Ever since I was a kid, I might have been eleven or twelve. I'd be telling anyone who would listen that when I grew up, I wanted to be an artist.
From Graeme Base
There's a book called 'Where The Wild Things Are,' by American writer Maurice Sendak... it really is the most sublime book. It's a picture book, but it works at so many levels, and it's fantastic.
You know I'm a bit of a dag because I listen to classical music. I recently bought myself an iPod and downloaded every piece of classical music that I had access to onto that.
I have pets, but they're the really ordinary sort - yellow Labrador, tabby cat, white rabbit, a few goldfish - that kind of stuff. Nothing very... extravagant or unusual or exotic, but I find, in terms of inspiration, Mother Nature is just it.
I was born in Amersham, England on 6/4/58. My family moved to Australia when I was eight, and I went to Box Hill High School and then Melbourne High School. I liked to draw and write at school, and I liked books by J.R.R. Tolkien, A.A. Milne and Kenneth Grahame.
I was always interested in art at school, and after year twelve, senior year, I spent three years studying graphic design at college. I worked in advertising for two years but didn't like it much, then began doing a bit of illustration work for various publishers.
I began illustrating children's books because of a growing disillusionment with the sort of work I was doing in the advertising industry. Book publishing offered me the chance to be far more creative.
My only real hobby is playing music. I write a lot of music on guitar and keyboards and hope one day to make a record or maybe even write the score for a film.
I guess I don't come to the work without baggage. I have an idea of what I want my pictures to look like in my head, and if they don't match up, I find it frustrating.
I'm a relentlessly optimistic person, and I think 'The Waterhole' is a story of hope and that even though nature goes through cycles, we prevail in the end.
2 perspectives
1 perspectives