INTERVIEW BY PAUL BURGESS MAY 2008
Four generations of illustrators meet to discuss the craft of illustration. The link; all four were either students or teach/have taught on the illustration course at the University of Brighton UK. For example, Jasper used to teach Jim as a student at Brighton. The other link - all four have beards. This is an expanded version of the interview which first appeared in Varoom 07. Participants were John Vernon Lord (60’s), Paul Burgess (40’s), Jasper Goodall (30’s) and Jim Stoten (20’s).
l-r: Jim, Jasper, John
Paul Burgess asks everyone to introduce themselves and say what they do and the sort of jobs they are currently working on.
John Vernon Lord – Studied at Salford School of Art, and then Central School of Art in London. John Lord worked as a freelance illustrator in the 1960’s and in 1970 published his first illustrated book, ‘The Truck on the Track’. He went on to publish the best selling ‘ The Giant Jam Sandwich’ in 1972. He was Professor of Illustration at the university of Brighton until 1999, and he is now Professor Emeritus. He never stops drawing. John is currently working on ‘Alice Adventures in Wonderland’, an illustrated book for Inky Parrott Press in Oxford. ‘Drawing Upon Drawing: 50 Years of Illustrating’ by John Vernon Lord, was published in 2007 by the University of Brighton.
Paul Burgess – Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton / has worked as a freelance Illustrator for over 20 years / I am working on various book projects at the moment. / Author of the book ‘Satellite:Sex Pistols’ published by Abstract Sounds/1999.
I would also call myself an illustrator, I was trained at Camberwell and the RCA in London. I was very involved with montage and 3-D box art in the late 1980’s and 1990’s. I take thousands of photographs. I alter things that already exist. I am an exponent of the made image.
Jasper Goodall – I definitely call myself as an illustrator. I openly make a distinction between the commissioned work that I do and personal work, they are very separate things for me. Sometimes they cross over and that’s where I get quite uncomfortable. The only time that has really worked was when I worked for the Face, because I had a very liberal art director who let me do what I wanted. Most of the commercial work I do people wouldn’t even know it is me, and I don’t put it on my website. My work is turning more now towards printmaking. I set up a swimwear label for a while, but that is not happening anymore. Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton / Freelance Illustrator / my prints are for sale on the Product of God web site / Heading in a photographic direction in the future.
Jim Stoten – I draw a lot, and I try to treat each commission as a doodle. I’m a visiting Lecturer at the University of Brighton & Hertfordshire University / Freelance Illustrator / recent exhibition with Mike Perry – joint project. Working on personal work at the moment and some prints to sell through my website. I’m spending the summer working in New York. I’m making small books and prints, and working with my friend Mike Perry.
What do you think the difference is between an illustrator and a person who makes images?
John – Jim, you call yourself ‘Jim the Illustrator’, Varoom is called the journal of illustration and made images. What do you think the difference is between an illustrator and a person who makes images?
Jim – Blimey! I’d like to think I’m both, because I make images that would not really communicate anything to anyone really. Whereas an illustration would have to communicate something.
John – that’s interesting! I think a lot of people are frightened of the word illustration. They think it demeans what illustrators do. Myself, I am very happy with the word, I don’t think we need to change things, I think it is all to do with trends.
Jasp – I think there is a need to re-educate everyone. There is an image people get in their head when they hear the word illustration.
John – they think of furry animals!
Jasp – they think it is really old fashioned and traditional, they think of cartoons.
John – well you see cartoon is another word, the word ‘artist’ hasn’t changed at all, artists are not worried about having a glitzy new title. I think illustrator is as good as any other word. I have a feeling there are a body of people who want to raise the status of illustration. A made image might be something you create from your own self-initiation rather than it being a commission. It hints at making things sharp and up to date, it’s a bit like a company trying to change it’s name.
Jasp – we have just been to see DGV in Berlin, the publishers who produce the book Illusive, which is a bit like the AOI annual. DGV were saying that most of the images submitted for the books were self-initiated images and not from commissions. It is interesting that the public face of illustration is personal work and that the work used for a book cover or a newspaper, is not the work you would see in these publications.
John – in that case how is the illustrator who is making images not for commission, any different to a fine artist? Many illustrators do their independent images because they are creative people and you have to do it as a compulsion.
Jim Stoten
Jasp – ok then, here is a question. Is there any point in ever doing a piece of work if you are never going to show it to anybody?
Jasp - Surely fine artists produce work to express themselves and they are not necessarily thinking about an audience so much as an illustrator does.
Jim – but that is exactly what I am doing in my sketchbook, I am not doing it for anyone else, only me.
Paul – surely the difference is in training, fine artists are trained to think in a different way, the work is far more personal and is not being commissioned. There whole background is different, all the reference points, the way the work is sold is crucial, the gallery system for example.
Jasp – People make more of the debate than needs to be made. I would love to see a day where we don’t have to have an argument as to what is the difference between illustration and fine art. But if you want to make a distinction, in my mind, if something is commissioned by somebody for a reason, then it is illustration.
John – I couldn’t agree more.
Is there any point in doing a piece of work that nobody will ever see?
Jim – Yes
Paul – Yes, it might be imagery that is very personal. It might be of an extreme sexual nature for example. I’m also thinking about Francis bacon’s collage work that nobody saw until after his death.
John – Yes, I have drawings in my note books which I did for myself, but I don’t mind others seeing them.
Jasp – No, for me I personally can’t think of producing a piece of work without considering my audience, ever. I don’t disagree with everyone else, I just don’t do that myself.
Jim – Henry Darger, the outsider artist, did all that work in his room, then he died and the work was found later. Nobody had seen it until then.
Paul – That’s right, and then there is Charlotte Solomon, surely the answer to the question is that it is a personal thing. There is no right or wrong answer.
John – That is true.
The purpose of illustration
John – illustration does form a purpose in the sense of diagrams, cross-sections, charts, maps, a book of British birds for example. An illustration of a bird can often give you much more information than a photograph. Narrative illustrators such as Quentin Blake, Raymond Briggs, Shirley Hughes, three people who have survived for 50 odd years making illustrations. Their work is about the content within the way the actual image is made. I get worried that made images are all about style rather than content. Illustrations sometimes have to be representational. I’m not saying this distinguishes it from art, I mean an artist can do what he or she wants really, there are no boundaries whatsoever, anything goes. An illustrator would always feel there is an underlying constraint, they would not be making images for the sake of it. An art director would want to commission an image for a reason, and that reason is often to support a given text. They would also want it by a certain deadline, in black and white, or in colour.
Jim – you are basically asked to translate someone else’s words or message into imagery, you can use your own style.
Paul – Yes, you are illustrating someone else’s words, music, film, someone else’s vision rather than your own. That is the difference.
Elfyn aged 11, ‘Why do illustrators have beards?’
note – all four interviewees have beards.
Group laughs out loud
Jim – what a brilliant question!
John – mines a simple answer, I shaved for about two years, between about 16 and 18, and I get a purple rash. There is another reason too, some women don’t like stubble, and mine grew very quickly, and also, it’s a waste of time!
Jasp – I agree it’s a waste of time, and also last time I went to Waitrose without a beard and bought some wine, I was asked for ID! And I’m 34.
John - how long does it take to shave, shall we say 8 minutes. So eight times 365, divided by 60, well that’s 48 hours a year. You can’t you afford to spend two days a year shaving.
Paul – My wife really likes a beard, plus it hides a multitude of chins!
Jim – I’ve just got a very small mouth! And my girlfriend says I look like a 12 year old without a beard, so it’s for girls basically!
Paul – All of us, with me as the exception, our names begin with J
Jasp – I was named after Jasper Johns
Jim – I was named after James Brown, in fact I was called James Brown, and then had my named changed.
Paul – That’s interesting. I named my son after James Brown.
John – I was named after my grandfather.
Jasper Goodall
Personal stuff
Where do they work? When do they work? Etc.
John – from my studio at home in Ditchling, I’ve been here for 36 years. . I work all hours. I love to work when it is going dark, the phone stops ringing and you are finally on your own. I think a studio is an extension of your brain. My wife calls my studio my womb, my toy box.
Paul – from my studio at home, at any time as the mood takes me. I like to work amongst clutter, I enjoy a messy studio environment. I can work anywhere, anytime.
Jasper – I used to work from a barn in the countryside, I’ve just moved to a studio in my attic at home. I usually work 10am – 8pm.
Jim – from my studio at home, I work all the time, I drive my girlfriend mad!
The early days, where were you born, education
John – born in Glossop, Derbyshire. I lived in Colwyn Bay in North Wales. Studied at Salford School of Art, Lancashire and then Central School of Art in London.
Paul – I was born in a former psychiatric hospital in Swindon. I lived up until the age of 18 in a 1960’s bungalow in a small Wiltshire town called Highworth. It was very boring, but carefree. This was at the height of punk, I was fired up and I was desperate to move to London. I went to Camberwell School of art in 1981 and then straight to the Royal College of Art in 1984, of all years.
Jim – I don’t know where I was born. Hillingdon I think? Studied at the University of Hertfordshire and then the University of Brighton.
Jasp – Born in Birmingham. Studied at the University of Brighton.
All of you have connections with Brighton Uni (either as students or tutors), Jim was taught be Jasper, etc
Paul – All four of us teach or have taught at Brighton, it is a special place. I currently run Level 2 Illustration. We keep student numbers down to around 35 per year in Illustration. Everyone has their own desk space in the studio, tutors who really care about their profession. We have a great community spirit amongst the students. They bond well, talk to each other, discuss ideas and go on the form collectives when they leave University. It is difficult to get in, but once you are in it is a great ride.
John – I started teaching not for pedagogic reasons, but to stop drawing and get me out of the studio. To talk to people. Brighton in the early sixties was one of the few Universities that took Illustration seriously. Somehow we developed illustration as a strength and it has held on ever since. I loved teaching at Brighton, I left loving it still. It one of the few courses left in the country where students have their own desk space.
Jim – I was taught by Jasper at Brighton, we have remained friends ever since.
Jasp – I was in the same year as David Foldvari, we both applied to Brighton because it was the best place to study in the country. I think it still is.
Where do they each go for inspiration?
Paul - I go to London, I love city life, the absurdity of it all. I will sit in café’s, travel abroad, walk around, pick things out of dustbins. Music and film are both a big source of inspiration. I like chance, finding things. I take photographs. Conversation is important, I love talking to people. I want to know what makes them tick.
Jasp – Go to big city and walk around. I went to Berlin recently, and now have enough ideas for ten years.
Jim – I make some food and eat something delicious. I have a hot bath. I used to eat in the bath when times got really bad. These are times where I don’t think about anything, I just let my mind go blank. I look at the shape of things, patterns. I don’t like to look at other people’s work very much. I draw because it is a comfort thing.
John – It’s like sucking your thumb! I love going to London also, and I include the train journey as part of the fun.
John Vernon Lord
How does each view the past - what does each learn from the greats of the past? Who are the image makers, past or present, who inspire you.
Jasp – One of the children’s books I had as a kid was ‘The Giant Jam Sandwich’, so John was a subconscious influence. I love Aubrey Beardsley and Edward Dulac. I really like Helmet Newton, it’s not like my work at all because it’s purely fashion photography. I think it is important to look at something that is completely different to your work. I look at photography, I’ll look at Japanese ceramics, kimono designs, that sort of thing. I don’t think students should be looking at contemporary illustration, look elsewhere. Graham Rounthwaite was the first person who showed me that you could replace fashion photography with a really cool illustration. Graham really inspired me to do the work I have done since I was a student.
Jim – I do try not to look at other people’s work, I feel like I don’t really have time. I like Henry Darger. What I most like about Henry was his state of mind, that compulsion to make those images. The fact that you can show a state of mind in your imagery, that is very inspiring.
John - Jim, do you know Heinz Edelmann’s work at all?
Jim – I get that a lot! I had never seen Yellow Submarine as a student, it was actually quite frustrating when I finally saw Edelmann’s illustrations. I did hurt, it took me a year to get over it. I thought, this has already been done, what is the point.
Paul – The first illustrations I remember seeing as a child were Ladybird books from the 1960’s, I particularly loved the illustrations by Harry Wingfield and Martin Aitchison. I used to find the images quite dark, strange and surreal. I used to also love those Batman bubble gum cards, made by Topps in the late 1960’s. The illustrations by Norm Saunders were amazing, took me to another world. I love that whole world of American pulp illustration. I like to look outside illustration for inspiration. I love David Lynch, he is someone I come back to all the time. Outsider art, work made in prisons, bought from car boot sales. I love anything that is made by people who have never been to art school, which is ironic since I teach in one. Punk was a big inspiration when I was a teenager, that DIY work ethic. You can do something if you put your mind to it. Work quickly, use scissors, felt pens, anything lying around, that urgency was empowering. I love Robert Rauschenberg, Fluxus, Dada, Warhol, Roger Hilton and Jean-Michel Basquiat. I mostly look at fine art these days. Music and film I always find a constant inspiration.
John - I have made a list of about three million people that I find inspiring. I’m an old fashioned person in many ways. When I was a boy, I loved the Rupert Bear illustrations by Mary Tourtel and Alfred Bestall. When I was an art student it was Ronald Searle, Andre Francois and Saul Steinberg, people like that. Paul Klee was a huge influence on me. The Duch painters, Rembrant amazes me. Francis Barlow the father of British illustration from the 1650’s and Wenceslaus Hollar. Sara Fanelli, Robert Mason, Anne Howson, Quentin Blake. Films are an inspiration, Fellini. I love listening to music, looking out of a train window with my i-pod on shuffle.
Current state of education? What skills should the young illustrator / designer have?
Jasp – Students get given these projects where they are asked to research a current illustrator, and that makes them think that it is ok to copy their style or look. They muddle up researching an artist with copying an artist. Sometimes their tutors ask them to do a piece of work in the style of say, David Foldvari or Jasper Goodall. I have had a lot of people copying me over the years, bad copies, so I am constantly evolving and moving on. I have to.
John – Cleanliness, many illustrators smell when they meet art directors. Carry some chewing gum. Don’t be silent when showing someone your work.
Paul – Well you have to multi-task. Be original, don’t copy anyone. Work hard.
Paul Burgess
All of you teach, why?
None of us been trained, but we have all been asked to teach
Jasp – I have a certain sense of satisfaction by sitting down with a students who doesn’t know what they are doing, sorting them out so they can go away knowing how to work in the weeks ahead. I’m not going to say the tired old cliché, that teaching keeps you fresh and gives you new ideas. However, very occasionally you do see a student do something that is really good and that inspires me to try something new. The other thing is that it does get me out of the studio for a day and I don’t have to think about creating stuff.
Jim – There is that old saying, ‘If you can’t do, then teach’.
John – Yes, George Bernard Shaw
Jim - Also if your freelance work dries up you can always teach
Jim – I like to split up my time between my practice and then helping other people with their work. Teaching helps me to think about the future.
John – I used to teach because it was nice to get out of the studio, and I discovered that ultimately I was learning about my subject with the students. I do have to take issue with
.
Jim, I also thought that if your freelance work dried up then you did not deserve to teach. I always had the fear that my students would hate me because I was not doing the thing that I was teaching.
Jim – by freelance I meant the commissions, I would still draw, would still be illustrating something.
John – can I take issue with that Jim, I knew many teachers whose work did dry up they were doing their own things privately but that is very different to being a professional illustrator because they imposed a different academic thrust to their students. They were more or less saying to all students, ‘forget the profession, just let it all hang out and do your own drawings’, and that was dangerous I always thought.
On a positive note, I always felt a great privilige that between the age of 22 to 62 I was always working with 18 to 25 year olds. You have your own children along the way. I didn’t know that at first, but I suddenly realised that this is marvalous, in what other occupation can you have did the whole gamut of interests of young people are coming to you, music, film, etc.
Jasp – I haven’t felt like that yet, I’m too close to their age
Jim – I feel very close I find it frustrating that I am teaching students my age.
Paul – you are often mistaken for a student aren’t you? John’s really hit upon an important point, my kids are eighteen and about to embark on a Foundation Course, they are going to a lot of the same parties, the same gigs as my students. So for the first time in my life it has just dawned on me that we are going to be working with 18 – 22 year olds for the rest of my teaching life.
John – I started teaching full time in 1970, the teaching as consistently interesting. The problem was, and you know this Paul, I became tired with doing advertising and magazine work, and trivial work actually. I had just started to do books, and the publisher would give you a year to do a job at your own pace. I went into teaching terribly selfishly, but as I got on I got hooked, but the trouble was as you got hooked you got called into lots and lots of meetings, and had to write lots of documents. I hated meetings that went on for hours without any decisions being made, that’s why I used to doodle.
Jasp – That takes the enjoyment out of teaching for me, all the organisation and paperwork
John – looking back on it, the students taught me how to teach. There was an embarrassment on my behalf in the early years, it was only because I was a professional illustrator I was allowed to teach, but I actually didn’t know how to teach.
Paul – well none of has been trained to teach.
Jim – that’s right, it’s all just based on experience.
John – It’s only when you start teaching that you realise that there is an intellectual process in illustration and in teaching. You will eventually grasp this and pas it on to the students. I never analysed illustration until I was about thirty five.
Jasp – Yes, same with me.
Paul – and Jim hasn’t reached that age yet!
Jim Stoten
What is the current state of illustration in the view of each of the participants?
John – I would say illustration is in as healthy a state as those who commission it.
Jasp – I agree, there is so much talent out there to choose from.
Jim – Well I’m going to come from a different point of view, there are so many magazines and books on illustration now, that students think there is a lot of work out there for them when they leave college.
Paul – When John and I were at college there were no books on illustration. There was the AOI Images annual and a few others.
John – the only book I remember being available on illustration was the SIAD (Society for Industrial Artists and Designers) Annual Journals, and the AOI which I think started in 1970.
Jasp – You would pick up GQ, Esquire magazine, or Playboy, and they would be stuffed full of really good illustration. These days you only see it in a DGV book or other publications about illustration.
Paul – When I first started working there was no internet, no books on illustration and so I just got on with it and trusted my own judgement. You just did your own thing, you would talk to people about things. There was no chance that you would become influenced by other illustrators, as it was difficult to see their work, you had to seek it out. These days there is almost too much to look at, it can get distracting for young image makers just starting up. They feel everything has been done before, it’s there on the internet. It can hold them back.
John – If I had to be critical of illustration today, a lot of it looks good but it has no content that fires the imagination. There are very good picture makers, but is there enough pith within the image that sets us alight?
John – Illustrators thrive when art directors, the media, newpapers, magazines, etc. were enlightened, and presently they are not enlightened. I think they now want bog standard, vox popular stuff and they darnt take any risks. Unless you get people who commission illustration who are enlightened, it will not get better. Take for example the publishing house that has J.K Rowling. We know how much J.K. Rowling makes, we know therefore how much Bloomsbury makes. With that huge amount of revenue coming in, there should be hundreds of really exciting daring books being published. They should be taking risks. Varoom magazine is looking at a high level of illustration, and so they should be, but the populous may not agree at all. They may look at Varoom and say ,’what’s all this’, probably what most people want is what we don’t want.
John – Varoom, is a magazine which is mostly sent out to members of the AOI, for us to respect our profession and see it at the highest level, and that is a good aspiration to have.
Jasp – At the end of the day it all boils down to money and greed. In a more enlightened commissioning arena the designers and illustrators would be trying to educate the population to having better visual taste. However, the final decisions come down to the people who hold the purse strings and have done their market research. An example of this is Icon magazine, I was asked to do the front cover, because they had interviewed me for an article inside. The marketing people said no, because they said they sell ten times as many copies of Icon magazine if it has a portrait of someone on the cover rather than an illustration.
John – Radio Times, in the sixties and seventies it was one of the greatest opportunities for illustrators, these days it is all photographic portraits galore, all faces of celebrities.
Paul – Yes, but in other types of magazines, illustration is now being used far more than photography. The Radio Times is now in competition with Heat magazine, has been dumbed down and less people are watching television than ever before.
Jasp – You get bad illustration these days, because someone will do it faster and cheaper than yourself. I have had to turn down large advertising jobs in the past because they have wanted it done immediately. They don’t care at the end of the day how good the illustration is, they only care that it has ticked their box, that it has got done on time and that it more or less does the job. You end up with someone who will say, yeah, I’ll knock it up for you. I find that while everything else has speeded up, communication, email, etc. what hasn’t speeded up is an illustrator’s capacity to be creative.
John - I want to talk about photography in relation to illustration. You look at any magazine today and they all look the same because they are all full of photographs of people, of celebrities. If we call photography an illustrative style, then the end result tends to be quite similar. You would be hard pushed to say, oh that is definitely Joe Blogg’s photograph when you see it in a magazine. Photography is safe almost because people expect it to look like that. Illustrations tend to be unexpected, so photography is already conventional and anybody using it can say ‘if I put David Beckham on the front cover I am safe, not only by using a celebrity but by using a medium that makes it look exactly them’. Illustration could be used much more than it is now the bring contrast to magazines.
We know there are great photographers, just as there are great illustrators. What is happening is there is the most banal photography being done, nobody accuses them of banal photography but they do illustrators.
Paul – Nobody would ever write to the Radio Times and say your use of photography is really banal, or ‘I fell asleep looking at your photograph of David Beckham’.
What are the good things - what are the bad things?
Good –
Jim – I quite like the fact that there is so much imagery out there that cannot be used for anything, it’s not commissioned. It’s personal work. I like to look at images and just think ‘that’s nice’, I do like to look at nice things, they inspire me. They might not have any meaning, but it could have a good aesthetic.
Paul – One good thing, there are now different genres of illustration now. There is decorative illustration, abstract illustration, vector-based, loose and painterly, geometric, 3-D, etc
John – Not having taught for a while, my knowledge of present day illustration is limited to a certain extent. It is fantastic you can get someone with the polish of Sara Finelli against someone like Angela Barrett, totally polarised. Both great, but totally different. Someone from my generation, Quentin Blake has been working for fifty odd years, so that is a good thing. It is the content you look at as well as the quality of the drawing.
The other area I would really commend is the graphic novel. I don’t remember all their names, but I am astonished at some of these graphic novel illustrators, conceptually as well as their ability to make images. Watchman was the first thing that knocked me for six, fantastic. I would love to produce a graphic novel.
Jasp – Thinking about content, I’m looking at Matt Maitland’s work here, which is collage. This is someone I work with a lot, he’s an art director as well as an illustrator. I’m seeing this interesting area, where there is no immediate concept or meaning in these images, but it echoes good photography in that it creates an atmosphere that is communicating on a different level to that of more traditional illustration. There is a whole area of illustration that some people might right of as just being decorative, but if it done properly it can carry great weight. Some of Matt’s images perfectly reflect the dark mood of the music he is illustrating on his cd covers.
John - The content is creating an evocative atmosphere. That is another way of communicating on a different level.
Paul – Illustration is at it’s most diverse at the moment, the area is split wide open, it is so exciting right now, anything could happen.
How is illustration viewed by the various groups who commission it?
John – We have covered this already, there are some enlightened art directors, but not many.
Jasper Goodall
Drawing, why, how, when?
Jasp – I use the computer to do rough collages first, that don’t get shown to anyone. I head from one photo, an arm from another. I then print this out, put on a light box and then begin the process of drawing and stylisation. At the end the drawing I do on the computer I do very carefully, getting the curves right, etc.
I’ve recent been drawing with photographs of white smoke photographed against black. I put the images together in many layers.
John – You have made me realise when you say this, this is what Adrian means when he says on the front of Varoom, the journal of Illustration and made images. Maybe drawing is more closely associated with illustration, and made images is more a collection of found objects. They are both illustration in my mind, it’s just that the authorial way of making them, one is drawing and the other is assembling and collage.
Jasp – I’m not sure that working in the way I do is drawing anymore. I used to be very good at drawing but I’ve lost that immediate pen-to-paper thing.
Jim – I see what Jasper and Paul does as building rather than drawing.
Jasp – I agree, but I would go one step further than the way Paul works with collage, and that is that I use more of an element of manipulation at the end of the day.
John – Jasper, people think foolishly that working like you do is easier than drawing.
Jasp – Yes, I get endless emails. People want to know what software I use, they think they can then get the same result. They are missing the point. It is irrelevant which programme I did it in, it’s like saying what pen nib did I use?
Jasp – John, you’ve done a sketch and then worked on the lightbox
John – yes, it takes a lot of doing, although it looks prosaic.
Jasp - It’s funny John because you work more like me than I thought you did
Paul – that’s why we wanted to get you together
Jasp - I thought you and Jim worked the same and I worked differently, but you are kind of half way between me and Jim
John – Yes, when I do my doodly things I am more like Jim
Jasp – talk about how you work Jim
Jim – I don’t sketch at all, I just do outright drawings, I don’t really plan my drawings at all, there is no planning or pencil preparations, I just go straight in.
Jasp – Even when you do your complicated drawings it’s exactly the same?
Jim – It’s exactly the same, yeah. There will be pages and pages of the same thing because I just get into a groove.
John – do you go left to right? Jim – yeah
John – that’s interesting, because I don’t know where I start, but we were always told as an art student in the 50’s to start at the top and work down. This would grease up the paper so I would ignore the tutors. Your drawings, Jim, seem to have a story unfolding, it’s just like writing in a way.
John – Do you draw in black and white and then add colour? How do you control the general composition and colour? It is largely spontaneous although it is very well held together.
Paul – there is very little sign of you ever making mistakes, Jim.
Jim – I do make mistakes, I just work them in to the drawing.
John – Let’s look for one!
Paul – Colour wise, do you always use felt pens
John – that has always been a nightmare for me, colouring in. Finding the right tool. I used early Pelican inks for thirty years of my life and then they changed their recipe, so I change to Echoline a thin watercolour????? , but now that is dissapearing, so I need to look again.
What sort of pens are you using Jim, I use Berol felt pens, I have some going back twenty years, they don’t dry up.
Jim – I use Pental felt pens,
Jasper – can you talk about a complicated drawing Jim, that’s what I’m interested in. Something you’ve just drawn without any planning. What I’m amazed by are how things are behind other things.
Jim – I just go with the flow. It’s repetitive drawing, you basically have a recipe for drawing this shape. I draw in sections and then fill in as I go.
Paul – have you ever timed your drawings Jim?
Jim – No, I would be surprised by how long it takes, but not pleasantly. They sometimes take weeks.
John – Timing has no baring on what you get paid for anything. Jim, your sketchbook is great, more like an illuminated manuscript than a sketchbook.
Paul Burgess
Role of the computer?
Paul – My point of view is that the computer is a wonderful tool, and makes my life much easier. But if they all disappeared tomorrow I could carry on without one, no problem. I really enjoy making images by hand. I’m both analogue and digital. I use Photoshop only, it is just great for a collage artist like myself.
Jim – Everything I do is hand drawn. The computer for me is just away of getting something to someone by email.
John – I am exactly the same as Jim. Scanning, email and writing a great deal on the computer. I write about 1000 words a day in my digital diary. I write for mass observation. I am addicted to writing my diary each day.
Jasp – I use the computer to do rough collages first, that don’t get shown to anyone. One head from one photo, an arm from another. I then print this out, put on a light box and then begin the process of drawing and stylisation. At the end the drawing I do on the computer I do very carefully, getting the curves right, etc.
I’ve recent been drawing with photographs of white smoke photographed against black.
I like the way I can edit on a computer, I can make as many mistakes as possible.
Jasp – The one negative thing that has happened with computer programmes, is that people in a way have become amateur illustrators. They are relying on their computer to do things for them.
John – An illustrator sending an image to an art director by email, does not get a genuine, direct response like we used to face-to-face or on the phone. You just get a cold email back, so most of the time you have no idea if the work is any good or not. Physical reaction from a person about your artwork is so important. You need that smile.
How do they promote themselves?
John – I never have promoted myself. For thirteen years my agent did it. Until 1973 my agent, Saxon Artists, took my portfolio round. Then I moved into books and worked with the same publisher for twenty years. Luck plays an important part in any career. You really need to network and make yourself available to meet people. It is all human relationships in the end.
Jim – Fanzines, graphic novels, postcards, Christmas cards. I have my website and an agent, Heart.
Jasp – I started off taking my portfolio around, just phoning up and saying can I come and see you. Then I got an agent, Big Active, and they have been representing me ever since. I also have a web site, of course. I also do free editorial work if I like the magazine. The only time I would do anything for free is if I can do exactly what I want, and I think the publication is cool. Otherwise I would never do anything for free, it’s like shitting in your own bed. Never do any pitches for nothing, always ask for money for this. Pitching disgusts me, because they obviously don’t mind which illustrator they use. They just want a choice to show to their client, art directors are too afraid to commit themselves.
Paul – When I first started I was very proactive. I would make hand-made books and postcards and send them to art directors I liked. Even when I was on holiday abroad, I would spend hours hand-painting post cards to send to clients as a thank you. I now have a web site like everyone else, I make pdf’s and I have an agent. I do really miss going to see art directors face-to-face, getting that direct feedback which enabled my work to evolve. I have always instigated my own jobs as well. Some of my most interesting projects have come from just asking someone who you admire if you can work with them, that is exactly how I came to work with both Sex Pistols and Jarvis Cocker. I asked them and they said yes. Both projects were immensely enjoyable.
Paul – When was the last time any of the four of us put an illustration into the AOI Images annual? Jasper, would it be fair to say that you would be embarrassed to have your work included in the annual, am I right?
Jasp – Yes, I would be embarrassed. However I was in it when I was very young.
Paul - I have been in it also, and I have been on the judging panel twice.
Jim – I think I’m actually in the next one. I’m sorry I don’t understand that embarrassment?
Paul – Well, some years you pick up the Images annual, and the standard of work is so awful that you don’t want to be associated with it.
Jasp – the whole thing just looks tired.
John – Well I have only put work in twice in the last thirty years, mine was a vain reason because students expected you to be in it. They didn’t realise you were paying for it. There is also a practical reason for young, aspiring illustrators to get involved. People will see Jim’s work next year in the book, and hopefully art directors will commission him. From a practical point of view it’s a good idea.
Jasp – Can I argue against that point. Unfortunately what Images has not had up until five or six years ago was any sort of competition. Now we have got god knows how many books coming out about illustration, many of them with much better illustration work than you get from the AOI. I bet you any good art director would rather buy a copy of say ‘Illusive’ for £30, than bother looking in Images. One is commercial, and the other not so commercial, but the AOI have competition now, big competition.
John – I always thought that if the AOI had any self- respect, they would give each illustrator a slot out of the membership fee. I still believe in the democracy of it. Full pages should be given to those judged good enough and all the members should be given small images at the back of the book.
Jim – I was put forward for the next Images by a client, which means I’m not paying for it. So why not get involved, you know. This might sound bad, but I have never actually looked at copy of Images.
Paul – But you don’t even have to be a member to have your work included, that’s the irony. Jim isn’t a member of the AOI.
Go to Images HERE
John Vernon Lord
Are you currently working on any personal projects you would like to talk about?
Jasp – Selling my own prints through Product of God
John – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Book
Paul – Printmaking / exhibition / books
Jim – Printmaking / zines
Do any of you have any ego issues?
Jasp – In all honesty, a large part of why I do what I do is for positive affirmation and acceptance from other people. If people like my work then I feel better about myself.
John – I’m exactly the same, if people bother to tell me that they like my work, then I am thrilled to bits.
Paul – I just have a fear of running out of time, there is so much I want to get done. I always feel physically embarrassed when somebody tells me that they like a piece of work.
John – I do the same thing.
Jasp – and me
Do any of you suffer from any compulsive behaviour?
Jim – I take baths all the time, especially when I get cold. It is strangely compulsive. I find it very hard to tear myself away from my desk. I add up car number plates in my head. I bite my fingers, and I check my emails all the time.
Jasp – I keep taking up new sports, that’s about it.
John – Yes I am very compulsive. Counting. I count steps a great deal. Also how many cars pass me in the street. List writing, any excuse for a list. Writing a diary and listening to music. I have a list of every record and cd I have ever bought. Sometimes I listen to music until 3am on my i-pod in bed.
Paul – I love washing up, it’s a great time for me to think. I bang my forefinger on the table when I am talking to someone. I love music. I used to collect avidly, but now I have stopped. I also enjoy passing on information on to people. My wife calls me ‘information man’. This can be handy when you teach.
What do illustrators do when they retire?
John – they don’t retire, you just keep going
For a review of DRAWING UPON DRAWING: 50 YEARS OF ILLUSTRATING by John Veron Lord please see Reviews in Varoom Web Only content. Review by Dr Leo John De Freitas
www.jaspergoodall.com / www.productofgod.net
www.jimtheillustrator.co.uk
www.mrpaulburgess.com