Interview with Illustrator Jing Jing Tsong

Tal­ent­ed pic­ture book illus­tra­tor Jing Jing Tsong is a mas­ter at her craft. Influ­enced by the prin­ci­ples of mono­print and tra­di­tion­al stone lith­o­g­ra­phy, Jing Jing lay­ers col­ors and tex­tures to cre­ate images that are engag­ing and com­pelling. Their visu­al and emo­tion­al appeal com­mu­ni­cate a visu­al expe­ri­ence for young read­ers and their grown-ups. “In every­thing I prac­tice,” she says, “I explore the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of being.”

We are very pleased to talk sto­ry with illus­tra­tor Jing Jing Tsong.

Wel­come, Jing Jing! For those who haven’t met you, could you please tell us a lit­tle about yourself?

I am an ama­teur musi­cian (cel­lo and stand-up bass), a per­ma­nent grom (begin­ner surfer), and a writer and illus­tra­tor. To me, these inter­ests are inextricable—they influ­ence how I approach my life—finding flow, con­nec­tion and being ready to improvise.

Where did you grow up? Who do you con­sid­er to be your biggest supporter?

I grew up in a small col­lege town in cen­tral Penn­syl­va­nia. Because of my dad’s work (physics researcher) our fam­i­ly had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to live in West Berlin for a year and then Albu­querque, NM, for a summer.

There have been many “biggest” sup­port­ers in dif­fer­ent phas­es of my life. But over­all, it is def­i­nite­ly my hus­band, Michael Austin (who is also a writer/illustrator). We met each oth­er in the Graph­ic Design pro­gram at Penn State. For many years we were rock climb­ing partners—we had to trust each oth­er in belay­ing and being ready to take up the slack in the rope if one of us fell. Cre­ative­ly, when I feel I am falling or feel that I am fail­ing, I trust Mike to catch me or pick me up and encour­age me.

Your rela­tion­ship sounds amaz­ing. Why did you become an illus­tra­tor? Did you always knew you could cre­ate art?

Hon­est­ly, one of the rea­sons I start­ed to focus on illus­tra­tion was because I was burned out on being the Art Direc­tor of the design stu­dio that Michael and I were part­ners in. Michael left the busi­ness first and com­mit­ted to illus­tra­tion full-time. Even­tu­al­ly, when we sold our busi­ness, we took a year long sab­bat­i­cal where I recon­nect­ed with fam­i­ly and my cre­ative self. I worked on devel­op­ing an illus­tra­tion port­fo­lio and at the end of the year, declared myself an Illus­tra­tor. Look­ing back, it seems rather auda­cious to make such a life piv­ot. Luck­i­ly, there was no one to tell us we couldn’t, so it worked out well. But full disclosure—I did jug­gle free­lance design work, teach­ing and play­ing my cel­lo at dozens of wed­dings, before I actu­al­ly prac­ticed illus­tra­tion full-time.

I nev­er thought I COULDN’T be an artist. My mom used to bring us to the library every week­end for sto­ry time and then to replen­ish our stack of books for the week. I loved pic­ture books and read them well past the time I was an “advanced” read­er. After din­ner, we often sat around the table as a fam­i­ly and drew and copied things from books. Because my par­ents loved bal­let, I drew a lot of dancers! My dad had an easel set up in the tiny space by the wash­er and dry­er. He exper­i­ment­ed with abstract paint­ing. My child­hood seems to be a col­lage of visu­al expe­ri­ences and cre­at­ing art seemed as nat­ur­al as eat­ing or breathing.

What do you enjoy most about cre­at­ing art? What are some of your great­est challenges?

The thing I love most is that any­thing is possible—I am the only to tell myself I can’t.

 The great­est chal­lenge is not let­ting all the amaz­ing work I see on social media dis­tract me from my own journey.

Your art is so expres­sive and col­or­ful. If you had to choose a favorite project, which would it be and why?

My favorite project is usu­al­ly the most cur­rent one.

The one on my draw­ing table now, is a mid­dle-grade graph­ic nov­el I’ve been work­ing on for the past 7 years. I actu­al­ly have sketch­es for ini­tial explo­rations that date back 12 years! It start­ed out as a pic­ture-book, but my edi­tor sug­gest­ed it would be stronger as a graph­ic nov­el. She and my agent took great care in guid­ing me through this chal­leng­ing and, at times, intim­i­dat­ing path. The sto­ry went from 32 to 90 to almost 200 pages.

When it comes out (hope­ful­ly Spring 2024), it will be my debut as a writer. Iron­i­cal­ly, even though I am known for my col­or­ful work, my true love is black and white work. I had a chance to indulge myself in black and white draw­ings which reflect an impor­tant con­cept in the sto­ry. I use col­or spar­ing­ly. What start­ed out as a sto­ry on an expe­ri­ence of being bul­lied, evolved into a lov­ing explo­ration of a young girl find­ing her place in her fam­i­ly and how that allows her embrace her dif­fer­ent iden­ti­ties into a true expres­sion of self.

We’re look­ing for­ward to your graph­ic nov­el! What are your hopes and dreams for the year and beyond in terms of your artis­tic career and what you would like to see pub­lished in the future?

I see illus­tra­tion and writ­ing as a life prac­tice. I hope I con­tin­ue to learn and cre­ate stronger work. I’ve illus­trat­ed over 20 pic­ture books. In the future, I’d like to illus­trate more of my own man­u­scripts. I hope that what­ev­er I put out in the world will help some­one under­stand their con­nec­tion to their world in a joy­ful way.

Do you have any expe­ri­ences as a woman of col­or illus­tra­tor that you might share with our read­ers? What would you like to see change in the indus­try regard­ing the accep­tance of BIPOC illus­tra­tors and writers?

Once I received a man­u­script where a descrip­tion in the vein of “Ori­en­tal grace” was used to describe some­thing. It def­i­nite­ly raised my hack­les, and I reviewed it with my sis­ters to see if they felt the same. They rein­forced my feel­ings, and I was able to address it with the edi­tor who then addressed it with the writer.

Over­all, I’m excit­ed to be in pub­lish­ing dur­ing a time of pos­i­tive change. There is still a lot of work to do, but I feel there are many peo­ple in the pic­ture-book com­mu­ni­ty active­ly seek­ing under-rep­re­sent­ed peo­ple to share their stories.

Because my par­ents grew up in a time where their moth­er tongue, Tai­wanese, was banned by 2 dif­fer­ent occu­pa­tions, I am always thrilled to see work that sup­ports and cel­e­brates indige­nous lan­guages. With­out these lan­guages, we’re in dan­ger of los­ing sto­ries that are essen­tial to our under­stand­ing of tra­di­tions and his­to­ries. I’m hon­ored to be part of one such project, the Hawai­ian Leg­ends for Lit­tle Ones by Gabrielle Ahuli’i, pub­lished by Beach­house Pub­lish­ing, comes out in an ‘Ōle­lo Hawai’i  edi­tion this spring.

What beliefs is your work challenging?

Instead of “chal­leng­ing” I think of my work as “encour­ag­ing.”  I hope my work encour­ages peo­ple to think of them­selves as parts of com­mu­ni­ties that extend beyond geo­graph­ic and polit­i­cal bor­ders. I hope that what I put into the world encour­ages peo­ple to take the time to lis­ten and watch and seek expe­ri­ences that broad­en perspectives.

Where do you get your inspirations?

My local library is one of my favorite places to pro­cras­ti­nate. I love the ran­dom­ness of scan­ning shelves and find­ing unex­pect­ed trea­sures. I also like lis­ten­ing to dif­fer­ent kinds of music and have my sis­ters and son and daugh­ter for intro­duc­ing me to aur­al treats I may not have found on my own.

In addi­tion to books, what oth­er kinds of art do you do?

I like to exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als. Last year, I carved my own pens out of bam­boo and cre­at­ed ink from black­ber­ries. This year, I’ve been exper­i­ment­ing with intaglio print­ing using lids from plas­tic con­tain­ers and scratch­ing images with a sewing nee­dle. I real­ly want to get into pottery!

Can you share a bit about what you’re work­ing on next?

I’m work­ing on illus­tra­tions for a count­ing book about deli­cious things. All I can say is that every time I start sketch­ing, I get hungry!

What advice would you give an aspir­ing illustrator?

Join your local chap­ter of Soci­ety of Children’s Book Writ­ers and Illus­tra­tors, join a cri­tique group. The chap­ter I belong to (West­ern Wash­ing­ton) is so sup­port­ive, and I am con­stant­ly inspired by the gen­eros­i­ty and phe­nom­e­nal sup­port of this community.

What’s your online pres­ence? What do your fol­low­ers say?

You can find my illus­tra­tion here: www.jingjingtsong.com . I’m incon­sis­tent on IG (occa­sion­al­ly shar­ing my cre­ative process, or a good wave): @jingjingtsong. Work­ing from a home stu­dio can feel incred­i­bly iso­lat­ing, so I’m on Twit­ter every now and then, join­ing in on the week­ly con­ver­sa­tions in dif­fer­ent pic­ture book groups.

The books that have elicit­ed the most response are the Hawai­ian Leg­ends for Lit­tle Ones series. Peo­ple are grate­ful to have these authen­tic sto­ries about Hawaii.

Maha­lo, Jing Jing, for talk­ing sto­ry with us! We loved learn­ing about you and your cre­ative process. Best wish­es always!

To learn more about Jing Jing, includ­ing her gor­geous print gallery, vis­it her web­site, JingJingTsong.com. While you’re there, vis­it her online book­store, Jing and Mike Co. Pho­to cour­tesy of author.