Words matter. These are the best Graeme Base Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
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.
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’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.
It was always that detail that drove me. Ever since I was a little kid, I used to get into the nitty gritty… when I was drawing army tanks or monsters, I’d do every nut and rivet, and I’d do every scale on the dragon’s back. It was just the way I was built.
The English probably do that wordplay kind of humour and whimsy better than anyone, and I’ve always felt that my writing goes more to that than what I did when I came to Australia.
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.
Whilst I love still hiding… games and puzzles to play, I’m not as imprisoned by that need to fill every corner with detail.
I was eight when we came to Australia. It was five amazing weeks onboard this ship – it was the Northern Star.
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.
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.
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’ve had an absolutely charmed life in every aspect of it. I do for my job what I would do for a hobby if it wasn’t my job. Half the secret of happiness, I’m ecstatically happily married with three great kids, you know. It’s been a blessed life.
Being an artist, it’s all a journey, and you learn where the subtle patterns lie.
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.
