Quentin Blake – The Drawing of My Life: The illustrator and author paints scenes from a 70-year-long career, including his work with Roald Dahl. With David Walliams, Joanna Lumley, Peter Capaldi, Ore Oduba and Michael Rosen.
In this celebration of one of Britain’s best-loved artists, the illustrator and author Sir Quentin Blake tells the story of his 70-year-long career in his own words and with his own pictures. Specially for this documentary, he has been filmed creating an extraordinary new work: a canvas 30 feet long and seven feet high, on which self-portraits and classic characters emerge in the instantly recognisable, energetic and ebullient style that has taken root in the imaginations of successive generations of children and parents.
Quentin Blake turns 89 in December 2021. His first book was published 61 years ago, and over 500 volumes later, he is still hard at work, drawing every day and determined to break down the barriers between illustration and ‘fine arts’. As he looks back for the first documentary to be dedicated to his life, Blake shares his pleasure in the blank page, the scratch of a quill, and the enjoyable mischief and chaos of childhood.
Some of his closest collaborators and biggest admirers pay tribute – among them David Walliams, Michael Rosen, Lauren Child, Chris Riddell, Steven Appleby, Dapo Adeola, Josie Long and Emma Chichester Clark. There are also readings of works Blake has illustrated, performed by Joanna Lumley, Peter Capaldi and Ore Oduba.
Quentin Blake – The Drawing of My Life
Sir Quentin Saxby Blake, is an English cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator and children’s writer. He has illustrated over 300 books, including 18 written by Roald Dahl, which are among his most popular works. For his lasting contribution as a children’s illustrator he won the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002, the highest recognition available to creators of children’s books. From 1999 to 2001 he was the inaugural British Children’s Laureate. He is a patron of the Association of Illustrators.
During the 1960s, Blake taught English at the Lycée Français de Londres which cemented his long association with France and culminated in the award of the Legion of Honour. He taught at the Royal College of Art for over twenty years, where he was head of the Illustration department from 1978 to 1986.
The first book that Blake illustrated was The Wonderful Button by Evan Hunter, published by Abelard-Schuman in 1961. In his subsequent career he gained a reputation as a loyal, reliable and humorous illustrator of more than 300 children’s books, including some written by Joan Aiken, Elizabeth Bowen, Sylvia Plath, Roald Dahl, Nils-Olof Franzén, William Steig, and Dr. Seuss. He illustrated the first Seuss book that Seuss did not illustrate himself, Great Day for Up! (1974). By 2006, Blake had illustrated 323 books, of which he had written 35 and Dahl had written 18. To date, Blake has illustrated two of David Walliams’ books and has illustrated Folio Society Limited Editions such as Don Quixote, Candide and 50 Fables of La Fontaine.
