Armin Greder writes . . .
I learned to draw at school. Not in art classes, but in the boredom of maths and grammar and home economics. There, in the back of my exercise books, I would draw Genghis Khans, pirates, Arab sheiks, Tibetan monks. They had to have their horses, ships, camels, yaks. They had to be drawn in the right poses, so that they looked alive. And they had to be drawn well, so that I could believe in the pictures.
So, by way of these drawings, I would escape the tedium of the schoolroom and follow my Genghis Khans, pirates, Arab sheiks and Tibetan monks on their magnificent adventures in faraway places.
Now I illustrate picture books. Instead of drawing Genghis Khans, pirates, Arab sheiks and Tibetan monks I draw angry boys, big dogs, giant uncles, little girls who don't want to go to sleep, medieval princesses who don't want to get married, bears, starry skies, cars, whales. But they still have to be drawn in the right poses and they still have to be drawn well, so that when we open these books and read them, we can enter into the stories and live in them for the time it takes to read them. And so that they may stay with us after we have finished reading, and help us understand ourselves.
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