One of my clearest memories from early primary years was laying on my tummy on a friend’s carpet poring through Graeme Base’s The Eleventh Hour. I can still picture exactly where the animals and clues were hidden.
Twenty something years later I am still finding hidden animals and clues as I look over my daughter’s shoulder. My nephew and niece in California also adore his books.
How can one person be so talented?
I think if you had told early primary me I would get to email with Graeme Base sometime in the future, I would have been well impressed.
You probably already know most of Graeme’s classics – Sign of the Seahorse, Animalia of course, The Waterhole … The Last King of Angkor Wat is Graeme’s latest masterpiece.
Hi Graeme. I can paint, but do very simple images. I can’t begin to imagine how long it takes you to create books like yours. So, how long does a book like ‘The Last King of Angkor Wat’ take to complete?
The artwork for each book takes around a year to create. But before this there is usually a period of living with the idea, slowly developing the various layers to the story and the overall concept. It is this layering which I find makes the books worth spending all the time on!
How do your ideas come about?
For me the best source of ideas is travel. Sometimes the inspiration arrives as a direct link from an experience – The Sign of the Seahorse came from my first go at scuba diving for instance – The Last King of Angkor Wat was the result of a trip to Cambodia – but sometimes it is more convoluted – The Legend of the Golden Snail was the result of seeing a spiral-shaped wall lamp with a curved shade in a hotel room in France – I joked to my kids that it looked like a ‘Snailing Ship’. They were unimpressed (Dad’s joke #375) but I did a scribble of a little snail character with sails and this eventually became the book.
What is your process? Do you write the story first, or begin with illustrations? What then?
Idea first, almost always visually based (ie, I almost always start by wanting to create artwork not write a story) then basic story concept and first draft text followed by a period of layer-development (see above). Next comes a study of the layout – what will go on each page (and how many pages there will be) after which I begin to work on finished designs for the pages. When these are all done I revisit the text, tweaking it, editing it, and only then do I commence final artwork. The last stage is cover/jacket design and supervision of the pre-press process – only then do I let it go!
Can you tell us what a typical day in the life of Graeme Base looks like?
It depends very much on how close the next deadline is. I work from home, (which is nice as it allows me to mix family and work life quite easily) and generally working fairly regular hours, but when the deadline looms the hours get longer and longer. I guess I actually work every day when I am creating a new book, but when I am between projects I can suit myself what I do and for how long.
Where do you work?
My studio is upstairs. Currently it is a total mess, more of a storeroom than a studio, as we have just moved house so there is nothing much to show.
And finally, the big question… Why do you create books for children?
The obvious answer is because I am a big kid myself – and it’s true – artists generally never truly grow up – but it is also because picture books are one of the only genuinely creative openings for an artist like me who wants to create fantastical imagery of made-up worlds, link them with a throughline and perhaps imbue those images and the story with a message or two.
Thank you Graeme!
Do you have a favourite Graeme Base book?
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