Ronald Searle BBC – Late Night Line up Paris

Perpetua

Ronald Searle fans should add Matt Jonez Searle tribute to their blog list. Congratulations to Matt for creating the biggest resource of the master cartoonist.

For those who havent seen the interview! 😛

A Searle Quote

Drawing for me has never been a case of therapy because I was shy, or not outstanding in physical activities, or anything else. It was a compulsion. I carried a sketchbook day and night, because I could not stop drawing. To sell a sketch was a pleasure, because it meant a little less economic worry and more freedom to explore. But if I had not sold, I still would not have stopped.

To me line is something which one can explore endlessly, and which keeps me in a constant feeling of excitement and adventure. I know I shall never live long enough to say and do all I want in line. I can only hope to get up each day, bursting to push the exploration a little further. But line is useless if one has nothing to say with it. The artist must be driven with the desire to express something, and use any device to achieve it. He must be perverse. Everybody will want to mold him to their pattern. But in the end he has to satisfy himself — or spend his life trying to please other people.

If satisfaction with one’s work creeps in, the time has come to give up and take to prostitution. A sure sign that there is still hope is when one is miserable at not having met one’s own demands.

The hand is feeble and the artist has still to express with exactitude what his brain conjures up.

Some day it may be possible

-Ronald Searle

Image from Matt Jones, Perpetua.
Quote from Michael Sporn.

St. Trinian’s Animation Test

Just saw this on Facebook and had to post it immediately. Uli Meyer recently did this fantastic St. Trinian’s animation test in Ronald Searle’s beautiful drawing style.

On September 22nd, I presented a 25sec animation test featuring a St. Trinian’s schoolgirl to the creator of those classic British characters, Ronald Searle himself. Searle has had a few bad experiences when it comes to animation -his drawing style is extremely difficult to adapt and apart from a few short pieces of animation done by Ivor Woods in the 70s, he hasn’t been impressed by any attempts. Nevertheless, I thought I’d give this a go and am delirious to report that he loved it! He even commented that it was the best he’d seen since Ivor: a truly wonderful compliment.

Click here for the rest of the entry. Also, check out Uli Meyer’s post on his blog.

Here it is in color: