Who is quentin blake

A lot of the pictures I do in hospitals are to cheer up gaunt surroundings," he said. He was also the instigator of the House of Illustration project, which aims to open a museum dedicated to illustration in London by However, even the most beloved of artists have their critics and one slight levelled at Blake is the consistently upbeat nature of his drawings.

Quentin Blake: The man who drew childhood. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.

Sir Quentin Blake: "To me it's amazing". Blake has produced more than 30 of his own children's books. Blake sent drawings to Punch magazine in his teens and, to his surprise, it paid him for them.

He later found a mentor in the painter and illustrator Brian Robb , whom he tracked down at Chelsea School of Art with a view to studying with him. So instead I took in my drawings and he gave me a tutorial. He looked after me very well, and when he died he left me the contents of his studio.

After university, Blake did a teaching diploma. The plan was to teach English, which he did part-time for a while, but he went on to teach illustration at the Royal College of Art. Blake is currently working on drawings to accompany a series of poems by Michael Rosen called On the Move , about migration. It made it easier for me. He just gets on with it. In , he was voted "The Illustrator's Illustrator" by Observer Magazine and in , was appointed the first ever Children's Laureate, a post designed to raise the profile of children's literature.

Blake was knighted in the New Year Honours for his services to illustration. Without dialogue, it has the purity of a silent film, creating movement and telling its delightful story entirely through pictures.

After being thrown out with other toys, a clown doll flips itself out of a trashcan, joins a fancy dress parade, is chased by a dog, and is then thrown accidentally into a poor high-rise apartment. There his antics help to quiet a crying child, and he helps the harassed babysitter to tidy the apartment.

Then they all go out into the city, against a vivid red sky and grey city buildings, and retrieve the others. Characteristically, the book also conveys an underlying moral theme, about rejection and connectedness. His work was also a major part of the British Council's 'Magic Pencil' Exhibition which began touring the world in , and there are apparently future plans for a Quentin Blake Gallery. Blake started out precociously, having drawings in Punch magazine while still a schoolboy in , and becoming a regular contributor.

He has been a prolific artist since then, returning to teaching in as a part-time tutor at the Royal College of Art, where today he is a visiting professor. Mister Magnolia is a typically spiky-haired character, with a waistcoat and bow tie, and carrying a trumpet.

We see him juggling fruit, his sisters playing the flute, green parakeets pecking his suit, and in the most detailed picture he is riding a pedal scooter with six small children holding on to his leg. Blake repeats such a rhyming format in works such as Fantastic Daisy Artichoke , in which two children are befriended by a joyously zany lady, and meet her pets. He has always made his living as an illustrator, as well as teaching for over twenty years at the Royal College of Art, where he was head of the Illustration department from to His first drawings were published in Punch while he was 16 and still at school.

He continued to draw for Punch, The Spectator and other magazines over many years, while at the same time entering the world of children's books with A Drink of Water by John Yeoman in He has also illustrated classic books, including A Christmas Carol and Candide and created much-loved characters of his own, including Mister Magnolia and Mrs Armitage.