Tiny Treasury

Today’s Friday Fifteen guest is illustrator Brian Biggs.

1. Where are you now?

I am in my studio, which is on the third floor of my house in Philadelphia. It is my office, my playground, and my factory.

2. What were your favorite books as a kid?

Where the Wild Things AreMaurice Sendak
Richard Scarry’s Best Storybook Ever!Richard Scarry
One Day, I’ll Fix AnthonyJudith Viorst, illustrations by Arnold Lobel
Mike Mulligan and his Steam ShovelVirginia Lee Burton

For starters.

3. What are you reading now?

Just finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Princeand I’ve preordered Deathly Hallows. Can’t wait can’t wait…
I’ll be reading China Miéville’s Un Dun Lunnext. In the meantime, a lot of magazines.

4. Do you have kids?

I have two. A six-year-old girl and an almost-eight-year-old boy. They make me laugh, and sometimes they make me breakfast.

5. What projects are you working on now?

I’m finishing up a book for Knopf written by Judy Sierra called Beastly Rhymes; I’m designing two puzzle games for Cranium and a puzzle for Mudpuppy; I’m illustrating a book about camping for kids for Workman Publishing; I just recently completed a book for four short stories written by Garth Nix called One Beastly Beast and I’ve just landed an eight-book project for Harcourt that is still a little hush-hush. So I’ve been busy.

6. What is your biggest writing or illustrating luxury?

I’m currently in pajamas.

Other than that, the flexibility of my work schedule is the best thing. Not so much when I work, as that still seems to fit somewhat into the 9-to-5, since my kids are in school and clients have certain expectations. Rather, it’s what I work on. I like having several projects into which I can sink my teeth, and I love the fact that at any time the phone could ring and my life and career get turned upside-down. In a good way.

Who am I kidding? I get to draw pictures all day. That, in and of itself, is THE luxury.

7. Coffee or tea?

Oh good lord, coffee. Though with this cold I’ve had I’ve been drinking tea in the mornings. But without these extraordinary circumstances, coffee.

8. Name five artists on your iPod (or mp3 player).

I checked the “Most recently played.”

Isan, an English electronic music duo.
Pierre Bastien, who is a French musician that constructs songs from mechanical sounds. Crazy stuff.
The Police (the comfort of the music I danced to in high school)
One Ring Zero, a duet from Brooklyn who play accordions, theremins, and other such things.
My son Wilson, who remixes loops in music software.

9. What would I be surprised to know about you?

My favorite art supply is a ballpoint pen.

10. What college did you attend (in what subject)?

I studied Graphic Design at Parsons School of Design in New York and Paris.

11. If you weren’t working with kids’ books, what would your dream job be?

Either a photographer or film-maker, or a touring musician.

12. What’s the best thing on TV right now?

Well, I won’t claim it’s “the best” by a long stretch, but I’m a junkie for “24″ and, I have to admit, I’ve been turning on the tv for American Idol this season. Don’t tell anyone.

13. How did you get your “big break” into the field?

During a downturn in my newspaper and magazine work in 2001, I collected some little portfolios of work and sent them off to ten editors and art-directors of some of the larger publishing houses. Less than a week later I received an email from Isabel Warren-Lynch at Knopf. I went up to New York to meet her and she gave me the Shredderman books to illustrate. It happened that fast. Since Shredderman has been such a success, other doors have opened because of it.

14. Which celeb would you want most to meet?

Living: David Letterman
All time: Jim Henson

15. Who is the best book character EVER?

Oh, I suspect Max, from Where the Wild Things Are. But if I was a kid now, I’d probably think Harry Potter.