Maurice Sendak
Maurice Sendak, the author and illustrator of children’s favourite Where The Wild Things Are died today age 83. I’ll be honest, I never read any of his books, but I have always had a huge soft spot for his illustrations.
Looking through The Guardian website today, I was dismayed to read that Sendak was annoyed by the term “children’s illustrator” ‘since it seems to belittle his talent. “I have to accept my role. I will never kill myself like Vincent Van Gogh. Nor will I paint beautiful water lilies like Monet. I can’t do that. I’m in the idiot role of being a kiddie book person,”’
In my view the images we see in books as children stay with us forever. I will never forget the image of Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin playing poohsticks on the bridge in 100 Acre Wood, nor the terrifying image of Alice in Wonderland shooting up in size after drinking the magic potion, or of the Enormous Turnip growing bigger and bigger with every page turn. These are the visual images that stay with us throughout our lives, that foster our creativity, excitement and joy for the world. Sendak’s wonderful imagery will continue to delight young and old for many more generations. Personally I’d take that joy over a water lilly any day….
Weekly artwork competition!
Want to design a cover image for our FB page?
- Each week starting this Friday we’ll showcase an artist/illustrator’s design on our cover image for one week.
- In the image details we will include a mini bio and link to your website.
- We’ll choose the design we like the best each Friday, and please make sure the cover image adheres to FB’s cover image rules which can be found here.
Please work your illustration/image around this template : http://bit.ly/Ki3lm1
Your artwork remains at all time your property, but you give us the right to use it in promotional material and on our social media sites.
Feel free to share this with people you think might appreciate the brief.
We look forward to seeing how creative/quirky/fun you can make it!
Please email all artwork to creatives@thecuriouspancake.co.uk along with a bit about you and the site you’d like the link back to.
Thank you!
