Hello, I’m E.B. Lewis and I’m an illustrator of children’s books. I’m also a teacher, I teach at the University of Arts in Philadelphia. I teach sophomores and seniors and I’m a fine artist, so I really love what I’ve done, connected to the arts in many ways. And I’m a dad: I have three knucklehead boys of my own.
I created a term that really kind of baffles a lot of people, it’s a term called artistrator. It’s a term I had to create because my background is fine arts and although I went to school for illustration, I was a dual major, I majored in art education, graphic design, and illustration and minored in painting.
And so, in the beginning I started out basically as a fine artist and then along the way, the illustration started to enter into my life, and realizing that they’re two worlds exist. People don’t like to really talk about the two worlds of illustration and fine art. They like to think of it as all one, there’s not a difference. But there is a very thin line.
Knowing the thin line that it does exist, I created these two separate entities and made them as one and so the term artistrator refers to both sides, both hemispheres I guess, the fine art world and the illustration world.
Living the life of an artist, as an artistrator, actually it’s sometimes becomes very difficult because you can’t turn it off. I’m in constant observation of the world. And it’s a wonderful thing, but if you can’t shut it off, it can become annoying sometimes. But my day starts at 10 o’clock in the morning. I don’t get out of bed before 10.
Now you might think that’s a great thing, but realizing I don’t get into bed until about three, four, five o’clock the next day. And so, I’m working anywhere between 15 to 18 hours a day, which is a long time. But it’s this concentrated, kind of directed force and energy, just focused on the creation of a piece, of taking a blank piece of paper and putting something on it that you can touch somebody with.
