Part 7: Kathleen Hale

The first of many female artists to grace this blog, Kathleen Hale is perhaps most famous for her creation Orlando, the Marmalade Cat, whom she created to entertain her children before bed. Hale was a British artist, illustrator, and children's author. As Orlando's creator she was awarede the OBE in 1976.

Although not the best regarding image quality - the above example shows Hale's distinct almost playful illustrative style. A feature of her work that captivated her audience and made her success. Not being an illustrator myself, it would be difficult to judge this accordingly, and as such this style does not particularly stand-out against similar such works from a personal perpspective. However having said that it becomes clear when I look at such work why it became so popular, and indeed so appealing to children and publisher's alike. The basic yet effective use of colour, draws in the eye to such an extent it is unlikely many children would be uninterested....perhaps even to the point where the story/character(s) illustrated become obsolete as far as the child is concerned.

When we start to look closer at Hale's work we begin to get an idea why she became so successful. For instance in the illustration above we can see how she uses composition so dynamically that the audience, (particularly children) can almost instanly recognise and relate to the situation and character(s). For example the illustration above is accompanied by the following text:

"This patient, Grace reminded Orlando as they approached from the fourth bed, is suffering from a broken heart"

When we look at the two pieces of information in context we can immediately recognise how Hale has chosen to illustrate the scene for maximum visual legibility. However this raises the question do we need to read the text to understand the illustration? Does it make it successful if we can or unsuccessful if we are unable to do so?

One thing is certain......Kathleen Hale was very successful in her work.