Quentin Blake
Quentin Blake
Sir Quentin Saxby Blake, CBE, FCSD, FRSL, RDIis an English cartoonist, illustrator and children's writer. He may be known best for illustrating books written by Roald Dahl. For his lasting contribution as a children's illustrator he won the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. From 1999 to 2001 he was the inaugural British Children's Laureate. He is a patron of the Association of Illustrators...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionCartoonist
Date of Birth16 December 1932
Inspiration is some mysterious blessing which happens when the wheels are turning smoothly.
I've never quite worked out how to do holidays. I've got a house in France which I suppose is a kind of holiday house. But it's really only so I can go on drawing when I get there. I'm never far away from the feeling that I want to be getting on with something.
I'm trained as a teacher; that's the only thing I've got a certificate for.
As an illustrator you need to understand the human body - but having looked at and understood nature, you must develop an ability to look away and capture the balance between what you've seen and what you imagine.
With my pictures, what I hope is that it encourages the reader to imagine more pictures of his own.
If you want to read and you want to draw, that helps you to express yourself.
I don't think there's an illustrator who's as good as a Titian or a Rembrandt... but then, Rembrandt was a bit of an illustrator on the quiet, you know?
I suppose illustration tends to live in the streets, rather than in the hermetically sealed atmosphere of the museum, and consequently it has come to be taken less seriously.
The hateful thing about most hotels nowadays is that they only have duvets. I hate duvets.
A lot of my travel is at least partly work, visiting schools and libraries, especially in France.
I think it is the fact that birds are two-legged, like us, which gives them something of our balance and gesture and makes them nearer to us.
I don't wait for inspiration. I'm not, in fact, quite sure what inspiration is, but I'm sure that if it is going to turn up, my having started work is the precondition of its arrival.
Sometimes people think drawing and painting is mucking about when actually it is a highly skilled activity.
Going to hospital is rather like going to an alien planet.