Or In Others’ Words…
Welcome to FIT TO PRINT.
The portfolio’s new section is ultimately intended as a full on-line archive of articles printed over the years.
For now it is very much under construction, but since Dom cooked up such a pretty customised PDF icon, I just couldn’t wait. Articles are arranged according to date (very sobering for those of us with increasingly gaunt demeanors and receding hairlines) with the exception of those at the end of each category where the date is missing. Missing also are those long-filed-away articles that are still skulking unscanned in the attic. Eventually, I hope to put a healthy portion on line – nothing like the lies you tell over the years to oblige you to keep track of things. Please remember, these are biggish files, intended to be downloaded rather than simply browsed. A fast internet connection is recommended. I hope, however, that it will provide a lot of information and spare me answering many questions for the umpteenth time.
Admittedly too, most of the files are just glorified jpegs, but everything is in pdf format to accommodate the few pdf files I have received from various editors.
FAN ART
I am totally blown away by the pictures that other artists have sent in for the “Fan Art” section. This is really a breath of fresh air for me, I dearly love art by people for whom it is not necessarily a profession. There is an honesty, an inventiveness and an immediate appeal I find not only disarming but also often moving and enchanting. Warmest thanks to everyone who has sent images. Boy would I love to get inside your heads when you are drawing. I wonder what’s going on in there. Cogs and wheels? Jets of steam and snapping valves? Heavy machinery and earthmovers? Or maybe falling leaves and light rain. Or mist and sun with the sound of the sea. You tell me.
But I’m willing to let you think about it. In the meantime, I’ll tell you…
WHAT HAPPENS IN MY HEAD WHEN I DRAW
by John (an essay in my own words such as they may be)
Nothing happens in my head when I draw.
Certainly not a meshing of cogs and a whirling of wheels or any kind of sizzling fuses. Nor anything remotely mathematical, analytical or critical. (Actually, the great thing about illustrating is that you can listen to music or the radio all day long.) Nothing conscious is going on, no plotting or calculating (all that is reserved for subjects that have little to do with the picture at hand) no measure or method.
Illustrators should be like windows. Sometimes with fog or raindrops or even frost, but never with blinds drawn or shutters closed. Not stained glass either, where the very definition of being is to change the light, to show you the window and not what is beyond it.
The whole idea is to draw from life. On life. For life.
Drawing from life is about as close as you can get to communion with your subject. Drawing a tree is losing yourself in everything that defines a tree, defines life when it wears bark and bears branches. It matters very little what you actually end up with in your sketchbook, it’s what you end up with IN your head that counts.
The time you spend is a suspension of time. Time and movement are inscribed in every line and contour of every living thing (under the generous heading of “living” can be placed all those things which are changed by time, or for which time is not a negation of their essence). The branches of a tree may move in the wind, but years of movement are contained in every trunk, branch and root. To have all this, just for yourself, because you are following it with your eyes and pencil, is far far too important to be distilled into formulae or reduced to method. (This must explain my allergic reaction to and heartfelt loathing for all “How to…” books.) Depicting the exteriors of things is an exercise at which anyone can excell; it’s just a question of technique. It’s something you can teach your hands to do and your eyes to approve. Too easily it may become the end rather than the means.
But, it’s what’s IN your head that defines the interior of the exterior you depict and do I sound confused or what? (The price you pay for transgressing the two immutable laws of the universe: going all the way around on a swing and trying to explain yourself… both turn you inside out.)
Where was I? (See what all this thinking does to me?)
Perhaps that explains why I can’t line up two fragments of coherent reasoning: all my working life is spent with my brain switched off.
But, as this is a subject I long to treat coherently, like a wayward comet on a elliptical orbit, I’ll certainly circle back and approach it again, as it is assuredly a curious thing, to surround oneself with all these rectangular worlds…
Back to the drawing board. Click.
NIGHT TABLE
Just read: Robert Holdstock’s The Iron Grail, which is at long last out in paperback! Wonderful book, like all Robert’s novels. Maybe I’ll treat myself to the hardcover version of the next one, I’ll never survive until it deigns appear in paperback format. Oh for some spare time to do a few ilustrations…
Most of the way through: Rokkering to the Gorjios by Jeremy Sandford.
(Also performed my annual literary pilgrimage through the pages of the best book this side of the end of the universe: Riddley Walker by Russel Hoban. Have been religiously re-reading it at least once a year since I got it over a decade ago, and one day hope to actually understand it…)
Next up: My Eyes Mint Gold by Malcolm Yorke, on the poignant life of Mervyn Peake. (By the way, if you’re not familiar with Peake’s fabulous writing, incredibly vibrant and irreverent illustrations and the poignant end of his far-too-short life and career, time to fill in the gap in your general culture!)
And Happy New Year everyone. See you next week.
