Julian Plum
Julian Plum is an illustrator and author with a deep love of colors, stories, and creatures. He can be found in the Finger Lakes of New York illustrating warm, colorful flora, fauna, and fungi in gouache. When he’s not painting, he wanders the woods admiring the natural world.
Interview
What was your favorite book when you were a child?
Frederick’s Fables by Leo Lionni
What’s your favorite line from a book?
There are so many good ones! The one that lives with me is from When Green Becomes Tomatoes, by Julie Fogliano, and it’s a small poem: A star is someone else’s sun / more flicker glow than blinding / a speck of light too far for bright / and too small to make a morning
Who are your top three favorite authors or illustrators?
Rebecca Green, Christian Robinson, and Julie Morstad—all illustrators!
Why did you want to become an author or illustrator?
I’ve been a storyteller of some kind since I was a kid, and there are so many reasons that turned into illustrating books: that I like painting, that I love words, that the color green is amazing. But, really, it’s because I didn’t see myself in very many places growing up and felt very, very alone, and I’d like to keep other kids from feeling that way. And, also, because I love the world too much to keep it to myself.
Do you have any advice for future authors or illustrators?
Find the thing that lights you up, whatever that thing is. Find it, hone it, and then share it with folks as many ways as you can. Specifically for illustration, it’s about finding what you love in the things you love to paint, whether that’s color or texture or shape or something else entirely. If you focus on that, and keep working on it and keep looking, you’ll find yourself and other people will find you, too.
