Dave: I still try and do what I always did, and that's to find the best, most affecting way of telling the story, or expressing the idea I'm dealing with. I don't really mind what the medium is, I'm interested in the ideas, atmosphere and emotions in the script. So I usually sink into the world of the story for a while, and maybe try a few things, until the images start to really feel right for the piece. At the moment I'm enjoying just using pencil on paper, I've learned a lot about the simple and direct power of image making going back to basics after so many years exploring paint, photography, collage and digital.
Dave: I had a lucky start, loving comics at a point in time where that form was in a really interesting place, growing, expanding, challenging what was expected of them, so fortuitous timing. It has been great to form ongoing working relationships with authors and musicians. I've had good runs with Nail Gaiman, David Almond, SF Said, Iain Sinclair, Stephen King, Iain Ballamy, Bill Bruford, Frontline Assembly and others, and so it's been great to develop those bodies of work as we've got to know each other. Now I'm mostly interested in working on my own projects - they've been the most important works for me from Cages, through Luna and Neon, to Black Dog.
Dave: I had a great day in Newcastle with David shooting reference of the streets where he grew up, and where he set the story. My big balancing act with all of David's stories, is tiptoeing along the line between reality and the supernatural. David likes the ambiguity, and I'm more committed to being clear where the truth is. I think the tension between those two forces is interesting, much more interesting than letting the supernatural moments pass unquestioned. I'm keen for readers, especially young readers to question these things, not just accept fantasy, or untruths, at face value. So, not a particularly funny story, but it's made for some unique books.
e: What do you think makes an illustration magical, what I call "Heart Art” - the sort that makes a reader want to come back to look again and again?Dave: I doubt there is one way of defining this as we all look for different things in art. Most illustration is about slick technique, whereas I look for a sense of fight in the drawing, someone exploring and pushing themselves into unfamiliar territory, struggling to express something. It's hard to keep up that energy throughout a career and you often see a familiar pattern - an artist starts aiming towards something and after initial failures, begins to refine what they do. Then they have a while as they successfully explore that idea, but then it becomes tired and they start to just repeat what they've done before, it loses the fight. Also if you're lucky, something comes along for you to express at the peak of your powers, something that you can completely commit to. Look at Bacon's paintings of George Dyer, or Paul Nash's WW1 paintings. As far as the everyday challenge of drawing and making each image have the magic, I call it magic, because it's a strangely indefinable occurrence, some days, or some moments, the lines, shapes, abstract qualities, insight, feeling of the drawing just works, and many times it doesn't, it just looks dead, pre-digested. I've tried very hard to be aware of my state of mind, and environment, to encourage the magic to happen. It's something to do with being relaxed but not lazy, alert but not stressed, clear sighted but available to chance. It's a balancing act.
Dave: Well, I'm mostly focussed on my own work these days. if something comes along that looks like a good challenge, or is with a friend, or someone I've always wanted to work with, or in a world i want to learn about, then I'll do it.
Dave: I love shaping ideas and stories, that moment when disparate elements fizz against each other and create an idea is always wonderful. I still love just drawing and seeing the project evolve. I have a much more improvisational approach to the development of ideas these days, inspired mostly by the wonderful theatre director Bill Mitchell, who I worked with on Wolf's Child and The Passion of Port Talbot, the Gospel of Us.
Dave: It's a very adult story really, barely for kids. It's about the loss of faith, and about the nature of belief, how we carry around a view of the world that colours our sense of reality. I hope my approach on all of David's books, is a questioning approach - I think it's important to understand the limitations of our minds, that they trick us, not malevolently, but simply because it's so hard to deal with all the information coming in. Our brains find patterns where none are there, or reinforce what we feel we know to the exclusion of information that doesn't fit that view. The polarised world we are living in at the moment is testament to the faulty way our minds work.
Dave: You have to make your own mistakes, because quite often, they turn out to be blessings. I would always emphasise the importance of prioritising your own work, your own voice, in your life. It's very easy to be swept up in commercial life, deadlines, jobs, other peoples stuff. You will regret not listening to that inner voice that inspired you in the first place, as a child, or at art school. If art has any point at all, it must be to allow us to see through each other's eyes. That's more important now than at any other time I can remember.
amazing artwork!! thanks for this post!
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