‘BFG in pictures’ is a touring exhibition of Quentin Blakes illustrations for BFG by Roald Dahl. It contains sketches of the original character design through to final designs and finally colour work and variants for later editions. I had the amazing opportunity to go and visit this exhibition in person where I learned a great deal about Quentin’s process and specifically how certain character decisions were made for this book. For example, the costuming for the BFG had all been decided except for his shoes, Quentin received a parcel from Roald with his own personal Norwegian sandal inside, and suddenly the character had shoes to wear. (Blake, 2018, P76) Quentin Blake had tremendous impact on me as a child and it can be said that his inspiration has always influenced my practice. The use of ink and dip pens in a slightly scribblier way is a style that I adopted early on and have spent many years developing.
The exhibition was wonderful, and I truly felt nostalgia for my childhood books, which I was delighted to buy again in the gift shop. I went into the exhibition however, with an awareness that I should be looking at things critically for my own development. I have never had to critically think about an exhibition before but immediately I knew what questions I was compelled to research because of this amazing illustration. Where does a traditional artist such as Quentin Blake sit in the digital age and, is there a future for this kind of illustration?
In an interview with Kim Jun Ji he expresses, “With the advancement in technology, many of us can now cover our weakness using digital tools. But that’s like building a sandcastle. You might reach a certain height, but you will not be able to go beyond that. I wish for the students to build up on their traditional skills and reserve on using digital tools the younger they are.” (Dimitras, 2018) Kim Jun Ji is an illustrator famous for hand drawing huge scenes all from memory and without reference. Although this is a technique that most artists are unable to use, he was an advocate for using traditional drawing to learn art. This is an argument for where traditional stands today and it is with teaching. An interesting opposition to this comes within the field of children’s book illustrations. Studies have been conducted and research analysed of the benefits of interactivity in books. To summarise the findings, it is clear that interactivity, made possible with digital books, leads the children to increased reading activity in their own time and also indicates quicker learning of new words. (Kucirkova, 2017)
At the end of the exhibition, we were invited to draw the BFG based on a set of instructions by Quentin himself. I took the opportunity home with me where I followed his instructions and then created a small study piece on his style. It was very freeing to work in this style, I have a scratchy ink style myself but not free like this. I chose my ink poorly and it did not hold up against the watercolour but, I feel like this helped in my study as I had to avoid the line work. This left me with a very stylized colouring which is not afraid to leave the white of the page, something which often frightens me to do. It beleive that this exercise is going to be important for me to do often to re-explore my influences and develop my style even further.
“Children make their own explorations into reading, pursue their own tastes and initiatives – it’s like a machine that creates its own energy.” (Blake, 2018, P19) Quentin says this in response to the opening of a small children’s library but, I think it can be used within the debate here quite well. Children will simply read the things in the way that they want to, based on their own preferences. My own childhood was filled with the works of artists like Quentin Blake and to this day, I find joy in following a basic tutorial from an exhibition. Children today may be influenced differently, and it is intriguing to think that it is our childhood influences that answer whether traditional illustration is still relevant. As long as traditional artists are still influencing young minds then they will forever live on as relevant, only when we stop and give in to the digital age completely will we then have made ourselves irrelevant, and not through technologies bidding.
Finally, I must consider sustainability within the relevance of traditional illustration. Although this is a much larger subject, I bring it into question specifically with Quentin Blakes processes. In a documentary about his illustration, he describes his process and making sketches which he puts onto a light box, he then lays paper over the top and completes his drawings in ink. He will sometimes do this repeatedly until he gets it right no matter how many pages he uses. (Christies, 2018) This way of working is certainly not credited to only Quentin Blake and that brings about the question of sustainability within individual practice. It is more for the purpose of personal reflection that I am interested in this particular topic. It is important to learn from the master’s in terms of how to do things but also in terms of how to change necessary things. I am grateful to know that this process is used by an early influence of mine because I can make the change to make sure that I am not conducting my practice in this way as it is relevant for the world today.
For a long time I have mused over the question of where traditional illustration stands today. I have been able to adopt technology in some way but cannot simply disregard my strategies completely. I think that the work of Kim Jun Ji and how he describes education is a wonderful place to plant traditional illustration and going forward I can put my mind at ease, sometimes validation is all one needs. For my practice I believe it will be important to keep up to date on papers and articles responding to this question so that I can secure my style within the digital age and have the research to back up my theories. I feel like this knowledge can only help me develop further by pushing the boundaries of what I can do but still staying true to myself and my art.
Bibliography
Blake, Q. (2018) ‘Quentin Blake pens ink & places’. London: Tate Publishing.
Christie’s. (2018). Quentin Blake on doing things a writer can’t do. [Online video]. June 23rd. Available at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41GOaeMqaTA> [Accessed 18/10/2022]
Dimitras, D. (2018). Interview with Kim Jun Ji. [Online] Available at <https://visualatelier8.com/interview-with-kim-jung-gi/> [Accessed 20/10/2022]
Kim, j-G. (2022) About Kim Jung Gi. [Online] Available at <https://www.kimjunggius.com/pages/about-artist> [Accessed 20/10/2022]
Kucirkova, N. (2017). ‘An integrative framework for studying, designing and conceptualising interactivity in children’s digital books’, British Educational Research Journal, 43(6) PP 1168-1185. Doi 10.1002/berj.3317 [Online] Available at <https://bera-journals-onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/doi/pdf/10.1002/berj.3317> [Accessed 20/10/2022)
Science doc. (2016). The marvellous world of Roald Dahl – BBC documentary. [Online Video] October 7th. Available at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTnn5RLxEQo> [Accessed 18/10/2022)
Shulman, V. (2017). ‘”The books we all read”’ The lion and the unicorn. 41(2). [Online] Available at <https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/article/677546> [Accessed 20/10/2022]
Chloe Cooper | MA Illustration 
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