And the Children’s Laureate for 2009-2011 goes to the illustrator Anthony Browne

He is British man born in Sheffield. He is 63 and his books have been translated to 25 languages. He writes and illustrates children books. He won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1985. In 2000 he became the first British illustrator ever to win the Hans Christian Andersen Award, for his services to children’s literature. On 9 June 2009 he was appointed the new Children’s Laureate for 2009 to 2011. Some of their books are: Gorilla, Into the Forest, Little Beauty, My Dad, My Mum, Silly Billy, Voices in the Park, A Walk in the Park, and Willy the Wimp.

He is the famous Anthony Browne.

Anthony Browne was in Chile the last week. He was brought with the efforts of the Fondo de Cultura Económica and I was too lucky to get a sit to listen his words. These are my personal notes.

He wanted to be a painter, but eventually he studied graphic design at Leeds College of Art, where he graduated in 1967. But his first approach to illustration was working as a medical illustrator, for Manchester Royal Infirmary. Then he was working as a illustrator of greetings cards for Gordon Fraser. And, in his own words, he found by accident the perfect job as a guest resident at Tate Museum.

He says his books are aim to everybody, from children to adults.

In his opinion, the perfect situation for a illustrator is when the writer and the illustrator are the same person, or when they work together ( when they are not the same person, of course. We are not talking about extreme cases of personality dicotomy). In England, is very usual to have an illustrator who is the writer at the same time. Maybe the reason is because the Editorials foster the illustrators to write or present ideas.

He loves the happy endings. And his favorite ending is the end of the book Gorilla.

About the creative and technique process, he usually is inspired by dreams and then he combines them with simple ideas. He gives a capital importance to subconciousness. He creates first the characters. It is very common to see his characters wearing sweaters and that is because he always received them as a Christmas or Birthday presents when he was a child ( and he did not like them). Then he creates a “dummy”: a small amount of white papers ( of the same size of the pages of the real book), sticked toguether, and he glue the text on the pages and the illustrations, creating a sketch of the real book.

He uses pencil on paper to draw the sketches and the illustrations.

His primary illustration technique is watercolor. He likes it because this technique gives more control in the final result. He recommends to paint just small areas. He avoids acrylics because is too plastic and it is very hard to manage.

He never uses computers or scanners.

He told a terrible, but incredible issue he had with the Magritte Asociation (the owners of the copyrights of the paintings of Magritte). In the book Willy The Dreamer, appears a painting in the wall behind the sofa where Willy is sleeping. The Magritte Asociation declared it was a copyright infringement and Browne was forced to change the illustration to prevent a complaint. He argued that the original illustration was trying to encourage in the kids the artistic spirit, to intend become a great painter as Magritte was. But the Magritte Asociation do not believe in the good aim of the illustrator. Finally, the book was changed. He said he felt guilty, like a thief.

The secret of the success of their books, he said, is the universal and personal vision of the illustrations.

And I do not want to provoke you a heart-attack caused by envy, but now I have my “Willy, The Dreamer” signed by Anthony Browne.

Enjoy the illustrations¡