Year 3 & 4 Amazing Authors

Amazing Authors from years  4, 5 and 6, ventured to Federation Square to listen to author and illustrator, Graeme Base. Olivia and Jesse explain:

The Year 4, 5 and 6 Amazing Authors went to Federation Square in the city to listen to the author and illustrator Graeme Base.  He talked to us about how his career started and how he gets his creative ideas for stories.

I am sure you are all familiar with some of his books including '11th Hour', 'The Waterhole',  'Animalia' and 'Sign of the Seahorse'. Did you know that it took him 3 years to complete the book 'Animalia'?

Just to give you all a brief background, Graeme Base was born in England and came to Australia when he was 8 years old. He told us that he wrote and illustrated his first book when he was only 8 and interestingly enough this book was used to inspire him later on to create a book.

Graeme Base loved to draw and he told us how he sold some of his pictures to his teachers.  This encouraged him to keep drawing and his mum would keep all of his drawings in a little ideas box which he later on used to create other stories.

He always had an interest in wild life and drew on his own experiences for all his stories. A trip to Africa inspired him to write The Waterhole and a scuba diving experience became the basis for his story The Sign of the Seahorse.  He would research animals at the zoo and when asked what was his favourite animal to draw he told us that it was the elephant.  We also found out that his least favourite animal to draw were humans because everyone knows the subject matter.

His advice to us was to continue to draw and keep an ideas box and use for inspiration when wanting an idea to create a story.

We feel so inspired and are so looking forward to sharing more of our own stories with you all.