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'My illustration evolves as I go along but I am becoming more interested in discipline.' Charlotte Voake was born in Wales in 1957 and brought up in Chepstow and the Wirral. She didn't go to art school 'partly because my parents didn't want me to, but partly because of a lack of confidence'. Instead she did a degree in art history at the University of London. For a short while she worked at the Bluecoat Gallery in Liverpool but with the encouragement of friends, she illustrated her first children’s book.
Charlotte Voake wanted to be an illustrator ever since her first book was published while she was still at university. Since then she has illustrated many books for other authors, as well as producing her own picture books. Her work is notable for its draughtmanship and what has been called its 'freewheeling calligraphy'. Charlotte Voake is a Smarties award winner.
On her work'I love the way certain 18th-century artists developed a sort of graphic shorthand, especially when they drew trees. And the way I do eyes, with little dots, it's something I got from reading about the sculptor Bernini. Apparently when he was carving a portrait bust he found that the tiny dots he put on the marble to represent the position of the eyes immediately gave the whole thing its character – so I tried it on paper and it works very well – so that's a shorthand too. I find that if you draw the eyes in great detail the whole thing becomes stiff, too fixed. There's no room for imagination on the part of the person who's looking at it.'
'I don't use any pencil under-drawing, I just draw with ink, over and over again – doodle doodle doodle – until suddenly it's right and I think "Aha That's how it should be". So it gets all higgledy-piggledy over the page. It evolves as I go along. But I am becoming more interested in discipline. If there's something that I am going to have to draw again and again – like the child skipping in Elsie Piddock – then I'll prepare for that by drawing it from life so often that it becomes second nature. Fortunately my son William, who was about the right age, would skip for hours on end while I drew him.'
InspirationEdward Ardizzone - creator of Little Tim.
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