Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration has announced National Illustration Day, a new initiative to celebrate the pictures that are essential to our lives and the people who make them.
Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration has announced National Illustration Day, a new initiative to celebrate the pictures that are essential to our lives and the people who make them.
“Illustration is a beautifully immediate and impactful way to make a point, get across information, provide clarity – but it also imparts powerful emotion and empathy.” Lauren Child, National Illustration Day ambassador.
On 24 November people across the country will be invited to share a useful, inspiring or much-loved illustration. Persuasive posters, nostalgic picture books, icons forecasting rain or shine and everything in between will be shared across social media via #NationalIllustrationDay.
Running alongside this digital campaign will be a nationwide project with schools, libraries and home educators, inviting children to illustrate an “act of celebration”.
Free online resources will encourage budding illustrators to draw, collage, paint, sculpt and use digital media to express their ideas and share their stories in new and exciting ways.
The illustrated celebrations will be shared in a digital gallery offering a snapshot of what the idea of celebration means to young people across the UK in 2023.
In Islington, where the Quentin Blake Centre is establishing a new cultural destination opening 2025, there will be a National Illustration Day ‘pop up’ at the Angel Central shopping centre, offering a drop-in workshop on the day. In Poole the Centre continues its touring ‘Quentin Blake: Illustrating Verse’ exhibition.
Illustrator Lena Yokoyama’s National Illustration Day identity captures the fun of making illustration, and includes the logo, stickers, posters and activity sheets that anyone can download from qbcentre.org.uk, to use and share to celebrate illustration.
Participation is central to the ethos of Quentin Blake Centre – the country’s first and only charity dedicated to the art of illustration. The Centre’s founder Quentin Blake was only a school pupil when his first illustration was published in Punch magazine in 1949 and has since created some of the most beloved images of the 20th and 21st century. When the Centre’s new home opens in 2025, it will provide a home for Blake’s 40,000-work archive, alongside galleries sharing illustration from around the world and learning and project spaces.
Illustrator and Quentin Blake Centre Ambassador Lauren Child says “Visual literacy is a universal language that allows us to navigate the world and understand each other better. Illustration is a beautifully immediate and impactful way to make a point, get across information, provide clarity – but it also imparts powerful emotion and empathy.
“Everyone can enjoy drawing and making pictures – it can be very nourishing for us to take a moment and observe the world around us.
“I’m delighted that there will now be a day to celebrate this art form and invite everyone to join in this joyful pursuit.”
Quentin Blake Centre Director Lindsey Glen says “National Illustration Day is a celebration of the everyday images that tell us stories, explain ideas, instruct and persuade us. At Quentin Blake Centre we’re on a mission to champion this vital, immediate and accessible form of communication, and to empower people of all ages to share their stories and ideas.
“We can’t wait to see the illustrations posted online across the UK as part of this new national celebration!”
Lena Yokoyama, creator of the National Illustration Day 2023 branding said: “I am so excited that the art of illustration is finally getting its very own day to be celebrated.”
