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Inspiring projects and ideas for the whole family

draw!LET’S

Artists &I L L U S T R A T O R S

You might

need a few

of these!

In partnership with The Big Draw and

Campaign for Drawing

LET’Sdraw!LET’Sdraw!LET’Sdraw!

Sponsors of The 2014 Big Draw

From the makers of

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www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk Let’s Draw 3

D rawing is one of life’s simple pleasures, something we pick up as children and from which we can continue to fi nd

enjoyment for years to come. Brought to you in association with

The Big Draw and Artists & Illustrators magazine, this free 16-page Let’s Draw supplement has been designed to encourage the whole family to discover (or rediscover!) the simple joys of putting a pen or pencil on paper.

We hope that our simple project ideas and easy-to-follow demonstrations provide a little inspiration for you at home and don’t forget to take part in a Big Draw event during October – fi nd about some of the highlights on page 5.

4 Why draw?The Big Draw’s patron Andrew Marr offers a personal testament to the power of drawing

6 Let’s play!Stuck for ideas of what to draw next? Try these eight great projects that are fun for all the family

8 50 shades of greyTalented graphite artist Kelvin Okafor gives a masterclass in how to create a tonal portrait

10 Drawing like great artistsIllustrator Marion Deuchars shows you how to create a drawing in the style of Paul Klee

12 Drawing with kidsWhy all children deserve the chance to experiment with top quality art materials

14 Q&AIllustrator and Big Draw patron Posy Simmonds reveals her favourite pencil and hidden talents

WELCOME!

Subscribe to Artists & Illustrators, the UK’s biggest and best magazine for artists, and receive 1 year (13 issues)

for just £39.95 (usually £50).

PLUS we’ll send you a £20 voucher to spend on anything you like at Artdiscount.co.uk (one of the UK’s largest online

retailers of fi ne art products and materials) absolutely FREE!

£20 GIFT VOUCHERto spend on art products and materials of your choice online at Art Discount

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ORDERING IS EASY: Go to www.chelseamagazines.com/artists-BD49

or call 01795 419838 and quote BD49

Let’s Draw, The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd. Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place London SW3 3TQ Tel: (020) 7349 3700 www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk EDITORIAL: Editor Steve Pill Senior Art Editor Chloë Collyer Assistant Editor Terri Eaton WITH THANKS TO: Marion Deuchars, James Dobson, Siân Dudley, Jan Flisek-Boyle, Sue Grayson Ford, Andrew Marr, Kelvin Okafor, Kathryn Roberts and Posy Simmonds ADVERTISING: Advertisement Manager Tom O’Byrne Sales Executive Erika Stone Advertising Production allpointsmedia www.allpointsmedia.co.uk PUBLISHING: Managing Director Paul Dobson Deputy Managing Director Steve Ross Publisher Simon Temlett Commercial Director Vicki Gavin Marketing Manager Will DelmontArtists & Illustrators (ISSN 0269-4697) is published every four weeks. We cannot accept responsibility for loss of, or damage to, unsolicited material. We reserve the right to refuse or suspend advertisements, and regret we cannot guarantee

the bona fi des of advertisers. Readers should note that statements by contributors are not always representative of the publisher’s or editor’s opinion. News Trade (UK and Rest of World): Seymour International Ltd. 2 East Poultry Avenue,

London, EC1A 9PT Tel: (020) 7429 4000, Fax: (020) 7429 4001 Email: [email protected] Printed in the UK: Wyndeham Heron Colour origination: allpointsmedia

Get this voucher, FREE!

3 Contents/subs.indd 3 08/09/2014 15:06

4 Let’s Draw www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk

Why would anyone in their right mind seek to

encourage other people, strangers with lives of their own to live, to draw? Why should there even be a ‘Campaign for Drawing’? We don’t need campaigns, apparently, to persuade others to write, or take photographs, or play music. What’s special about drawing?

I think the answer is that it is an important part of being fully human which has, for very specifi c reasons, fallen out of practice and habit. Most educated people understand that to survive in the modern world they need to be able to write, to explain themselves, as well as to read. Generations have grown up sending photographic images to others, once by snail mail and now by Instagram. In many ways, with everyone clasping their mobile phone, this is the most image-conscious society in human history.

Drawing, the primal way of making images, has been important since Homo sapiens left Africa and began to colonise the planet – and arguably before that too. We don’t know any cultures around the world where drawing didn’t happen and wasn’t valued. There are plenty, of course, whose drawings haven’t survived, from the Bronze Age Britons whose bark rotted centuries ago, to rainforest tribes, again using quickly-perishable materials. But from the ancient Chinese, to the Aztecs, the Inuit and all modern cultures, drawing has clearly been an important part of how the human being expresses culture.

In this country, as in many Western countries, there was a golden age of drawing around a century ago. Mass media were well advanced, but photographic imagery was still of poor quality and relatively expensive. So skilled drawings fi lled newspapers and magazines, advertisement posters and cheap books. I had a great uncle, killed in the First World War, who’d made a decent living drawing coats

and costumes for department stores, and the illustrations for the new cowboy stories; and you can stand for the thousands of sketchers and illustrators who dominated the visual imagination of the Victorians, Edwardians, and right into the inter-war period.

Even then, the golden age took a long time to die. In the 1960s, when I was growing up, cartoons were everywhere. The books I

loved most had beautifully drawn illustrations; all boys and girls were brought up with the drawings of Eagle, Look and Learn, The Beano, Jackie and so on.

But as photographic reproduction got better and better, and faster and faster, the drawing culture withered away. We are now in the ridiculous position of having a couple of generations who have almost been taught not to draw – that they can’t

BBC broadcaster, Big Draw patron and avid drawer Andrew Marr explains why we should all rediscover

the simple joys of putting pencil on paper

WHYDRAW?

mind seek to

WHY

4/5 Andrew Marr.indd 4 08/09/2014 15:04


1. JOIN THE BIG DRAW PARTY!28 September, 11.30am – 4.30pmV&A Museum of Childhood, London E2Join author Jacqueline Wilson and illustrators Nick Sharratt and Marion Deuchers for the Big Draw 2014 launch party. Open workshops include cartoon portraits and pavement art. All materials will be provided free by Big Draw sponsor Faber-Castell.thebigdraw.org/event/3430

2. HOW TO DRAW VINTAGE FASHION12 October, 1.30pmFashion and Textile Museum, London SE1Create illustrations and designs for vintage-style clothes inspired by the museum’s Knitwear: Chanel to Westwood exhibition.thebigdraw.org/event/2833

3. LIFE DRAWING IN THE LANDSCAPE18 October, 12-6pmTything Barn, Kilgetty, PembrokeshireDrawing needn’t always be indoors! This fi gure drawing event takes place in the beautiful Welsh countryside with longer poses as the day progressesthebigdraw.org/event/3054

4. IT’S OUR WORLD18 October, 1.30-4.30pm and 19 October, 12-3pmKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, GlasgowOrganised in collaboration with the RSPB, these two workshops offer the chance to explore the relationship between nature and the local architecture.thebigdraw.org/event/3284

5. AMAZING ART SUPERSIZED WEEKEND25 and 26 October, 12-3.30pmNational Maritime Museum, Falmouth, Cornwall

Work with Falmouth University students to create personal sketchbooks inspired by popular painter Kurt Jackson’s fi shy-themed new exhibition, Line Caught and Local. thebigdraw.org/event/3154

6. DRAWING WITH INDIGO25 October, 1-4pm

William Morris Gallery, London E17Textile artist Lucille Junkere will show you how to draw with stitch and ink, using Victorian designer William Morris’s

favourite shade of blue.thebigdraw.org/event/3023

7. JAPANESE ART AFTERNOON30 October, 2-4pm

Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum, Grasmere, CumbriaIntroduce the kids to traditional creative skills popular in Japanese culture such as origami paper folding and elegant calligraphy.thebigdraw.org/event/3351

8. EVOKING MEMORIES THROUGH DRAWING1 November, 2-4pmThe Creative Quarter, Folkestone, KentHow can we literally draw on our memories? This inventive multimedia workshop will fi nd out while exploring the town’s history as a cross-channel port.thebigdraw.org/event/2982

9. DRAW IT OUT2 November, 1-3pm

The New Art Gallery Walsall, West Midlands

Learn how to make your own drypoint etching at

this drop-in workshop – a great way to introduce the family to the delicate art of printmaking and

approaching drawing from a new angle.

thebigdraw.org/event/2693

Here are nine highlights from the hundreds of Big Draw events taking place across the UK over the next month

Drawing Picks

TO FIND DETAILS OF YOUR NEAREST BIG DRAW EVENT, VISIT THEBIGDRAW.ORG

TO DO: Find other Big

Draw events in my area

draw – that drawing is only for some tiny, bizarre elite of ‘artists’. And, of course, when people get to art school, they are then taught that drawing has almost nothing to do with art at all.

All of this is an outrageous waste of human talent and expressiveness. Most of us can draw. All of us learn to look, to see the world more sharply, and to enjoy the simple pleasure of making something, when we learn to draw. Talk to any engineer, inventor or designer, and you begin to understand how fundamental drawing is to the economy.

And as I have learned after my stroke, drawing is a wonderful therapy and a way to connect again with the beauty of the world around us, for the princely sum of the cost of a 3B pencil and a cheap notebook.

To undertake a campaign on behalf of drawing is therefore to try to wrench back part of the culture that has fallen away, and to give ourselves a tool and practice that should have been ours all along. It’s not a campaign for ‘art’, still less for the art market. It’s a lot more important than that.

Andrew’s A Short Book About Drawing is published by Quadrille, RRP £15

that drawing has almost nothing to do with art at all.

outrageous waste of human talent and expressiveness. Most of us can draw. All of us learn to look, to see the world more sharply, and to enjoy the simple pleasure of making something, when we learn to draw. Talk to any engineer, inventor or designer, and you begin to understand how fundamental drawing is to the economy.

And as I have learned after my stroke, drawing is a wonderful therapy and a

4/5 Andrew Marr.indd 5 08/09/2014 15:05


WHATEVER NEXT?Turn on the TV. Watch part of a favourite programme and then turn the TV off again. Try to imagine what happens next. What might the characters be doing? What locations might they visit next? Draw the imagined scene. If you have a digibox, you could even pause the programme and see how your drawing compares to what really happened on the screen.

Sit down opposite a friend or family member with a pad of paper and a pen or pencil. Now, try to make a line drawing of them without looking at your page – focus only on your sitter at all times. Hard, isn’t it? You won’t produce a perfect portrait, but this quick exercise helps hone your observation skills.hone your observation skills.

NEW WORLDSEver wanted to visit another planet or go back in time? Well, now you can by drawing yourself in a whole new world!

Find an old photo of yourself or print one out on the computer. Take a pair of scissors and carefully cut around your silhouette to remove the background

(kids – you can ask your parents to help with this bit!).

Glue the back of your cut-out fi gure to a larger

sheet of white paper. Now, draw yourself

a new location on the paper around your photo. Where will you go? The only limit is your imagination!

WHATEVER NEXT?

Walk the lineLook around your house for an object with an interesting shape – maybe a plant, a toy or a bunch of bananas? Place the object on the table in front of you and try to draw it in a single continuous line without lifting your pen or pencil off the page. Try to describe both the outline of the object and also any key internal shapes or details.

This game is a great way of learning how shapes relate to one another and developing hand-eye coordination.

Draw the imagined scene. If you have a digibox, you could even pause the programme and see how your drawing compares to what really happened on the screen.

Look away!START!

This is a great lesson in style over accuracy!

PLAY!Let’s

If you can’t make it to an offi cial

Big Draw event in October, here are

eight more fun drawing games

that you can play at home

with the whole family

Can you draw a

bunch of bananas

without lifting your

pen off the page?

6/7 Top Project Ideas.indd 6 03/09/2014 19:02


Play some music and draw what it makes you feel or

think about. Let the rhythm of the music infl uence the speed of the marks made. Use coloured pens or pencils to refl ect the mood of the music. Do this with friends or family and compare your drawings of the same songs at the end.

Sounds incredible

LEFT IS RIGHTAre you left- or right-handed?

Try putting your pen or pencil in the other hand

to complete a drawing of a person or a scene. You will no doubt fi nd it harder and struggle to achieve an accurate likeness but you might also

fi nd it is a more expressive or emotive

drawing as a result.

Sounds incredible

TO DO: Share your drawings on Twitter at �The_Big_Draw

Grand day outThis is a fun one to try after a family holiday or day trip. Take a large sheet of paper and divide it into rectangles using a black pen and ruler. Challenge your kids to create a cartoon telling the story of what you did that day, drawing the people involved and the places visited in turn. If they are older, you can call it a ‘graphic novel’ and get them to add speech bubbles or develop the expressions on the characters’ faces. Date the drawings – they will become fun visual diaries to look back on in years to come.

WINDOW DRESSINGFind a dry-wipe marker, chalk pen or similar that will write on glass and wipe away easily (be sure to get parental approval and have them test it in a small corner fi rst!). Choose a large window in your house and make an outline drawing on the glass of the scene you can see outside. Embellish the drawing with patterns, shapes or extra characters – animals, people or maybe even imaginary monsters. Have fun turning the real world into something more fantastical!

This is a great lesson in style over accuracy!

PLAY!Let’s

FINISH!Play some music and draw

what it makes you feel or think about. Let the rhythm

of the music infl uence the speed of the marks made. Use coloured pens or pencils to refl ect the mood of the music. Do this with friends or family and compare your drawings of the same songs at the end.

incredibleincredible

If you can’t make it to an offi cial

Big Draw event in October, here are

eight more fun drawing games

that you can play at home

with the whole family

6/7 Top Project Ideas.indd 7 03/09/2014 19:02

Kelvin’s portraits take more than 100 hours to complete8 Let’s Draw www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk

You will need:• A range of graphite pencils,

grades 5B to 5H• A white chalk pencil• Black Faber-Castell

Polychromos pencils• Cretacolour graphite and

charcoal powder• Archival drawing paper• A tortillon (for blending)• A Tombow Mono eraser• A good pencil sharpener

“I actually dream about how I will start and fi nish a portrait. I continue to reference my photos while I’m drawing, but I already know how the portrait will look when it’s completed.”

50 SHADES OF GREYKelvin Okafor shares his techniques for creating lifelike tonal portraits

5 My portraits always develop in stages; I complete each feature of the face before moving on. I then

go back and work over the entire picture, adding highlights or changing tonal values to fi nish it off. I also use black Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils in certain areas, as the wax creates yet another subtle effect.

4 As with hair, skin begins with a light base of graphite powder applied with cotton buds. To create blemishes,

pores or scars I use tortillons and hard pencil grades such as 5H. I also use the Tombow Mono Eraser and a Cretacolour white chalk pencil to create highlights such as light refl ecting off oily skin.

1 I begin by studying the subject from either a photograph or a live sitting and embedding an image of them into

my subconscious and memory. Rather than creating a grid, I lightly sketch the subject and defi ne the background. It is essential to understand the tonal values, making note of the darkest and lightest.

Young British artist Kelvin Okafor only graduated from Middlesex

University in 2009 but he has already gained a huge following for his beautiful tonal portraits of friends, family and celebrities.

His work has been featured by the BBC, The Guardian and Daily Mail, while his debut solo exhibition at London’s Albemarle Gallery last spring was a great success.

“My art developed from a sort of obsessive desire to achieve greater realism and emotional expression in my drawings,” he told us.

8/9 Kelvin Tone.indd 8 03/09/2014 17:53

6 I never impulsively create a portrait. I like to study the subject from different angles and then work to express

the essence or mood of the person through my drawing.

Find more tips on drawing at

www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk/how-to


Lois – White Rose, graphite, charcoal and black pencil on archival paper, 72x58cm

3 I measure proportions, determine the scale of the drawing, and shape the rest of the features based

on the eyes. I believe the eyes show the subject’s soul and are most often the focal point of the drawing.

2 This subject has medium to dark brown hair so a light background provides the needed contrast. The fairer the

hair the darker the background needs to be and vice versa. I layer a base using Cretacolor graphite powder then build upon that with Cretacolor charcoal powder. I then work in details with various pencil grades and use erasers, particularly the Tombow Mono Eraser, to create highlights.

Who would you draw? A friend or a famous face?

8/9 Kelvin Tone.indd 9 03/09/2014 17:53


This is an edited extract from Draw Paint Print like the Great Artists by Marion Deuchars (Laurence King, RRP £12.95). www.laurenceking.com

You will need:• White card• Wax crayons (bright colours)• Black gouache or acrylic

paint• A wide, fl at brush• 2H pencil (or cocktail stick

or other sharp tool)• Kitchen towel

Taking inspiration from your favourite Old Masters or contemporary painters is a great way to improve your skills, as artist Marion Deuchars explains

In my new book, Draw Paint Print like the Great Artists, I have chosen some of my favourite artists who have been an important infl uence on me, helping me to develop my own style over the years. By exploring

their techniques, I began to understand the essence of their work and how they see the world around them.

Every artist learns by looking at the work created by others, and then picks up bits of that and makes their own art in their own way. Through them, you will discover new working methods and new ways of exploring image making. It may be something as simple as using scissors rather than a pencil, or being fascinated by a new shape or a playful exercise.

DRAWING LIKE GREAT ARTISTS

gradually developed from representational into purely abstract. In the 1920s, both

Klee and Kandinsky taught at the revolutionary

Bauhaus school for arts and crafts, where

Klee passed his theories on art and design on to a new generation who would bring them to the world.

Klee was ambidextrous: he wrote with his right hand and painted with his left. Many of his drawings and paintings look like lines stacking up on top of each other in playful doodles. He used bright colours and made intricate patterns. Many of them remind me of crayon etching.

How to make a…

Klee made all kinds of lines in his work. Some of them looked as thought they were ‘scratched out’ of the paint. You can make similar kinds of marks by scratching lines out of paint-covered wax. It is called ‘scratch art’ or ‘crayon etching’. It is very simple to do.

Paul Klee (1879-1940) was a German-Swiss painter whose concepts for composition and design remain the foundations of those used in the art and design worlds today.

Like his great friend Wassily Kandinsky, Klee was very interested in the abstract, and his art

ONE Draw a border on the white card.

THREE Paint over wax crayon with black acrylic or gouache paint with a wide, fl at brush. Cover evenly. The paint should be quite thick but not lumpy.

10/11 Klee.indd 10 03/09/2014 18:55


WIN!Enter our prize draw for the chance to win signed limited edition prints by Quentin Blake and Posy Simmonds

DRAWING LIKE GREAT ARTISTS

A rtists & Illustrators and The Big Draw have teamed up to offer one lucky reader the chance to win two fantastic limited edition prints by Campaign for Drawing patrons

Quentin Blake and Posy Simmonds.Quentin’s print is pictured above, while Posy’s can be

seen on page 14. Both prints are signed limited editions and available to purchase from www.bigdrawshop.co.uk. For your chance to win these two stunning prints...

Click here to enter

I’ve scraped the black paint to make a Klee-like doodle

TO DO: Enter this competition today!

TWO Rub wax crayons onto the paper, up to your border, leaving no white spaces. Rub away surplus wax with kitchen towel.

FOUR Scrape your pattern into the black paint to reveal the wax colours. Rub away the surplus dried paint.

T&Cs apply – see www.chelseamagazines.com/terms

10/11 Klee.indd 11 12/09/2014 16:32

http://www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk/competitions/Unknown/1234/win-signed-limited-edition-prints


Siân’s grandaughter

Sophia, aged 4, gets

to grips with artists’

quality materials

Drawing

There are very few people who would deny that children are precious. There are not many people who would give children less than the best they could offer in every way possible – except when it

comes to art materials. When children are making a piece of art, they are exploring,

discovering not only a world of imagery and self-expression, but also the joy inherent in the act of creating something. Why hamper them with inferior materials?

Even in something as simple as a coloured pencil there is a world of difference between a ‘children’s’ pencil and one designed for artists’ use – the latter will release its colour more readily and consistently. A child will fi nd this far more satisfying to use, enjoying the brighter colour and probably completing a picture within the time limit of their concentration span.

I would like to advocate using good-quality materials from the time your child wants to make marks. A three-year-old is capable of using a good-quality brush without ruining it – try telling them to tickle the paper and listen for it laughing!

Adults have much to learn from watching children. Picasso famously said, “It took me four years to paint like

Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” I don’t think he was simply referring to

their observation of the world. As a student I was taught that the fi rst art lesson you give a

child in any new medium is to give them it and then sit

back, watch, and listen. Note their responses, how they use all their senses to explore the medium. Very young children will do this before trying to use it to produce something and I believe this is an

approach we should all try to recover.If children are ready to

draw and paint, they are ready to succeed. Let’s do

everything we can to help them. You never know, we might just pick

up a few tips for ourselves on the way...

Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” I don’t think he was simply referring to

their observation of the world. As a student I was taught that the fi rst art lesson you give a

child in any new medium is to give them it and then sit

back, watch, and

try to recover.

draw and paint, they are ready to succeed. Let’s do

everything we can to help them. You never know, we might just pick

up a few tips for ourselves on the way...

with Kids

You will need:• Three grades of graphite

pencil – for example, an HB, a 4B and a 9B

• Large sheets of good-quality drawing paper

• A good sharpener• A good light source, strong

enough to cast shadows

HIGH FIVE! Siân Dudley’s fun drawing project will encourage the whole family to get hands on

The poor old pencil is often overlooked, simply because they are so commonplace. For me picking up a decent pencil is still an exciting experience; the feel of the pencil as it glides over a lovely paper with a decent ‘tooth’, and the range and expressiveness of the marks I can make, continue to delight me.

Use this activity to encourage your children to explore the possibilities of graphite pencils further. Have them use all their senses – note the way the pencil feels in their hand, the smell of the wood, and the sound it makes on the paper. Take this opportunity to compare the different grades of pencil, and learn how and when to use each of them.

Siân Dudley explains why all art materials are suitable for children – and why we can learn a thing or two from how they use them too

WHY NOT......try our project on page 13 with crayons or paint to add colour?

12/13 Sian.indd 12 03/09/2014 18:52


Turning a pencil on its side will

vary the marks you can make

STEP FOURNow have them add texture, tone and pattern using the range of marks they discovered in the fi rst step. They do not have to follow the shapes of each hand, but instead encourage them to look at the patterns that the shadows have made when they overlapped. As they fi ll in each shape, try to have them keep an eye on the balance of tones and marks across the whole page. The result will appear abstract at fi rst, but on closer inspection it is also a lovely record of your family’s hands. Lastly, don’t forget to date it!

STEP THREEOn the same piece of paper, have them create a new set of hand shadows and draw around each of them again, this time using the 4B pencil. Once you have a ‘layer’ of hands drawn with that 4B pencil, change again to the 9B pencil and repeat.

You will end up with an arrangement of hands, interwoven but distinguishable because of the quality of lines made by the different grades of pencil. You can continue until each member of the family has had a turn or carry on to cover a larger sheet of paper!

STEP TWOAngle your light source so that it produces good shadows on the page. Have your children place their non-drawing hand between the light source and the paper, playing around with the shadows until they fi nd an interesting shape.

Using the HB pencil, have them draw around the outline of their hand’s shadow. Take turns to make shadows, overlapping HB outlines and building up interesting shapes on the paper as you go.

Hands wobble so have them rest their arms on something if necessary.

STEP ONE Encourage your kids to play with the three grades of pencils to experiment with the marks they can make and notice the differences between them. Have them try using different pressures: tickling the paper for light marks, pressing harder for darker ones. What happens when they layer the graphite? Can they make marks ‘shine’ by burnishing them? How do they feel?

Encourage them to alter the angle at which they hold the pencils. What sorts of lines can they make now? Could they, for example, make marks that look ‘slow’ or ‘heavy’?

12/13 Sian.indd 13 03/09/2014 18:52


When did you fi rst start drawing?I remember being three years old and drawing lots of circles. As soon as I picked up a pencil, I knew it was what I liked doing best.

Why is drawing so important?It teaches you how to really look at things and to understand them. Drawing can do such different things. When it’s very exact, like architectural or medical drawing, it’s an excellent analytical tool. Plus, a lot of people get a lot of pleasure out of it. I think drawing is extraordinary.

You’ve been creating strips since the 1970s. How did you get started?After I’d left college, I was freelancing and doing what most students did those

days: carrying my portfolio in a black case and going to see people. This was before the days of websites so I spent a couple of months reaping not much success. My fi rst commission was for The Times and it was to fi ll in for someone who was on holiday. August is a good time to pitch, even now, because a lot of people are away and there’s always drawing to be done.

whether they’re vain and such like. Hopefully then there’ll be some sort of recognition for the reader.

Your strip Tamara Drewe was adapted into a movie in 2010. How was that?It was overwhelming but

I really liked it. I remember

[the director] Stephen Frears remarking how the book’s graphic

novel layout made it easier

because it was like a ready-made

storyboard. When you’re writing a graphic novel, it’s like drawing a fi lm in a way, only I’m in charge of everything – the direction, the script, the props, the camera, the lighting.

What one art product can you not live without?It used to be a beautiful black Berol Karismacolor pencil but they’ve been discontinued. I’m now using a Faber-Castell one, which is still very good, but it makes me sad when a brand I love no longer makes a product.

What’s the biggest misconception about being an illustrator?Everyone thinks it’s such fun. I’ll bump into someone after a deadline and they’ll say, “Oh, you’re still doing your sketching? What fun!” They believe that you sit at home with a teapot at your elbow, a cat on your lap and it’s all very cosy.

Apart from art, what’s your biggest talent?I can tap dance a bit. I’m quite good at doing impressions of animals too, like chickens, cows and cats!

What is your career highlight so far?Being asked to do the regular comic strip for The Guardian in 1977 because it was something very different and exacting.

Are there any lessons that have stuck with you?My early days at The Guardian taught me how to draw quickly. They gave me some copy and said they wanted the illustration by 5pm. There was no time for second thought but it allowed me to develop my own visual handwriting.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received?Being told I’ll make 1,000 drawings that I’m not happy with but being assured that it’s perfectly normal.

Where do you fi nd your inspiration?It’s often something I’ve read in a paper and you think, “Gosh, how appalling or absurd!”

What’s the secret to drawing good characters?Spend a signifi cant time developing them, draw them from different angles and ask questions about their character – what car they drive, what shoes they wear,

Buy a limited edition print of Gemma Bovery by Posy Simmonds at www.bigdrawshop.co.uk

POSY SIMMONDSIt was overwhelming but

I really liked it. I remember

[the director]

novel layout made it easier

because it was like Being asked to do the regular

The much-loved illustrator and Big Draw patron reveals her favourite pencil and a talent for tap dancing INTERVIEW: TERRI EATON

Q&A

14 Posy Simmonds.indd 14 03/09/2014 17:55


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• PLUS... Exclusive special offers on art materials,

gallery openings, competitions and more

All this for only £2.49 per month!

Be in with the chance to get your artwork featured in Artists & Illustrators magazine

Sell your work, without paying any

commission!

Publish your own blog and share your

thoughts with an international audience

Now, share your new drawings online!

TO DO: Join an online art community

@AandImagazine

ArtistsAndIllustrators

AandImagazine

AandImagazine

Join in!

15 Portfolio Plus page.indd 15 03/09/2014 17:54

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01303 297 888

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Documents

Big-Draw-Opti.pdf