Loren Long

Loren Long, Illustrator

By the end of college, I had gotten the bug to be an illustrator.

“the bug-passion for something, I did not get that passion and drive until my last year of college, so parents, be patient”

~ Loren Long

Books by Loren Long, Illustrator

Childhood

Growing up in the 1970’s in Lexington, Kentucky, there was not much art in his life, but Loren Long’s mother read to him, and his family encouraged him to draw as a young boy.  Loren loved sports…most of all baseball.  In junior high, art class was running a close second to his first true love, gym class.  He was a lucky student to have art class at his school where his love of drawing, ceramics and tempera painting grew.  In high school, Loren kind of had a crush on his art teacher, so when she introduced him to the works of Van Gogh, Picasso and Norman Rockwell, he took it all in. 

College 

By the time he was in college at the University of Kentucky, he was unsure of what he wanted to do with his life.  He had five different majors in five years, but one thing that never changed. He took every art class offered.   In his junior year of college, he decided to be a professional artist, so he entered art school at The American Academy of Art in Chicago. 

Early Career

He began his art career at a greeting card company where he worked for four years.  He did freelance illustrations for almost ten years for magazines like; Sports Illustrated, Time, Reader’s Digest and Forbes.  During this time he has said he felt he had “developed my visual storytelling abilities.” 

Illustrator 

Long began to get calls to illustrate book covers for young adult novels, and then an editor called and asked him to do his first picture book.  It was a book by Angela Johnson called I Dream of Trains.  He loved everything about the process, and his career as an illustrator began.  

He wrote and illustrated his first book, Otis in 2009.  He has illustrated over fifteen books and has had some pretty famous authors to help out…Madonna and Barack Obama just to name a few.  

Long still has a passion for baseball that he carries over in to his love of books.  He has co-written a series of books about baseball with Phil Bildner.  His love of baseball is also evident in Mr. Peabody’s Apples. 

Several of the books he has illustrated have won awards such as:

• Toy Boat by Randall de Seve - the Cuffie Award and the 2008 Great Books Award
• I Dream of Trains by Angela Johnson won the Golden Kite Award
• When I Heard The Learn’d Atronomer by Walt Whitman also won the Golden Kite Award. 

Style

Loren likes to use acrylic on canvas and gouache and pencil.  He does many sketches before he uses a peace, and sometimes he likes a sketch but decides not to use it because it does not help tell the story.  Illustrating a book takes months to complete from start to finish.  He normally does one or two a year.  

Book List

·       Long, Loren. Otis. 2009.  Philomel

Otis is the trusty tractor on the farm until the farmer buys a new one and Otis is put out to pasture, literally.  Otis has a true heart and a true friend in a little calf that helps Otis out of a slump while Otis helps him out of the mud.

·       Madonna. Mr. Peabody’s Apples.  2003. CALLAWAY.

Mr. Peabody is a kind hearted home town history teacher who gets caught up in local rumor mill, but instead of getting mad, he teaches the young man a valuable lesson about perception and what the truth is.

·       Obama, Barack. Of Thee I Sing. 2010. Alfred A. Knopf.

Mr. Obama is a father first and foremost, so he wrote a book for his daughters to show them that dreams can and do come true.

·       Weller Ward, Frances. The Day The Animals Came. 2003. Philomel

Ria is a young girl far from home in a strange new, country, state and town.  She loves animals but had to leave her beloved pets back home in the Caribbean.  She and her parents come to New York City to make a better life, but no matter what, Ria misses her pets.  So the Neighbor that looks after Rai takes her to the St. John the Divine Cathedral for St. Frances Day where animals can be blessed in the church.  While there Ria finds a new purpose and falls in love once again.

References

Long, L. (2009). Otis. New York, NY: Philomel.

Madonna. (2003). Mr. Peabody’s Apples. New York, NY: CALLAWAY.

Obama, B. (2010). Of Thee I Sing. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.

Weller Ward, F. (2003). The Day the Animals Came. New York, NY: Philomel.

http://www.lorenlong.com/index.html