Tmag

Yesterday Robbie and I visited Tmag, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart. It was a spur of the moment, what to do on Sunday idea, but it turned out to have a lot of relevance to what's been on my mind lately.

I have been thinking a lot about publishing, children's publishing and illustration, and have been looking at people doing great things in this field. I've been visiting contemporary children's stores and trying to not make a complete bee line for the kid's book section at bookstores and libraries. It's exciting to see the books and zines I've been reading about on the web in person. To be able to flick through them and experience them - like a kid.

They're simple because they're well resolved, and I think it's a great skill to have the ability communicate quickly and concisely, in fewer words with a few images.

As a result I have been thinking about the illustrators and illustrations that I grew up with, including team Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, an appreciation for Ernest Howard Shepard's Winnie the Pooh, and many largely through television, including Ludwig Bemelman's Madeline, and Spot by Eric Hill.

I wonder if these have shaped the illustrations that catch my attention today (immediacy, ink and rough colour), such as the sketches of Alan Fletcher and Bob Gill.

In the gift shop (my favourite!) I spotted two great books for kids (which I would be keen on buying for myself), The Colouring Book by Herve Tullet, and Drawing: For the Artistically Undiscovered by Quentin Blake, which led me to this video. I think the appeal of these black ink lines with spilling watercolour in between may also have to do with the watercolour books my Grandma used to give me (where you just use water on a paintbrush and the colour appears on the page bleeding from ink dots).
:)

Children and Cats

Settled into Hobart now, I finished Bruno Munari's book 'Design as Art' during my first week here. Within the helpful chapter on Children's Books he states;

'Knowing children is like knowing cats. Anyone who doesn't like cats will not like children or understand them. Every day you see some old woman approach a child with terrible grimaces and babble idiocies in a language full of booes and cooes and peekiweekies. 

Children generally regard such persons with the utmost severity, because they seem to have grown old in vain. Children do not understand what on earth they want, so they go back to their games, simple and serious games that absorb them completely.

To enter the world of a child (or cat) the least you must do is sit down on the ground without interrupting the child in whatever he is doing, and wait for him to notice you. It will then be the child who makes contact with you, and you (being older, and I hope not older in vain) with your higher intelligence will be able to understand his needs and his interests, which are by no means confined to the bottle and the potty. He is trying to understand the world he is living in, he is groping his way ahead from one experience to the next, always curious and wanting to know everything.'

I took this photo of our neighbours cat sitting in our garage/carport yesterday. I don't know his name yet but it's a nice cat who loves our yard, and house too. I waltzed in and interrupted him though, sorry!

I will look for vintage Munari children's books. 

Home life

We're twenty days in our place today, and five years together tomorrow.