Doug Hansen

A brief biography

Fresno-born author/illustrator Doug Hansen is one of six children in an artistic family. In his 40-year career he has been a cartoonist, Fresno Bee newsroom artist, and professor of illustration at his alma mater, Fresno State. Hansen's children’s books are Mother Goose in California, Aesop in California, and California, the Magic Island.

DOUG HANSEN - biography

Artist and illustrator Doug Hansen has worked in Fresno for over forty years. Hansen was born in Fresno, and is the eldest of six children in an artistic family. Doug collaborated with his mother, Janice, and brothers Keith and Craig to draw and paint the San Joaquin River mural installed in Fresno’s Woodward Park Regional Library.

He drew and published his own comic books in the 1970s and was a newsroom artist at The Fresno Bee newspaper for 23 years. The Bee published collections of his Fresno Sketchbook pen and ink drawings of Valley landmarks in 1991 and 1993.

Hansen received both his BA and MA in Art from California State University, Fresno. He is now a professor of Graphic Design at Fresno State and teaches illustration in both traditional and digital mediums.

Hansen collaborated with celebrated Del Rey author David “Mas” Masumoto, illustrating the writer’s stories with watercolor paintings. That work was collected in two books: Letters to the Valley: A Harvest of Memories in 2004, and Heirlooms: Letters from a Peach Farmer in 2007.

Doug’s richly illustrated children’s ABC book, Mother Goose in California, was published in April 2009 by Heyday Books and is in its fourth printing. The Mother Goose in California exhibit opened at Fresno Storyland in February 2010.

Aesop in California was published by Heyday in the spring of 2013 and California, the Magic Island in 2016. Hansen resides in Clovis, CA.