded. Be ready with a pencil and notebook at any time (or a camera, for sketching later). Enjoy the shape and form of birds first and don’t worry too much about whether you know their names; that knowledge can come later. Read and seek out other nature writers and artists who have come before you.

What are your favorite natural areas in Iowa or the Midwest?
In Iowa City, I love Hickory Hill Park and walk there regularly. Knowing that I will see, smell, and hear subtle changes in every season makes me feel part of the rhythm of things. I also love that other people use the park and enjoy and appreciate nature, too. Lake Macbride and the raptor center are much loved by my family—for a winter walk to see eagles, a summer paddle boat ride just enjoying the sun and water, or a spring or summer picnic destination, it is a great place to be and so accessible. All the local parks—Kent and Palisades Kepler, for example—provide opportunities to enjoy wildlife and native flora. Further beyond, I love the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge outside of Des Moines. There is a wonderful interpretive prairie learning center on the grounds.

Recently, just here in Iowa City, a newly formed nonprofit foundation called the Harvest Preserve has begun to open its doors to the public with events and programs. It’s a hundred-acre piece of land in the northeast corner of town that has a mixed past of agricultural use with some native woodland. The organizers plan to enhance, restore, and preserve native prairie and woodland here. Some trails have already been established. I’ve had the opportunity to spend time there, even to sketch, and it is an enchanting place. We are fortunate that this parcel of land has landed in the hands of some generous, nature-loving Iowans.

Remember that even watching a chickadee hammer open a seed on a tree in your own backyard can be a treat. When you love nature, you are never bored!

Claudia McGehee, author and illustrator of Where Do Birds Live?, A Woodland Counting Book and A Tallgrass Prairie Alphabet and illustrator of The Iowa Nature Calendar

Plant of the Week

Reed canary grass
Phalaris arundinacea L.
other common names: sword grass, lady grass, ladies’ lace, bride’s lace doggers, spires
Phalaris: from Greek, meaning “shining,” alluding to the shining seeds or possibly to the crestlike seed head
Arundinacea: meaning “reedlike”
Grass family: Poaceae (Gramineae)

Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition

An Interview with Claudia McGehee: Part 2

What was challenging about creating an alphabet book?
Primer books—counting books, alphabet books, color books, etc.—allow a strong and simple structure, and for my first illustrated picture book this was perfect. I loved the puzzle of finding just the right animal for each letter. We also wanted to move the book through the seasons chronologically, which added another layer for the reader and another piece to the puzzle. Was the animal that we wanted to illustrate active in the season it would be shown? When did this certain plant flower? Would it be blooming at the same time that this one would be blooming? There were many questions to answer before I knew exactly what the illustrations would look like.

What did you enjoy most about the creation of the tallgrass book?
Seeing and holding the book for the first time. Karen Copp (Production Manager at the University of Iowa Press) had laid out all the artwork with incredible color sense and design. It is a good moment when you see that your art “children” (for an art piece really does feel like part of me!) have been so thoughtfully taken care of in the final product.

 What was challenging about A Woodland Counting Book?
I went into the woodland book more confident about the content than I was with the prairie book. Even though our oak-hickory forests are not what I grew up with, there is something very comforting about the leafy stillness of the woodland. I was thrilled to explore it illustratively. The challenges were getting some of the larger numbers to work well compositionally and not look too forced or out of synch with real nature. For example, I didn’t want to show fourteen bobcats all in one illustration; that’s just not how they live. They are secretive and relatively solo. But fourteen wild turkeys? Of course! That’s how I observe them in the woods, all together in a big family group.

What is one of your favorite memories about working on the woodland book?
For my favorite page in the book—the cedar waxwings eating thirteen serviceberries—I worked outdoors on the final scratchboard to get a break from my studio. A ladybug—let’s say it was the native kind!—landed on my board, and I just decided to draw a ladybug into the picture. Whenever I see that piece and the one small ladybug in the corner, I am reminded of that sunny day out in my yard and what life brings unexpectedly to art, even in the smallest of details.

Blue spotted salamander, Ambystoma laternale
Blue spotted salamanders like to hang out in moist woodland areas near ponds. When these little amphibians sense danger, they freeze, raise their tails straight up, and get ready to squirt an unpleasant-tasting liquid at any predator that comes too close. If an enemy grabs it, the salamander releases this defense liquid, detaches its tail--it can grow a new one--and slips away.

Claudia McGehee, A Woodland Counting Book


Claudia McGehee, author and illustrator of Where Do Birds Live?, A Woodland Counting Book and A Tallgrass Prairie Alphabet and illustrator of The Iowa Nature Calendar

This week in Iowa Nature + Children's Event!

Harvested fields highlight the crests of rolling hills across southern Iowa; nearly always even in elevation, they indicate the position of an old glacial plain.

The Iowa Nature Calendar, by Jean Prior and James Sandrock
illustrations by Claudia McGehee




Come out and see Claudia at the Iowa City Public Library!
Date: Friday, November 12
Time: 10:30 AM
Location: Iowa City Public Library in the Storytime Room

Plant of the Week

Spiked lobelia
Lobelia spicata Lam.
other common names: palespike lobelia, highbelia
Lobelia: named for a 16th-century Flemish herbalist, Matthias von Lobel
Spicata: from Latin, meaning “with a spike”
Bluebell or bellflower family: Campanulaceae

Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition

An Interview with Claudia McGehee: Part 1

You’re a scratchboard artist. Tell us about working in this medium.
Scratchboard is a thin board (about 1/8” thick), coated with an under layer of white clay, topped with a final layer of black india ink.

First, I make a pencil line drawing that I transfer onto the black scratchboard with chalk.

Then I make an outline of the chalk guides with a sharp tool, like an exact-o blade.

Next, I scrape off what I want to be white and leave what I want to be black.

I take this black and white image to the computer, scan it onto watercolor paper, and then go back to my drawing board to watercolor the image traditionally. It’s a drawing method, not a printing one, even though it looks like a print when it’s done. It’s drawing by subtraction, more or less. I have more in common with a sculptor than with a print maker or a painter.

With this sturdy, somewhat nostalgic-looking medium, I tend to get hired for commercial jobs by people looking for organic, earthy illustrations. Now that I work in picture books, the same holds true. A publisher, for instance, probably wouldn’t pick me to illustrate a book on modern architecture. But I might get picked to illustrate a book on national parks or a biography of Audubon.

From start to finish, how long does it take you to finish an illustration?
Not counting the time it takes me to research and sketch (which accounts for many months of work on a book project), I can transfer, scratch, scan onto watercolor paper, and then finally watercolor the average 8-by-10-inch piece (I work small—scratchboard lets you) in about eight hours. When doing a book, I tend to work on illustrations in batches, so I am scratching three, scanning three, then watercoloring three. I can save my hands (and my brain) from too much wear and tear from just one part of the process this way.

What was particularly challenging about creating the illustrations for A Tallgrass Prairie Alphabet?
The challenge and the thrill came from the fact that I was a newcomer to this landscape. I was not born a grasslander; tallgrass flora and fauna are so completely different from the plant and animal forms I know from the Pacific Northwest. So the initial research was very exciting. But the frustrations would come when some animals or insects I thought were natives and wanted to include would turn out, after research, to be introduced species. Or maybe they were too much of a “generalist” species for a book highlighting specifically prairie wildlife. We wanted to keep true to a real tallgrass environment. Eventually, things fell into place. I started to “know” that fox snake, that badger, butterfly weed, and gentian somehow. I did find out after we moved here that a bunch of my ancestors had stopped in Iowa for a couple of generations before moving further west. Some are buried in the lowlands surrounding the magnificent Loess Hills near Little Sioux, Iowa. So maybe my affinity to the prairie comes atavistically!

Aromatic aster, Aster oblongifolius
In the fall, after most plants have finished blooming, aromatic aster opens its flowers across the prairie. Each bushy plant has hundreds of bright purple flowers with yellow centers.

Claudia McGehee, A Tallgrass Prairie Alphabet

Claudia McGehee, author and illustrator of Where Do Birds Live?, A Woodland Counting Book and A Tallgrass Prairie Alphabet and illustrator of The Iowa Nature Calendar

Come See the Scarths Today!

Don't miss Robert and Linda Scarth's presentation on Deep Nature: Photographs from Iowa today Wednesday, November 3 at the Lime Creek Nature Center in Mason City at 10 a.m.

3501 Lime Creek Road
Mason City IA 50401