Book Illustration Quotes

I never wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a book illustrator. I used to hurry home from school and draw.

When I illustrate a cover or a book, I draw upon what the author tells me; that's how I see my responsibility as an illustrator. J.K. Rowling is very descriptive in her writing — she gives an illustrator a lot to work with. Each story is packed full of rich visual descriptions of the atmosphere, the mood, the setting, and all the different creatures and people. She makes it easy for me. The images just develop as I sketch and retrace until it feels right and matches her vision.

Stan is a rescue Chihuahua mix. He was the role model for Bob, the dog in 'Ivan.' The drawings in the book look precisely like Stan.

I have a private press. I'm a book artist. I publish books of other authors and artists. I do the illustrating. I set the type. I print it myself on my press. I do everything but bind it.

During the Middle Ages they understood that words accompanied by imagery are much more memorable. By making the margins of a book colorful and beautiful, illuminations help make the text unforgettable. It's unfortunate that we've lost the art of illumination.

I became interested in making books, starting about 1965, when I did the Serial Project #1, deciding that I needed a small book to show how the work could be understood and how the system worked.

How long a book tends to illustrate depends on the book. 'The Awful Aunty' took me 10 days.

When I'm not working on a children's book, I'm painting abstract paintings. That's probably the most joyous thing for me as an artist. But I do love children's books.

I have been illustrating Tolkien's books ever since I first read them, long before illustration became my profession.

I've never met any artist who illustrated one of my books, although I've corresponded briefly with one. I have always been impressed by the technical expertise involved in the covers, even if sometimes puzzled by the subject matter.

I still do some inking here and there and I've actually got a book that I'm going to ink entirely.

Ursula Nordstrom was famous for finding artists in unlikely places. Maurice Sendak was a window designer, and she just came across one of his windows. Everyone was looking to find a talent.

I've always felt that I was a bit of an outsider to the British children's-book illustration scene, because I don't work in line and wash.

There is nothing on earth more exquisite than a bonny book, with well-placed columns of rich black writing in beautiful borders, and illuminated pictures cunningly inset. But nowadays, instead of looking at books, people read them. A book might as well be one of those orders for bacon and bran.

Why did Ted Geisel end up writing and illustrating for young minds? He has specific imagery in the book, and we never would have moved beyond the discussion phase, if we couldn't have found an expression for The Lorax, dimensionally, that was true to the soul of what comes through in his simple line drawings, on the page.

As an author, you can't expect a movie to be an illustration of the book. If that's what you hope for, you shouldn't sell the rights.

For most of my career I illustrated books for other people.

I enjoyed doing the gag covers better than the story ones because they were usually simpler. A cover based on an incident in the plot took a great deal of staging to tell a little story that was still part of the book. And it had to make sense on its own.

Whenever the kindly uncles and aunts came over for a cup of tea and asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, it was always the same: an 'authoress', and illustrate my own books.

I have always felt like an artist when I work on a book. I see no reason why the word should always be confined to writers of fiction and poetry.