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drop
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it
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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drop it
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well we are in a darkest kent
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and once you is this way over there it's
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very safe bridge but
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fish so i work uh drawing paint
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downstairs
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generally draw here generally paint
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there
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but space to use
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music has been recorded here it works as
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a recording studio as well
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my working days have always been fairly
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structured but during lockdown uh
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they've been extremely structured
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um i go for a walk every morning out in
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the fields
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and explore the forests in the
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countryside come back have a coffee do a
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drawing
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think about what i'm gonna do so i'll
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just sit down and
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do an eight-hour day the music's around
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as a distraction and then upstairs
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is all computer land so the drawings and
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photographs and everything
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physical gets made down here and then it
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all moves upstairs and it's scanned
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the top couple of shelves of my books
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from very early comics
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like arkham asylum and violent cases mr
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punch
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black orchid and then sandman doing all
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the covers and the design work for that
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and then children's books my own books
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cages
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pictures that ticks books and black dog
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books with others like john kale and
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richard dawkins
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the other books are they have mixed bag
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lots of artists books
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illustrators photographers some comics
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i like this sort of hermetic feeling
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of being surrounded by voices talking to
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me all the time
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and i can focus and shut them out
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and that's easy to do but you only have
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to look up and glance over and you're
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inspired by something else i love buying
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other people's work
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i've got these are pieces by baron
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storey
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wonderful american illustrator and
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teacher i like trying to just get an
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example
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of all of the people who have meant a
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lot to me to see
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to to see their the hand movement on the
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paper
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and get a sense of them and the gestures
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that they make
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and the thoughts that they have
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transferred to
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making marks well i've always drawn
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so i went to art school just wanting to
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do what i wanted to do
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very blinkered couldn't understand why
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they wouldn't leave me alone
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and after a couple of years of just
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arguing with my teachers
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incessantly i finally just looked up
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at the world that they wanted me to
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engage with
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and i've been a sponge ever since really
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and i love
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art from around the world pretty much a
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bit of everything
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and it's all gone into my toolbox
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what i'm interested in is trying to
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create a body of work that has a view
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a rationalist view it's about the real
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world but using the imagination
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and the power of the imagination
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my mum bought me my first comic book
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when i was
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ill from school i think i was about
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eight
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and i totally devoured them and fell
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into those worlds
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and that's a feeling that i love just
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falling into the work into that world
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and it's something i've i well it's
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something i didn't get from prose for a
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long time
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like a lot of kids i was not a big
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reader i am now but i'm i wasn't then
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and there's something about the cold
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black text on white paper that
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just never drew me in but these these
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pages of
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images and worlds and characters
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uh was wonderful every time you turn the
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page my
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breath is taken away and that's why i
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still love comics it
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it was very much my first love that
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medium and i still keep coming back to
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it because i love that feeling
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and i love the intimacy of it the fact
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that you hear the words in your head
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and you start to hear the sounds of the
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story
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even though they're not really there you
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start to sense the movement motion of
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the characters
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even though they're static you create
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50 of the experience i think that's why
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people really love comics as a medium
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i don't have a copy anymore of my first
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comic it was
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it was mighty world of marvel number
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i think it was three might have been two
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so it was jack kirby uh
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fantastic four and steve ditko
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spider-man they were english reprints
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of american comics in a sort of
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slightly newspapery print absolutely
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love them
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so at the moment i'm doing um a few
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books
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a few books uh the main one is a another
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comic
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along the lines of black dog in format
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and the look of it and it's a kind of
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another walking book black dog
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to a degree i did when i started walking
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regularly every morning and there's a
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touch of that in
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the end of black dog the new book is
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called raptor as in
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roberta pray it takes place in two
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realms one is is is here in the real
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world
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about 100 years ago in wales
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and it's about a writer whose wife has
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just died and he senses there's another
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world
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a supernatural world a realm that he
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could
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touch and he joins the occult group
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the golden dawn to try and reach this
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other realm
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but really it's just grief he just wants
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to see his wife again
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the other half of the story is set in
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another realm
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um and it's about there are monsters in
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it and there's a character
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who has this sort of demon bird so it's
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a fantasy story
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um but actually that story is about
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politics at the moment it's about the
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corrupting nature of
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money in politics so it's a kind of a
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satire really
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this was the idea and then these two
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realms touch and
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they bleed into each other
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i'm also doing a conversational book
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with a wonderful artist called hugo
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gonzalez
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i've always wanted to do one milton
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glaser did one with
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jean-michel funnel and they
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they did a drawing each and then swapped
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and then carried on making a drawing
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from that drawing and it's a little
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visual conversation
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and i've talked about doing this with
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lots of people but it never quite hit
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and i mentioned it to hyoge and
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immediately he sent me the first drawing
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so
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we're off so we're trying to do one a
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week
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so in a year's time we'll have a book
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the lightbox piece is mine but the
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little drawing is by milton glaser
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he died a few weeks ago
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very important american designer
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he created i love new york that little
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logo
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but beautiful draftsman and illustrator
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a great teacher so up here
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it's just a collection of the people i
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like really and
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over the years finding something that
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just
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allows me to see the artist's hand this
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is anthony tapier
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great print maker this is actually an
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original painting
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even though it's so small for a poster
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it's by valkosky one of the great polish
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artists
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he pan paints all the type mick rooney
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royal academician surrealist
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also great draftsman i like it because
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there are moments in it that i really
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love and there's a few things i'm just a
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bit awkward with
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and so they sort of i'm gonna live with
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them you know see if they uh
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improve for me russell mills is an
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extraordinary
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collage artist he did a lot of album
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covers for people like japan
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david sylvian this is for rogerino brian
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eno's
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brother this is a
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print by another extraordinary prolific
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printmaker anthony clarvey who's had a
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huge influence on me i found his work
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again
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in our school i keep coming back to it
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these incredibly strong bold
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compositions this is windsor mckay
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one of my favorite comics artists one of
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the greats creator of little nemo
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and many others but an extraordinary
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draftsman an animator
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and really the first person that turned
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comics
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into an art i think there were comics
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before winsor mckay
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that he was the first great artist i
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think doing comics
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[Music]
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so this is upstairs in the studio it's a
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massive storage various um objects
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that i've collected over the years and
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will use directly in the artwork or take
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photographs of them
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stones feathers old books
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scientific implements copper
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copper i mean all sorts of things and
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loads of masks that i've either made or
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bought from venice various places
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that have been used for different
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projects masks are a big obsession with
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me
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um so all of this gets used as collage
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material as i say
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or gets used in the design
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for album covers various things this is
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uh computers really
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everything gets scanned i don't draw in
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the computer i've never really got on
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with that
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um i know lots of people do but i still
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like
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getting my hands dirty and making
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physical pockets
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but everything gets scanned and the
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control that the computer gives me is
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what i'm after really so sometimes it's
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simply a matter of
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cleaning up and getting things ready and
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getting the most out of the
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color and density of the inks for print
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but sometimes it's heavy digital
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intervention with
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collaging elements together and
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reworking it on the computer
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the computer is great for trying things
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you can try try things infinitely and
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very quickly
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and set them aside and save off versions
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and it's very playful
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you can get lost down the ramp the
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eternal rabbit hole of digital image
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making but if you know what you're
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aiming for
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roughly it allows you to have a bit of a
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play on the way um so this is the book
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i'm working on at the moment uh
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it's called raptor and so these are the
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pages going in
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some of them are as you can see painted
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and collaged
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quite abstract at times but then some of
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it is very
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clear simple storytelling the theme of
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grief has come up
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uh a fair bit recently um
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well it's it embedded itself quite early
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because my
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father died when i was very young and it
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was the first big
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hit of real realism real
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reality of the real world uh
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hitting me when i was 12. and ever since
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then i've always had a sense of
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life does have an end time is ticking
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get on
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uh get things done uh there is a shadow
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sort of hovering
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so in that sense i found it really a
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positive
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motivating thing in life to just be
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aware that it's all
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fun it's all going by and if you want to
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get things done just get on with it
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um and um and so last year i was dealing
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with my
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mum who died last year
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and so dealing with dealing with
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her decline and um
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all of those feelings has been really
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again very
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strong and like everything i feel i need
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to put them somewhere
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you need to put those feelings somewhere
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i'm again i feel very lucky to be able
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to
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have a place to be able to get that
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stuff out
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uh and put it back and put them i can
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put those feelings in stories
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the things that you learn that you think
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would be interesting to pass on
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partly just to say i've noticed this
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have you noticed this
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and partly just to work them out for
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myself so i write them into stories
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dealing with the paul nash subject and
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and
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going through the war first world war
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and and dealing with
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um the loss of a baby in the film that i
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made called luna
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this issue of grief keeps on coming up
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and the book that i'm doing the moment
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raptor
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um it's a huge subject that everybody
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has to deal with
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and everybody has a feeling about going
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into it
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and it as a process probably changes
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them
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i'm interested in that change
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[Music]
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you
