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Shakespeare Week Portraits

Martin Brown’s William Shakespeare

Who created it?

Martin Brown

  

What is it made of?

A 2B pencil (or not a 2B)

 

Artist Biography

Martin Brown is best known for being the illustrator of the phenomenally successful Horrible Histories series of books, which, after 26 years and 30 million copies sold, have gone on to become award winning stage and TV shows. Horrible Histories, The Movie came out in summer 2019.

Martin has also written and illustrated Lesser Spotted Animals and Lesser Spotted Animals 2 - fun non-fiction books about some of the world’s more unfamiliar wildlife - 'the brilliant beasts you never knew you needed to know about'.

 

About the Picture

'Having just finished the artwork for the latest Horrible Histories book I fully expected my drawing of Mr Shakespeare to be similarly cartoony and horrible. That’s certainly what I planned to do. But it didn’t turn out that way. The eyes have a cartoon look, but the rest? I think I was enjoying the feel of the 2B pencil too much. Unless it wasn’t a 2B at all of course.'