About Graeme

Graeme Base is one of the world’s leading creators of picture books. His madly detailed alphabet book Animalia received international acclaim when it was first published in 1986 and has now sold over three million copies. The book has also inspired an animated TV series, has its own app and is the first offering in a detailed digital education program called The Graeme Base Educational Suite.

Amongst numerous awards across many of his published works, Graeme has received the 2007 Speech Pathology Book of the Year (Younger Readers), the 2007 Wilderness Society Environment Award and the 1989 Children’s Book Council of Australia Picture Book of the Year.

Graeme lives in Melbourne with his wife Robyn and their three children.

FAQ

Where were you born?

I was born in Amershan in the south of England in 1958.

Where do you get your ideas from?

For me travel is the best way of getting new ideas. Sometimes they come directly from an experience (The Sign of the Seahorse was inspired by my ﬁrst experience of scuba diving in Martinique) or something I have seen (a sail-like lampshade on a hotel wall in France inspired the idea of a ‘Snailing Ship’, which became The Legend of the Golden Snail).

Other times simply being away from normal life allows my mind to wander in an imaginative receptive way, and that’s when new ideas sneak in.

Did you always want to be a writer?

Actually, I always wanted to be an artist (or maybe a musician). Writing came later when I ﬁgured out that if I wrote the stories myself l could draw what I wanted instead of what someone else wanted.

What is your favourite book that you have written?

In terms of the text, I have a soft spot for The Discovery of Dragons and also TruckDogs because it was the first (and so far only) time I have written a long-form story.

What was your favourite book as a child?

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien was hugely inﬂuential. I must have read it at least ten times, cover to cover. Before that I really can’t remember.

What comes ﬁrst, story or pictures?

Ideas come ﬁrst – usually visually driven. Next come scribbles, not stories, as I am first and foremost an artist not a writer – but very soon I have to stop drawing and concentrate on story because without a good story the scribbles can never become a book.

When the story is ﬁxed in my mind I design the layout of the book (what is going to appear on each page) then ﬁnally I design and execute the ﬁnal artwork.

What would you do if you didn’t make books?

I’d be a musician. I used to play in a band called Rikitikitavi (first drums then keyboards) and I still love playing and writing music. Mostly these days I play and write on guitar.

Is your studio in Australia your favourite place to work?

My studio is upstairs at my house. Working from home is one of the best parts of my job. The amount of time I spend there is directly related to how far away the deadline is, though I ﬁnd more often than not I need to discipline myself to stop work rather than start. There is always so much to do.

Do you have any strange illustrating and/or writing quirks?

Although I did a graphic design course, I’m pretty much self-taught as far as my technique goes. It is a bit weird in that I work on one section of the page at a time, taking it to a high level of ﬁnish before I move on to the next white space. My wife Robyn, who is a classically trained oil painter, is always amazed that the pictures manage to hang together in the end!

Why did you start creating books for children?

I always wanted to be an artist, ever since I was a kid. I was always drawing in the margins of my school books. Eventually I did a graphic design course then got a job in advertising. I hated it! They didn’t like me much either – I was sacked for incompetence (hard to do a good job if you have zero interest in what you are doing). I started to do freelance illustration for some publishing companies, doing pictures for other people’s texts, then decided to have a go at writing a story myself. It was a poem called My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch. It was published in 1983 and I’ve been writing and illustrating my own books ever since.

Do your own children serve as inspiration for your books?

Strange to say, not a lot. I began writing and illustrating long before I had kids and the impetus was purely my own need to create. I had ideas for pictures and I wanted to make them real. Another strange fact is that my kids have probably read fewer of my books than many of their friends – my wife and I would always read to them but it just felt weird reading them one of my own books! Occasionally I have read them a draft manuscript (the original verse version of TruckDogs for instance, before it morphed into a novel) but this was rare.

Were you always a good writer?

I always enjoyed English and writing at school. I was a bit of a weird kid because I was interested in things like grammar and spelling. I have found that the most important thing in doing work you are happy with is understanding that your ﬁrst draft is NEVER the ﬁnal draft. You can always improve things through careful editing – and you must be prepared to put in the hard work to create a good result.

Do you write all the time?

Writing only takes up a small part of my working day. I spend far more time on the artwork for my books. However, a picture book text can still take weeks to get right and even at the end of the project I am still ﬁnding ways to improve the text.

Have you ever written under another name?

I nearly used a pseudonym for a book called TruckDogs – I was going to call myself Axel Leash – but changed my mind in the end.

What age group are your books for?

With the exception of the Little Bug Book series (I’ve done six so far with three more to come in 2016) I don’t really aim my books at any particular age group, I just make books that I (artist/adult/child/parent/lover-of-nature) am inspired to make. I suspect my publishers, Penguin, are more interested in defining a target market for each book, but I try to remain unconcerned by this aspect. Instead, I strive to include layers in my books so that almost anyone can find an entry point to the story and/or artwork and something to enjoy.

What made you want to write The Waterhole?

I wrote The Waterhole because I love animals and I love games. There are lots of games to play in the book – counting all the animals, ﬁnding the hidden animals, ﬁnding the frogs (and counting backwards as they disappear). It is a book with a great many layers.

What is your favourite animal?

My favourite animal is the warthog. They are just so unbelievably ugly!

Why did you make Enigma?

I love problem-solving. In Enigma I wanted to hide the solution to the mystery that is set up in the story in such a way that a reader could ﬁnd the answer but then cover it up again so that another reader would not have their fun spoiled. This meant I needed to invent some kind of ‘relockable safe’ – but it had to be made of cardboard, and it had to be affordable, and it had to be robust, and it had to be reliable! It took AGES to come up with the concept and ages more to reﬁne it to the point where I knew it would work every time but eventually I hit on a workable design. In the back of every copy of Enigma there is a ‘magic box’ with spinning dials and a sliding panel that can be unlocked to reveal the solution to the mystery code and relocked so that the next reader can have the fun of doing it themselves. And it all ﬁts into the back cover of the hardback book. (You can tell I am just a little bit proud of this!)

The inspiration for the story was the special relationship between my oldest son, James, and his grandpa.

How long does each illustration take?

Each piece of art takes anything from two to six weeks, depending on complexity.

Who else has influenced you or your work?

As a kid: Salvador Dali, René Magritte and Albrecht Dürer.

Later: Maxfield Parrish, William Delaﬁeld Cook, Kit Williams and Michael Hague.

Now: David Wiesner, William Joyce, Chris Van Allsburg and Robert Ingpen.

How did you get started in the illustration ﬁeld?

I drew and drew and drew. Eventually I had such a lot of material that showing prospective employers what I could do was fairly easy. Then I got lucky… I met the right guy (Bob Sessions at Penguin Books Australia) at the right time (the publishing business was in great shape) with the right idea (he suggested I do something Australian – I went home and wrote Gooligulch). Then I worked very hard – which wasn’t that hard really because I loved what I was doing – I got my first publishing deal, and it just went from there.

What made you write Animalia?

A momentary madness – who in their right mind would have imagined the world needed or wanted another English-language alphabet book?!

Why did you make Animalia into a TV series?

It was someone else’s idea – but it seemed like a good one!

What’s the difference in the creative process between books and TV?

A book is like a lake – you can paddle about, stop, go back a bit, plumb the depths, admire the scenery, take as long as you want. TV is a river – and a fast ﬂowing one at that – miss something and it’s gone. There’s no going back. So what works in a book doesn’t necessarily work in a TV series. This is why Animalia the TV series is so different from Animalia the book.

How do you make your pictures?

Mostly I use watercolours and coloured pencils on cartridge paper. I also sometimes use an airbrush (which sprays colour onto the paper). More recently I have been learning how to make illustrations on my computer, and really enjoying it. I use a combined tablet/screen called a Wacom Cintiq.

Have you kept your favourite drawing from when you were a kid?

Lots of them – I’ve been adding to a ‘box of ideas’ for over 40 years.

Do you do a lot of research to make your characters look so real?

I use photographic references – my own and others – then use this information to create the anthropomorphic effect I look for. However, my characters are not actually all that realistic (except perhaps some in The Waterhole and the ones I have just completed for Eye to Eye) – it is an illusion resulting from textural detailing in the fur. Sometimes I make models of the characters out of clay and paint them before I begin making the pictures. I did this for all the main characters in TruckDogs.

What were you like at school?

Smaller. But I was always drawing and playing music at every opportunity. That hasn’t changed.

What advice would you give a student entering into the field of illustration?

The Four Ps.

PASSION: you have to love what you do.

PERSPIRATION: you must be prepared to work hard to turn your ideas into reality.

PERSISTENCE: never give up; you will strike disappointments, keep going regardless.

PROVENANCE: sometimes you just need to be in the right place at the right time – be aware of these times and capitalise on them. Luck is part of the equation!

Is Graeme Base your real name?

Yes. Who’d make something like that up?

Do you have any children?

Yep, three: James, Kate and Will.

Where do you live now?

I’ve lived in Melbourne, Australia, since I was eight years old.

Do you have any pets?

We’ve got a yellow Labrador called Lucy, a rather handsome Bengal cat with the literary name of Atticus and some nameless ﬁsh.

How many books have you written?

I’ve written and illustrated something like 20 books over 33 years.

How long does each book take?

Each book usually takes one or two years, though I am getting faster. Getting the ideas is quick, and writing is reasonably quick too – it’s the artwork that takes the time, and the layering of ideas and messages that I like to include in my books.

Why do you like mixing up different animals when you draw?

I guess I just like inventing things. The humour of the weird juxtaposition of familiar things in unexpected ways also appeals.

Why do you like hiding different creatures?

I liked books that had puzzles and clues when I was a kid so it was natural for me to have a go at creating this kind of book when I was older. After a while I think readers began to expect there to be some kind of hidden element or puzzle in my books so I have just kept on thinking that way.

How did you think of all the puzzles and codes for The Eleventh Hour?

I simply got a book on codes and puzzles out of the local library. That easy!

What is the name of the swan in The Eleventh Hour?

I can’t tell you – but the answer lies in the cards…

Have you ever seen the animals that you put in your books?

I have been lucky enough to see most of the animals I have put in the books during my travels over the years, but not all of them. Some, like the snow leopard, I have only seen in zoos.

Have your books been published in other languages?

Several of my books have been translated into other languages including French, German, Danish, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Hebrew, Mandarin, Korean and Japanese.

What is the worst thing you have ever eaten?

Intentionally? A cheese called ‘Stinky Bishop’. The name says it all and I really should have known better.

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