Emphatically Familiar

Australian Picture Books

Shaun Tan - Lost Thing

Yesterday I went to LOOK! 'The art of Australian Picture Books Today', an exhibition currently held at the State Library of Victoria. This exhibition was a chance to watch my childhood flash before my eyes by way of picture books. One of the cutest things about the exhibition was watching babies pretend to read, trying to look all grown up but perhaps they should go to school first, or even focus their efforts on walking. Babies are awesome, I shouldn't give them a hard time.

While I didn't recognise a lot of the books, the simplicity and style of illustration seems to be consistent and almost timeless throughout a generation. I attribute this to the crazy illustrators who all seem to have been around for a few decades and have developed a somewhat Beatrix Potter style. That is, they are appealing to the parents/adults, the primary picture book purchasers, who are likely to choose something that they can relate to through their own childhood. Effectively stagnating the progression of children's picture books, but I'm sure new styles are becoming popular...

Here are a few that I particularly liked-

Leigh Hobbs - Mr Badger & Mr Chicken

Graeme Base - The Eleventh Hour

So all in all, a pretty good exhibition. Nothing particularly ground breaking, very traditional but still useful to note different uses of media - watercolour, ink, pencil, collage. Perhaps my favourite part was making a paper frog from the free booklet. It was a pretty cool looking frog, pity it was crushed during transit. Maybe I'll make another one. Maybe.