HOW I DRAW
Even though I’m drawing over my
rough, I try to think that I’m drawing
it the first time. The rough is there to
help the memory: I want a reminder
of what it is like, not a tracing.
Quite often I will draw the face
first to get the expression right, so
sometimes I will have several sheets
of paper with just a face in the middle.
That’s another slightly maddening
thing: sometimes you look back at the
roughs and the drawing gets better,
but there is perhaps something in the
expression, maybe a slightly quizzical
look, that you struggled to get into the
final version. If it’s a book project,
I keep a portfolio with all the roughs
and final drawings in. It’s only if it’s
horribly wrong that you screw it up
and purge the atmosphere of a bad
drawing. I often do two or three final
drawings too. You end up thinking did
I pick the right one? You have to grit
yourteethandmakea decision.With watercolours, I use full pans.
Those little paintboxes they come
in are really for if you are out in the
landscape – I prefer to separate the
pans out on a sheet of card and label
them, so I know which I am getting.
You tend to get the paint about rather,
but it’s much easier to work like that.
I suppose drawing is instinctive and
I know what’s happening, whereas
colour is instinctive but I don’t know
what’s happening. Sometimes, if
there’s a boy in a drawing, he might
be wearing a purple t-shirt, because
the colours seem to go together.
Colour helps to introduce atmosphere.PLANNING BOOKS
When it comes to commissions
now, it has to be a juicy story or just
something small and nice. What I’m
doing at the moment is Samuel
Beckett’s Waiting for Godot for the
Folio Society. Any other story happens
in the world and you can take it from
a different point of view, but this
you can only draw a performance.
My illustrations were like anotherRoald Dahl put things in his books to
set me off. We talked about it a lot