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Wise words on illustration

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Headshot of John Burningham

John Burningham

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“There is nothing better than w...”
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    I don’t write a story and then do the illustrations. I have to know what’s going to be on every page. I do endless little sketches which represent pictures and text

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    God knows what the rules are to all this.

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    First, you’ve got to get the drawing absolutely right and then you can forget about that and concentrate on the colour.

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    The best preparation for my work now was the fact that I wasn't pressured as a child. Mucking about is essential for everybody.

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    I think that in order to be a successful writer for children you have to be able to communicate with a certain age group. I've stuck to a mental age of five.

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    There is nothing better than when a drawing works but when it doesn’t … this is the horror of the arts: because you have been doing it for 50 years, it doesn’t guarantee that you can ever make colour work again.

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    Picture book texts are 2,000 words pruned down to 80.

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    I never do anything differently because it’s for children. I am not trying to make a landscape that children can understand. I am just making a landscape.

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    Getting older makes you want to get on with your work, while there is still time.

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    Colour means absolutely nothing unless it is used to some effect.

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    As soon as you start to deliberately put messages across, it’s like a Seventh Day Adventist on the doorstep… you realise you are being got at. The 11th Commandment should have been ‘Thou Shalt Not Bore’.

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