Quentin Blake: Inside Stories Teachers’ Notes

Introduction

Quentin Blake: Inside Stories is the first exhibition of the House of Illustration’s changing programme celebrating and exploring the artform. Quentin Blake is one of Britain’s best- known and best-loved illustrators, having illustrated over 300 books in his 53 year career. This exhibition brings together the preparatory drawings and final artwork from nine of these books. Selected by Blake to represent the breadth of his work, the exhibition aims to illustrate how he responds to a variety of texts and briefs. The relationship between word and image is crucial. An illustrator’s job is not only to animate a text, but to increase engagement, enjoyment and understanding of it using only visual language. The exhibition explores the challenges and opportunities posed by creating characters and showing relationships; conveying mood, atmosphere and emotion; expressing narrative and the sequence of events and the general challenges facing an illustrator when responding to a brief.

In most of Blake’s children’s book illustrations, there are very obviously sympathetic and unsympathetic characters, or “goodies” and “baddies”. Children are often the heroes and heroines and adults often their adversaries. Through highly-skilled character visualisation, Blake makes it clear whose side we are on through facial expression, pose, features and action. It is perhaps for this reason that his work is so popular and enjoyable to readers of all ages.

Room 1 What Does and Illustrator Think About?

The mural on the walls in this room was illustrated especially for this exhibition by Blake to represent his studio. He has drawn the everyday items and clutter in black ink, while the creatures that burst from his imagination are multi-coloured and vibrant, as if they are more real than the piles of books and papers. This is a device he uses in other examples in the exhibition, and powerfully represents the creative, imaginative process of illustrating. The case mocks up his studio desk with ink, pens, watercolour paints and brushes scattered amongst illustrations which answer the question What Does an Illustrator Think About?

Discussion Points:

• How has Quentin Blake chosen to portray himself as an illustrator? (Troubled, confused, deep in thought, challenged by his brief). • What insights do the display case illustrations give us into the processes he goes through to create illustrations? (Storyboards, character design, choosing a moment to illustrate, capturing mood and atmosphere, the relationship between image and text, experimental sketches). • Why is the “studio” portrayed in black-and-white, while the fantastical birds are brightly coloured and “alive”? (illustrates the creative imagination, shows the illustrations as more real than the everyday objects he has shown).

Room 2 Clown, Quentin Blake 1998

Written and illustrated by Quentin Blake, this book is the story of a toy that takes on an independent life of its own after being discarded several times. The book has no words, so the whole story is told purely through illustrations. Clown is mistreated by its initial owners, and finds life through partnership with the right people. Discussion points: • How do we know that the woman and man who discard Clown at first are “bad”? (Facial expressions, body language). • How do we know that the child and baby who treat Clown well and help him with his adventures and quest are “good”? (Facial expressions, body language).

Danny the Champion of the World, Roald Dahl 1994

One of Roald Dahl’s best-loved children’s books, Danny the Champion of the World is a story about a warm father-son relationship, the countryside, and the battle between landowners and people living on the land. Blake has brought to life the English countryside,

along with the characters of Danny and his father, with tenderness and less exaggeration than some of his other portrayals, as befits the story. As in many Dahl and Blake creations, there are both sympathetic and unsympathetic characters, drawn with glee by Blake.

Discussion points: • How has Blake shown Danny and his father’s night-time adventures? (Watercolour wash and torchlight). • How has Blake portrayed the teacher with whom Danny is in trouble? (Facial expression, cane, pose).

The Boy in the Dress, David Walliams 2008

This is the story of a boy who does not have a good relationship with his father and brother, and who is fascinated by both football and fashion. His friend Lisa introduces him to girls’ clothes and he finds out a little about what it’s like to be a girl.

Blake filled the first and last pages of the book with lots of illustrations of groups of children at school. In this way he sets the scene for the story’s actions: beautifully-rendered girls and boys behaving just as children do at school, burst with life, friendship and mischief across the pages before the narrative even begins.

Discussion points: • Blake says that his characters all come completely from his imagination, but the children at school look so true-to-life that they could almost come from observation. How has Blake captured the atmosphere of the school in these drawings? • How would you show friendships, mischief, conversation and all the social aspects of going to school through a few characters?

The Twits, Roald Dahl 1980

Another well-loved Dahl story, Blake chose to include this and Danny as contrasting stories with very different illustration briefs. The Twits are the most horrible people imaginable and Blake portrays their nastiness in great detail, as well as the unpleasant, bleak atmosphere of their home, designed to appear like a “concentration camp”. One of the most important aspects of the story is the Twits’ comeuppance which is shown here too. Early character sketches show the development of the Twits’ nastiness. Borrowing from the fairytale tradition of portraying witches as ugly and malformed, Blake has brought Dahl’s creatures to life in grotesque glory that children love to hate.

Discussion points: • What type of marks does Blake make with the ink, and what effect do these have on the illustrations? • How has Blake made it clear that these characters are disgusting and horrible? (messy hair, dirty beard, mad, staring eyes, frowns, bad teeth). • How has Blake visualised the twits’ home as the least hospitable house imaginable? (no windows, barbed wire fences, weeds, looming building and bleak landscape). • What would you add to Mr Twits’ beard to make him even more disgusting?

The Wild Washerwomen, John Yeoman 1979

This book is about seven overworked washerwomen who go on the rampage and meet seven woodcutters.

Blake’s illustrations are double-page spreads which convey large amounts of the story. Across two pages, a landscape can be filled with action – and this is a very active story, with lots of characters. All sorts of behaviour is portrayed with glee by Blake.

Discussion points: • Can you spot where Blake has made a mistake? How has he corrected these? (stuck paper over the mistake and re-drawn) • How has creating an illustration over 2 pages helped tell the story? (More space for action, landscapes and fits many more characters in)

How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen, Russell Hoban 2006

This book is about a hero, Tom, and his disapproving aunt who sends him to Captain Najork who makes him play all sorts of made-up and challenging games. Being the hero, Tom always wins. Blake had to invent the games himself in order to depict them, and also invented the pedal-powered boat which inspired Hoban’s story.

Discussion points:

• How can we tell that Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong is disapproving of her nephew? • Two of the big illustrations show made-up games that Blake had to imagine. Do you think these games look like fun? • Look at the postcard which inspired Russell Hoban to write the story. What story would you invent to go with this old photograph?

Candide, Voltaire 1759 Quentin Blake illustrated edition published 2011

Described by Blake as “like a savage children’s book for adults”, the illustrations for this historical novel allow Blake to explore some serious adult themes such as murder, sex, politics, religion and class. A sarcastic novel which parodies contemporary romance and adventure stories, the book was banned soon after it came out, due to its blasphemous content.

Discussion points:

• How has Blake approached this story compared to the children’s books he illustrates? (Similarly: he delights in creating extreme characters, actions and emotions just as he does in his children’s books). • Compare the grand, genteel characters and settings with the rough and squalid ones. How has Blake shown us the difference between the two? (mark-making, colours, order and chaos)

The Story of the Dancing Frog, Quentin Blake 1998

Written and illustrated by Blake, this story is a story-within-a-story, with a mother telling her daughter about the Dancing frog. The mother and daughter are visualised in sepia wash, while the story as it is told, is in full colour. The sketched storyboard shows us how Blake worked out the narrative and illustrations.

Discussion points:

• The central character is a tiny frog which often appears quite small on the page. How does Blake ensure we know he is the hero of the story despite him being quite small? (the frog is central or the focus of attention in each illustration) • This story started off with words, but Blake decided to abandon these and make it a purely visual story. How do you think it would change if it had words? (The reader has to “read” the pictures quite carefully to understand the narrative; words would perhaps take away from personal interpretation)

Room 3 Michael Rosen’s Sad Book, Michael Rosen 2004

This book has its own separate space within the exhibition due to its subject matter: grief. The original story as conceived in an email to his publisher shows Rosen’s raw workings which have then been annotated by Blake. The book is about Rosen’s bereavement of his eighteen year old son, and explores through his words and Blake’s illustrations the complexity and enormity of such a loss.

Discussion points: • The image of Rosen smiling starts the book. How has Blake shown that this is a fake smile used by the author when he is pretending not to be sad? (exaggerated features, stooped posture, shadows) • How do the London cityscapes help to represent the author’s feelings? (they are bleak and gloomy, other people’s windows are brightly lit and cheerful)

• How do the happy memories shown contrast with the grief and loss shown? (happy memories are in bright colours, people are happy and interacting; the sad images show the author alone with his feelings and are painted in dull, gloomy colours, with lots of heavy, downward brushstrokes) • Blake intended a “hopeful resolution” by the end of the book. How has he gone about showing this? (The “lots of candles” illustration shows a happy celebration of the boy the family is missing)

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