Born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, Don earned an Associate of Arts degree from Des Moines Area Community College in 1984. He had worked at The Des Moines Register nearly two years when I became graphics editor there in April 1999. Shortly before the end of that year, he left for Austin. I was disappointed I didn’t get to work with him longer.
The last few weeks he worked with us, Don was also juggling an interesting free-lance assignment: A children’s book about baseball great Willie Mays. Don’s work was wonderful. It was clear he would have many more book assignments in his future.
And sure enough, that’s what’s happened.
Don agreed to answer a few questions for us about his growing book illustration career:
Q. It seems like just the other day you were showing us your paintings for the Willie Mays project. How did you land that first book gig?
A. Actually, I was about to give up on getting a trade book gig when the Willie Mays project came along. I’d illustrated many books for the educational market, but was not having any luck getting my foot into the door of a trade publisher (trade books are sold through bookstores like Barnes and Noble, Borders).
I contacted a few other African American children’s book illustrators, people like Floyd Cooper, Brian Pinkney, James Ransome. I sent them samples of my work and, turned out, Brian’s wife was an editor at Simon and Schuster. He critiqued my portfolio and passed my samples along to his wife.
Later, Audrea began her own imprint, one that would celebrate black culture, Jump At The Sun. It’s an imprint of Hyperion Books for Children (A Disney Company). She called me two years later and offered me a contract.
Q. That was eight years ago. How many books have you illustrated since then?
A. Since then, I’ve illustrated the following books:
The Legend of the Valentine (Zonderkidz)
Summer Sun Risin’ (Lee & Low Books)
Black All Around! (Lee & Low Books)
Sure As Sunrise: Stories of Bruh Rabbit (Houghton Mifflin)
The Hidden Feast (August House)
I Am My Grandpa’s Enkelin (Paraclete Press)
Zoom! A Book of Things that Go
My work in progress: Ron On A Mission (Dial Books for Children)
Next in line: A biography about the life of a civil rights activist and negro league baseball hero. And two more novelty popup books.
I’ve also illustrated several more educational books.
Q. I love this concept of “stylized realism” you mention on your site. Tell me more about stylized realism and how you’ve developed that style.
A. One-time Des Moines Register columnist Joan Bunke described my artwork as ‘neo-cubism.’ Don’t ask me what that means.
At the time I entered the business, books for African-American children were mostly illustrated in a realistic style. I was told by everyone in the business that I’d have to develop that style if I wanted to get work.
For many years, African Americans had either been left out of children’s books or portrayed stereotypically. For that reason, I think, editors over corrected by not allowing various other styles of illustration — cartoons, caricatures, whimsical styles — that might be offensive, mistaken for poking fun.
Four examples of Don’s graphic,
perspective-warping ’stylized realism.’
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I don’t enjoy painting realistically, it’s just not my thing. I like to distort my perspective and anatomy, combine naive, loose folk art styles with tight realism. Mix it up. Problem was, agents and editors kept telling me that my stylized, whimsical, sometimes cartoon-y, artwork wasn’t marketable to trade houses.
But Brian Pinkney advised that I remain true to my art, that an editor would come along someday, and that they’d match my distinctive art style with just the right manuscript. He was right, and I’ve been busy ever since.
Q. What is the process for a typical book illustration assignment? You’re sent a manuscript first? Does the typical author or editor have a strong idea of what they’re looking for?
A. It’s weird, but with most picture books, there isn’t a true collaboration between author and illustrator. Authors sell their works to publishers, who in turn hire and work with the illustrator. I usually meet the authors of my books later, at reading conferences or at book signings.
First, an editor will contact me concerning my availability, then they’ll send me the manuscript, usually through email. If I’m interested, and I usually am, they’ll make an offer.
In most cases, with trade picture books, they’ll pay an advance which is applied to future royalties. The author and artist usually split a 10% royalty (3% each for paperback). When the advance is paid off through book sales, additional royalties are received.
That means about 15,000 people need to purchase a $16.99 book, preferably in a year or two, before I receive any additional compensation. Most times that happens (publishers are good at forecasting), sometimes it doesn’t. My publishers are making an investment in me. Or a gamble, depending upon how you look at it.
I begin by reading the manuscript and making thumbnail sketches. I share these rough sketches with my editor, and if all checks out, I’ll begin my research.
My current work-in-progress is historical fiction (based on a real-life person), and it is set in the 1960s, inside a library in Lake City, South Carolina. I contacted the library and, luckily, the building still exists, though it’s closed to the public. A photographer for the library was generous enough to get access to the building and take pictures for me. I also used books, Google image searches and other primary sources for historical accuracy.
Don shoots reference of himself for his sketch.
Photos from Don’s web site.
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Next, I sketch and sketch and sketch. It usually takes me about 45 days. Once approved, I’ll paint the entire book in three to four batches of six paintings, for a total of about 18 illustrations — 16 inside spreads, plus the cover and title page. It will take about three to six months to paint.
Some illustrators like to work an entire book at once. I can’t do that; I need to see progress as I’m working.
Q. Many of your assignments have been for African-American-themed books. You’ve done well in that niche, but it seems like perhaps a few of your more recent projects were outside that genre. Are you hoping to cross over to other genres? Or is this just how the incoming assignments are evolving?
A. I need diversity. I love creating books that represent my race, heritage, culture, and history.
When I was a kid, there weren’t many books with characters that looked like me, so I’m glad to be a part of that change. But I also like illustrating frogs, monster trucks, helicopters… and white folks, too. Who wants to be boxed?
Books by and about African Americans make up less than 2% of the total publishing pie. I don’t want to limit myself.
In my newest book, I Am My Grandpa’s Enkelin, written by Walter Wangerin Jr., a German woman recalls her life as a child, living with her grandparents on a midwestern farm. This is the very first trade picture book offered to me that involves Caucasian characters.
Again, I love illustrating black characters, but I especially appreciate that, in this case, I was selected totally on the merits of my talent, not because my editor and the marketing department preferred to have a black illustrator.
Q. You can buy Don Tate wallpaper? For the house; not your computer, right? How the heck did THAT come about?
A. Yes, you can now buy Don Tate wallpaper, printed fleece and flannel fabric, licensed calendars, scrapbook art, and much more.
I’ve been working with an art agent since the mid 90s, illustrating educational books (picture books used in the classroom, but not sold through bookstores). She’s also a licensing agent, though I had no idea what that was at the time.
One day she calls and asks me if I’d be interested in doing some licensing work for Lowe’s Home Improvement Stores. I thought, licensing? Drivers licensing?
Turned out, Lowe’s was interested in developing a line of bed and bath products that would appeal to African American children. So I created some illustrations which were used on wallpaper, light switch plates, drawer pulls, three-dimensional wall art, wall stickers, etc.
Top: Kidz of Color wallpaper. Bottom:
Sunrize Kids. Both are available from
Montgomery Wallcoverings.
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A few samples of Don’s fabric designs, available from Wal-Mart, Hancock Fabric and Jo-Ann Fabric stores.
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Don’s My Peepz calendars. The 2008 edition
is available from Lushena Books.
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Don has illustrated a number of scrapbooking products. Here are four available from The Daisie Company.
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The line did well, at least I thought. But it was discontinued after a year or so.
Part of the problem was the production quality. My designs were sent to China, where a sculptor created molds that were used to mass produce the products, which were hand painted. The quality just wasn’t good.
The other problem is that my products sold right along next to licenses like SpongeBob SquarePants, Bill Cosby’s Little Bill and Dora the Explorer. What mommy looking to decorate her child’s room is gonna pick Don Tate over Dora?
The wallpaper is now available through Montgomery Wallcoverings.
Q. And despite all this success in the book publishing world, you still find the time in your schedule to work a full-time job at the Austin American-Statesman! Tell me about the work you do there. Do you mostly illustrate or create infographics?
A. Both.
At the Statesman, I get the best of both worlds. I get to create illustrations for the Features, Business and Sports sections. And I get to tell stories in the form of info graphics for the daily newspaper.
A few samples of Don’s illustration work
at the American-Statesman. Click on the
thumbnail for a larger view.
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Q. On your site, you mention that your mindset as an illustrator caused you to resist the idea you are a journalist. But you’re over that now. What caused this evolution in your thinking?
A. Time.
I never set out to be a journalist, and I didn’t consider myself a word person. In my mind at the time, journalists were for brainiacs who held high degrees, who used multi-syllable words without having to fetch a dictionary. Not me; not at that time anyway.
Previously, I’d worked in children’s publishing, as a product designer and illustrator. Later, I stepped out on my own and freelanced full time. I loved it! I was living my dream. But I fell behind on my taxes, and I decided to get a full-time job…anywhere, the mall, it made no difference.
At about the same time, I got a call from Lyle Boone, the design director at The Des Moines Register, asking me if I’d be interested in a job in their news art department. I went in for a test project: a weather graphic. The graphic turned out well — they offered me the job — but I thought: how am I going to go from doing something I feel so passionate about to creating weather maps and locating murders on maps — and still be happy!? When the position was offered, I turned it down. But I reconsidered my tax situation and changed my mind. Thankfully, Lyle had left the offer open, and I’ve been in the news business since.
Don at his desk at the American-Statesman, Dec. 2007.
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For a while, I simply resisted everything about the idea of being a newspaper person. I didn’t even want to learn the lingo. Budgets were for financial matters, as far as I was concerned, not a list of daily news stories.
But the longer I remained in the newspaper business, the more it grew on me. I found fun in my work by making it fun, even with things mundane, like business charts. Plus I got really pumped after a visit to The Poynter Instititute.
In retrospect, I’ve been a journalist my whole life. I’ve been drawing since I could walk. And my artwork has always reflected the world around me. With children’s books, I do a lot of nonfiction (or fiction based on real life).
Creating a picture book is much like creating an infographic — I’ve got an editor, an art director, a tight deadline and much, much, much research to do. Although the end product is different, in both cases, I’m telling stories with visuals.
Q. Do you see a day when you’ll leave newspapering behind and do the book thing full-time?
A. There are some exciting things happening in the newspaper business on the graphics side. For one, print graphics are moving online. I love taking a story and making it interactive. With multimedia programs such as Flash, I can tell a story so much better. I can make one-time static artwork move, talk, walk and tell a story in ways that simply can’t happen in print. Online allows an artist to tell a story so much deeper, to add even more information.
Don chats with American-Statesman Design
Director G.W. Babb after a presentation
in December 2007.
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So the answer to your question is… I don’t know and probably not — unless, by chance, I were to win the Caldecott, King or Newbery award. (These awards are to children’s book people what Pulitzers are to newspaper people)
Q. You told me you’re a grandpa now; I’ll bet you don’t find many bodybuilding grandfathers. Do you still work out?
A. You’d be surprised at how many grandfathers work out and compete in natural bodybuilding (The Masters category).
“I’ll never look like this again,” Don says sheepishly.
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Natural bodybuilding is not a sport for monster-freaky-size people. It’s for the lean, more chiseled competitor — everyday people who like to work out and attain their best and compete with others who are not “juiced up.”
I no longer compete, but I do work out as often as possible, and I try to keep myself in shape.
A buff Don Tate meets some
fat old bald guy, Dec. 2007.
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Q. Do you have any advice for newspaper illustrators out there who might like to break into book illustration?
A. My advice for newspaper illustrators would be the same for anyone wanting to break into the business. Go to the bookstore or library. Study the books that are being published today. Study books that were published 10 years ago and before. Ask yourself if your artwork is as polished as what’s being published. Be honest.
Is your artwork appropriate and appealing to children? Ask someone in the business — a children’s book editor, art director, agent, a published children’s book artist or author. Don’t ask your 6-year-old son, daughter or mother. Join your local and national SCBWI (Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators).
In addition to having an appealing art style, an artist must be able to carry a character consistently through a 32-page picture book. Billy the Turtle on page 5 must look like the same Billy the Turtle on page 28.
Practice! Study! And be patient, ’cause it ain’t gonna happen tomorrow!
