As the moonlight falls upon the table and silence reigns supreme, the traveler weaves between pencil holders, adhesive tape dispensers, and other artistic tools, heading out on a surprising journey. Through five pencil drawings, unaccompanied by words, Shih ­Cheng-ting tells the tale of a traveler’s lonely journey with just the moonlight as his companion. It also paints a picture of Shih’s own years-long artistic journey.

Moonlight, with its soft, gentle style, sees the artist as a traveler, taking a fantastical journey across his art table. The collection was selected for the Illustrators Exhibition of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in 2013.

A veteran art teacher, Shih ­Cheng-ting has published 60 books over his 24 years of illustration, and at age 53, he has finally achieved international recognition.

The night that he learned of his acceptance to the Bologna exhibition, he was like a kid on Christmas Eve, so excited he could barely sleep. “It was like a dream,” he says, describing the sensation as completely unreal. After all those years of work, he’d finally received a pat on the back and some praise for a job well done.

The Bologna Children’s Book Fair Illustrators Exhibition was first held in 1967, and every year it features the illustrators considered the world’s best. In 2013, only 77 illustrators were accepted out of some 3,147 candidates. Each piece submitted must include five illustrations, and while they can be titled, they cannot include written descriptions: their stories must be told entirely by the images. It is a true test of artistic ability, and of the narrative skill of the artist.

Moonlight was a long time in coming; suddenly inspired by the moonlight outside his window one night in 2001, Shih set about drawing the story of a rabbit running in the moonlight. That initial sketch has long since grown moldy.

Over the past couple of years, since he’s had his own studio, the piece has slowly but surely taken shape. He has completely reconstructed the tale since those early days, reshaping it as a tale of travel atop an artist’s table. Now the images are of seemingly simple things like pen containers and tape dispensers, items becoming more and more complex and fanciful under the moonlight as the traveler continues his journey.

Moonlight, with its soft, gentle style, sees the artist as a traveler, taking a fantastical journey across his art table. The collection was selected for the Illustrators Exhibition of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in 2013.

Shih set out into the world of picture books and illustration after graduating from the Department of Commercial Design at Chung Yuan Christian University.

In 1989, Shih’s work It’s Raining earned him an honorable mention at the 2nd Hsin Yi Children’s Literature Awards. The book was entirely pictures, with no words, and used watercolor to depict clouds, ponds, leaves, and frogs, while the rain itself was depicted through lines lightly etched with a box cutter. The natural scenes and fresh style, along with the wordless storytelling, made the book quite avant-garde for the times.

After he got started, Shih continued publishing pieces every year, but such work doesn’t offer the most stable of incomes, so he took up a position as an art editor for Tung­hua Books. As it happened, this decision provided unexpected benefits.

“Some artists have excellent artistic and storytelling skills, but still can’t get published,” says Shih. He considers himself to have been lucky, with almost every one of his books having publishers willing to publish them. This comes back to his experience as an art editor, which helped him escape the bonds of thinking solely as a creator, and instead put himself into the shoes of both readers and publishers.

Moonlight, with its soft, gentle style, sees the artist as a traveler, taking a fantastical journey across his art table. The collection was selected for the Illustrators Exhibition of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in 2013.

The majority of Shih’s material is drawn from real life, such as his second book, My Dad Doesn’t Go to Work, a story inspired by a photographer friend.

“Most of my work comes from my own family life,” says Shih, a self-described “nerd.” Inspiration isn’t some esoteric bolt from the sky, nor is it something you need to retire from society and live as a hermit for—rather, if you just observe life closely and pay attention to the smaller details, even reading books can be a source of creative inspiration.

An omnivorous reader, Shih’s work has also been inspired by his reading. In fact, bestseller The Salmon King was inspired by an essay by Hong Kong economist Steven N.S. ­Cheung, wherein ­Cheung talked about converting a portion of a small creek behind his home in the US state of Washington into a fishpond. ­Cheung raised trout in the pond, and then one day a salmon made its way upriver into the pond. His interest piqued, he took care of the salmon’s spawn, ultimately releasing them into the ocean. Years later, the grown salmon returned, bringing with them the opportunity to sell them for a profit.

After reading the essay, Shih told his wife about the story. She responded by pointing the spatula she was cooking with at him and saying, “Oh yeah, like anything that good actually happens. Why not just try raising the fish straight in your mouth?”

And thus, what started as an offhand joke ended up worked into Shih’s book, simultaneously realizing his fish-farming dream. At the end of Shih’s story, the salmon successfully swim upstream and into Mr. Cat’s mouth, but just as he’s enjoying the harvest, Mr. Cat is shocked to discover a salmon the size of a whale.

While Shih was crafting the book, several editors from publishing companies recommended to him that he add in little tidbits about salmon, or that he make the book an educational picture book. He mulled these ideas over, but ultimately decided to pare down the unnecessary description and concentrate on the story itself. The resulting book not only became a hit in Taiwan, but was also snapped up by publishers in Japan, Germany, and the US.

In the past, when asked what he felt his most important work was, Shih would always say It’s Raining, his first book; now, he also adds The Salmon King to that list, a sign of his love for the story. In fact, he is so fond of the story that he’s considered redrawing it on several occasions.

As his work attracted greater attention, the focus of Shih’s stories also began to expand, growing from simple parent-child relationships or family affairs, out to stories from the city he lives in, ­Zhongli, and his hometown of Tai­nan, and then further out to other towns and locations, including Kee­lung Temple and Jin­gua­shi.

From his first work, It’s Raining, to recent bestseller The Salmon King, Shih Cheng-ting has pumped out at least a book a year, piling up ­experience and a rich artistic life along the way.

Recently, Shih has been working on commission from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, lending his artwork to a poster promoting Taiwan’s ratification of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The poster features several people riding bicycles and carrying small shrubs, green warriors forging forward amidst the industrial pollution of the big city. The inspiration for the poster came from the bike travels he and his wife undertake together, riding through the throngs of cars in the city and then turning a corner into lush green rice paddies. His hope is that humanity as a whole can similarly turn away from manmade pollution and find a new way of life.

Now Shih is a part-time lecturer at his alma mater, ­Chung Yuan Christian University, teaching in the Department of Commercial Design and dedicating the rest of his time to his art. “When I’m struck with a new idea, I draw, but it’s when I have no ideas that I need to draw even more,” says Shih, a believer in the need of any creative type to be responsible to him- or herself; as long as you never give up, you’ll see results. For him, a day without drawing is like a day unlived.

Now into middle age, Shih isn’t interested in fame, just in creation, in letting the moonlight lead him to beautiful new surprises over the many long nights.

From his first work, It’s Raining, to recent bestseller The Salmon King, Shih Cheng-ting has pumped out at least a book a year, piling up ­experience and a rich artistic life along the way.