Quentin Blake: Illustrating Verse
Earlier this week, I went to Weston super Mare. With its long sandy beach, the sea front was looking lovely, but I was going to the Museum. Weston Museum is, in itself, well worth a visit and the cafe offers delicious food, but I was there to enjoy the ‘Quentin Blake: Illustrating Verse’ exhibition. On tour from the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, the exhibition celebrates how his ‘unique expressive line and vivid colour’ have been used to illustrate poetry.
All of the works featured in the exhibition were part of Quentin Blake’s personal archive, and some have never been seen before outside of his studio. I loved seeing his paints and pens, surrounded by scraps of paper showing rough scribbles and colour mixing! A short film shows how he works- completely fascinating to those like me with little artistic know-how and less talent!
Quentin Blake has collaborated with Michael Rosen on many projects over the years and the energy of his drawings are perfectly matched by the exuberance of Rosen’s verse. A short film of Michael Rosen explores their working relationship and how much he values Blake’s illustrations of his verse from ‘Mind Your Own Business’ to ‘On the Move’.
The exhibition also featured a number of the illustrations from Roald Dahl’s verse collections and from Blake’s work with John Yeoman, with pictures from all stages of the process from rough sketches to finished art work beautifully displayed. I was very interested in the information about Blake’s only book published exclusively in France and the French literature which he has illustrated.
However, my favourite section was that showing the illustrations which Quentin Blake has produced for his own work, particularly the very wonderful, ‘We All Join In’, which I have enjoyed with countless children over the years. Everything about this book makes me smile and it was a joy to see some of the artwork included here.
The exhibition is well worth going to see and is at Weston Museum until the 3rd June when it will move to other locations in the UK.