Guardian Guide to Drawing + CD Swap 2009

I'm extremely flattered to be included in the Guardian’s recent “Guide to Drawing” series. Appearing in a select line up that included some frankly legendary artists (among them David Shrigley, Turner prize winner Keith Tyson and post-modern icon Jeff Koons) I contributed a short piece of writing and an online gallery of 9 visual diary images. It’s linked via the “press” section of my site, or you can click here. As the original 700 word writing submission had to be edited by almost half, I thought it would be nice to publish my full length article here...

I’ve been drawing since I was a child. I’ve kept those early sketchbooks and, years later, it’s interesting to note that my approach hasn’t changed much. My drawing is still mainly observational. I don’t use illustration as a means to escape into fantasy worlds, I aim to capture my surroundings in representational sketches, with written captions about how I’m feeling.

Many kids lose their childhood urge to draw as they get older. They find themselves more inhibited, especially over matters of technique. For a time, I was no different. At the end of my teenage years the fun of drawing was squeezed out by endless dull school art lessons spent sketching seashells and twigs without emotion. Art was a branch of maths, where representational accuracy was king.

I didn’t fully reconnect with my childhood love of observational drawing until the second year at college. We got a one week project to keep a visual diary. Every day, without fail, we had to respond to events in our lives. I started looking at the world around me again, and my eyes were opened. There was so much out there that I wasn’t noticing! I started that one-week project in February 2004 and haven’t stopped. I still update my website each month with new highlights of the previous month’s diary.

I normally draw with a mechanical pencil using 0.5mm 2B leads, in little spiral bound sketchbooks. I keep the materials simple so my entire drawing kit can stash into a coat pocket at will, and be ready to use in seconds. I also carry a small camera because it’s often necessary to embellish my sketches later.

Thematically I look for things that surround us in our daily life, but which may go un-noticed or be considered ugly – examples include pill packets, drain covers and air-bricks. Often I don’t consciously “choose” my subject matter at all, it’s more a case of drawing as much as possible, to leave myself open to those chance moments where it just clicks and I stumble across something that works. A friend of mine once described this process as “opening the stable door to see what comes in.” I try to open the stable door as often as I can. Some days I might only sketch a very mundane observation of a yogurt pot or whatever’s on the telly – an undramatic manifesto of boredom – but when they work well these casual observations are often the ones other people identify with, because everyone shares moments like these.

I’m a subscriber to the view that anyone can draw. My subjective interest in sketching comes way ahead of any technical ability. If anyone has a good enough reason to draw, over time their images will have integrity, and their technical shortcomings will become part of their style. Hundreds of A-Level students can do a pretty convincing rendition of an apple, but what’s the point if the heart’s not in it? It’s often too easy to get obsessed with the technical “how” of drawing, without raising the “why”. Perhaps representational drawing has become less fashionable in a modern age where anyone can freeze a scene in 10 megapixels at the push of a camera button. Yet observational drawing will never disappear because the camera can’t see, and has arguably damaged our own capacity to see for ourselves. A few years ago I remember watching tourists pour through the ticket gate of a castle and gaze for the first time at a stunning scene as it loomed before them. “I must take a photo” was their inevitable response. They seemed more interested in immediately reducing the view for posterity into a simplified 6”x4” snap than in actually standing there and seeing it firsthand in the present moment.

Drawing, on the other hand, forces me to experience the primary visual sense and live the moment. To sketch a scene, my eye must really get to know it. I need to look at all the elements within, consider how they fit together and choose, from that wealth of information, what is important to get down on paper. Observational drawing will therefore always be valuable as a record of human experience, and a process of looking, interpreting and feeling.

My work has also been featured in two recent books... The ever popular “Dogs Dinner” sketch was chosen to feature in Mark Wigan’s recent Visual Dictionary of Illustration. Meanwhile some photographs from my closely guarded reference archive have been featured in Stefan G. Bucher’s The Graphic Eye -Photographs By Graphic Designers From Around The Globe, published by Rotovision in the UK and Chronicle in the States.

This month I’ve been also been experimenting with some new images for my portfolio - a select number of which are now scattered randomly round the main galleries (one also appears at the top of this post). It has been a slow process because it's not merely a case of banging out some new images, I have really been trying to loosen up my style and find new, less fussy ways to express my ideas. It's been difficult but fun and I intend to keep plugging away through the autumn. All being well I’ll add a few more new bits each month.

Changing the subject somewhat, I’m happy to announce the return of my annual CD swap. To those of you that haven’t participated before, it involves making a CD compilation of your favourite songs and sending me 10 copies (with cover art if you’re artistically inclined)... A month or so later I then send you back a random selection of 10 mix CDs by other members of the swap. In previous years there has always been an amazing mix of music, and it’s introduced me to many of my current favourite bands. If you’re interested in taking part, e-mail me at peterfield13@hotmail.com and I’ll send you further details.

Quick Update

Apologies for the lack of recent news. One way or another I’ve been really busy lately! My website launch went well - I even managed to smash my own geeky website popularity records for hits per day / per month. Also, the new site got a really positive mention on one of the internet’s best design/fashion websites, Lost at E Minor. Check out the link here.

I’ve been experimenting with some new work for my portfolio, the fruits of which I hope to post here later in September. Work-wise I’ve had a frustrating time, twice getting to the very brink of winning some seriously juicy advertising work. In the case of the most recent one, the commission was basically a done deal before the client had a change of heart. I can console myself, of course, with the fact that this is by no means an unusual occurence in the oh-so unpredictable world of advertising...

P.S. My visual diary has now been updated for August – don’t forget to take a look

World of Interiors

My work features in the current issue of Conde Nast World of Interiors, illustrating the regular "Diary of a Collector" column on the final page. The piece is about the long-standing and extremely idiosyncratic tradition of Ethiopian Christian art, and how ornate Lalibela metal crosses, whose evolution began in medieval times, are rapidly becoming seen as highly collectible museum pieces. I took some convincing, but after a bit of research I had to admit it was an extremely fascinating subject!

NEW WEBSITE LAUNCH

Finally my new website is live at www.peterjamesfield.co.uk! I’m really pleased with it and I hope you’ll take a look. It now features eight main galleries containing the best of my illustration portfolio. Meanwhile the entire visual diary archive is back – having passed what feels like the significant milestone of 5 years output!

I’ve also experimentally posted a much-edited version of the diary archive on the photo-sharing website flickr. This can be viewed at http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterjamesfield/. As flickr photos can be tagged with search terms, I thought this might bring the archive to a different audience, as well as allowing current viewers and friends to comment on the diary pages. It’ll give me the chance to experiment by organizing the images thematically, as well as letting me monitor which pics are most popular.

Finally I also have a completely new online shop, hosted by bigcartel, at http://peterjamesfield.bigcartel.com/. The first products are a range of four giclee prints, each printed on 310gsm Hahnemuhle German Etching Paper in a limited edition of 25 - plus a range of eight greetings cards. Get ‘em while you can!

And the future of this blog?... Well, although it only started life as a temporary stopgap while the main site was offline, I've enjoyed writing more personal updates on here, and I certainly intend to keep it going as a sort of "news / rant" forum. So keep checking back here as well!

Next I'll be focusing on producing new folio work this August, and then promoting myself some more... perhaps with a small exhibition. I'm feeling really positive about the autumn, exciting things are just round the corner, so watch this space...

Early Days (Unfinished)

I recently found this while tidying my desktop. About 18 months back I tried writing a piece for the AOI about starting out as an illustrator. I tried a couple of approaches, before finally deciding to just give a plain, hopefully quite honest, account of my first year out of college. I got mid-way through September 05 before I ran out of steam. I suppose I realized the article would end up as impossibly long-winded, and too personal to really offer any practical help to other young illustrators. But here it is...

JULY 2005

Our tutor Jasper urges us to think of the degree show as our birth. At college we were coccooned in the safety of the institution within whose walls we functioned - but after graduation the real work begins. The walls are gone and suddenly everything – and maybe nothing – seems possible.

I letterpress some little books of my observational drawings and bung them in the post to a fairly random selection of industry folks. I don’t know what to expect. A week goes by and no responses. My tutor Ian warns me that I’ll have to follow up all my mailers with phone calls, but I have a phobia of making calls at the best of times. I’ve even been known to stutter on the phone to National Rail Enquiries. I explain this to Ian and his typically dry response is “if you want to be an illustrator enough then you’ll overcome it.”

So one Wednesday afternoon I sit there with the phone, pacing my room and psyching myself up. It’s a whole hour before I’m brave enough the punch the digits of the first person on my list, Brian Grimwood at Central Illustration Agency. To my surprise, he is charming and instantly puts me at my ease. He remembers receiving my book, and proceeds to chat pleasantly about what he thought.

“There’s no hurry Peter”, he says, “go out there and get yourself some work. Oh, and enjoy it.”

AUGUST 2005

I make the difficult decision to leave Brighton and move back to Dorset with Mum and Dad for a while. I hope it won’t be for too long – just until I make enough money to rent my own place. It does feel strange to be back in the bedroom where I spent a good deal of my childhood. Space is immediately an issue. I have a cramped computer desk, with an old hand-me-down iMac. My A1 drawing board just about fits in the room, but it takes up the entire floor. I have to dismantle it at the end of each working day.

I decide to relax a bit in August, but one day I come back from a day out by the beach in Weymouth to find an e-mail from Time Out magazine. They saw my letterpress book and urgently want me to do a commission. By the time I read it it’s 6.30pm, and everyone has left their office. I wait til the following morning, only to be informed that the job has gone to someone else. “You really should have put your mobile number on the book” counsels Richard, the art director. He does agree to see me the following week, though.

Attending London appointments from Dorset is a problem – the off peak train fare is £40 and the peak fare nearer £100. I’m forced to rely on the National Express coach – which takes three hours. Not wanting to be late for my 10.30 appointment, I opt for the earliest coach, even though this means leaving my house at 5.30am.

By the time I reach their offices, I feel exhausted and nearly sick with nervous anticipation. A bored receptionist points me to a seat in the lobby. A few moments later Stephanie, a designer, comes out of the lift. “Richard is too busy to come down – but I can give you a couple of minutes”. She flips hastily through the folio and asks a few kindly questions. By 10.40am I am back out on the street again, wondering if it was worthwhile.

A couple of weeks later, on a Tuesday afternoon, my question is answered when Time Out call me with a job – a full page illustration to head up a listings section. They’d like a rough ASAP and final artwork by Thursday AM. I spend ten minutes dancing round my room in a paroxysm of delight before the reality hits me. I actually have to do this.

No-one at college ever explained what a “rough” really was. For instance; should it be in colour? How much detail should there be? Should you send one, two, three or four rough ideas? Not knowing any better, I jot down four black and white ideas for the page layout. One takes me five minutes and looks really good. The other three take about two hours each and look rubbish. On Wednesday morning I send the roughs and the art director picks that first, five minute version.

In the afternoon I start to rework my sketch in colour, and for the first time I experience the painful ailment I shall come to know as “roughitis.” This occurs when a rough sketch captures a certain je ne sais quoi which you then feel depressingly unable to recapture, let alone advance upon, in a final piece.

By 6pm on Wednesday I am starting to panic about this. I feel a nebulous weight of expectation upon me – the sheer clammy horror of wanting this illustration to be far above average, without knowing how to achieve it. I want it to look great, and be a manifesto for my new career. I silently remember those days in college when we students used to sit round with the Sunday supplements, high-handedly dismissing all editorial illustration as “shoddy crap”. I sit amongst screwed up scraps of paper, realizing that my dreams have hit the brick wall of reality. Nervous tension makes my hand behave differently, and all the subtlety drips away from my line work. By 8pm I have lost any ability to step back and assess the quality of what I’m doing, and by 10 I have entered a new hinterland of inactivity, as the drawings stare menacingly back at me, resplendent in their artlessness.

By 2am I have pulled myself together, realizing that there are salvageable scraps of good work in the bin. I start to cut them out and glue them down in a last caffeine-induced attempt to save my skin. I’ve never worked in collage before, but needs must. The sun rises, and things look a little better. I have a completed image which I’m not too ashamed to send off. I feel tired and slightly jaded. It’s not the most auspicious start to my career, but I guess I’ll live to fight another day.

SEPTEMBER 2005

My days become filled with research. Obsessively I stand in Borders flicking through every single magazine, working my way across the shelves inch by inch, as I attempt to add to my list of names and contact numbers. Its a depressing state of affairs – so few magazines use illustration. It’s like hunting for a needle in a haystack. One magazine – the surfing quarterly Adrenalin – does stick out. Their “We Love America” issue is current on the shelves, featuring an absolutely stunning hand-drawn cover from Paul Willoughby. Whoever commissioned that knows their onions. I put five stars against Adrenalin and bump it to the top of my promo list.

The following Monday, I do a new batch of mailers. Adrenalin get an extra special package, containing postcards and a set of hand-finished books. To my amazement, their editor in chief Mike Fordham calls me the same Wednesday. He explains they’re arranging a last minute trip to Ireland to generate content for a future issue, and would I like to come? I breathlessly agree.

After hanging up the phone, doubts seep in. What was I thinking? I’ve arranged to take a train to Bath station on Friday, to meet a man I’ve never met before - who’ll drive me to Western Ireland where I’ll spend a week with a whole bunch of other new people, most of whom are surfing enthusiasts, and with whom I may well not share any common ground! And he didn’t even mention a fee...

Friday comes quickly. I have no idea what awaits me. Outside Bath station I wait for Mike’s car. A Land Rover pulls up and a big man with a beard opens the passenger door. Gingerly I climb inside. Mike’s voice is gruff, with a London accent. There’s a touch of the Ray Winstone about him. He starts to give me the full lowdown on the project. He’s got the gift of the gab and no mistake, this man. The intention, he declares, is to generate content for the new Adrenalin magazine, and to work on a more loose body of work which he intends to publish in a book. He’s an associate editor for a Cornish surfing magazine, Stranger, who intend to branch out into publishing. Mike tells me that the project is very free flowing. They have a lovely house booked in the Irish countryside for all of September, into whose walls any number of surfers and creative people will be passing. The bad news is that there might not be enough beds to go round. “Have you been to a festival before?” he asks. “Well... that sort of vibe.”

Elsewhere in Bath we pick up another passenger – Spencer, a young photographer. We head on to Swansea, where we pick up Tara, another photographer – plus Adam her assistant and Polly her stylist. Strictly speaking there is only room for three people in the back seat of the car, but Tara re-assures us that Adam is “only very little.” For the next six hours I end up with a safety belt clip up my ass.

It’s nightfall when we reach the western extremity of Ireland. My travelling companions Tara, Polly and Adam are dropped off at a hotel in town, while Spencer and I survey them with somewhat jealous eyes. We, by contrast, are staying in a house, miles from any sign of civilization, with sheep and cows for neighbours. The place is crowded with tall, tanned, beautiful people clutching bottles of beer. One randomly snaps Polaroids of his mates, another strums a guitar. Some of these people are world surfing champions. I’m introduced to the fourth best longboarder in the world. I want to ask him what a longboard is, but instead I opt for “wow”.

The week passes by slowly. I’m a light sleeper at the best of times, and I count off the miserable twilight hours, sometimes in a sleeping bag on the floor, sometimes sharing a single bed with a snoring Mike who, semi-dressed and comatose, is a frightening sight to behold.

Daytimes are unusual but, for me, rather enjoyable. Unbelievably, silver-tongued Mike has persuaded a beer company to “sponsor” this whole endeavour. There are also a couple of people on hand to rustle us up healthy meals. Most of the surfers are incredibly friendly and kind. I thought I might be sidelined during the dinner gatherings, but whenever I fall silent one of them ushers me gently back into the conversation.

On the other hand, it is undeniably frustrating to discover that my phone has no reception, so I have to rely on Mike to drive me places. The house is a terrifying distance from anywhere. Several times I am rescued by one of the surfers, looking windswept, miserable and utterly lost at a road junction. As a non-surfer I know my week can’t help but be different to everyone elses. They’re all off excitedly chasing the perfect wave, while I cling to my sketchbook like it’s a comfort blanket. It’s the only thing that justifies my presence here.

On the first day I complete about fifty drawings. One of them is a small A6 image that I sketch after clambering over rocks on the beach. I find a huge warning sign, explaining that I am leaving the lifeguard zone and entering a place of unpredictable tides. It’s not a great drawing, but when I add the caption “I feel I’m on the very edge of something”, I know I’ve captured the essence of my week.

I become good friends with Spencer the photographer during the week, and on the Thursday Mike decides that he and I should go off to the Aran islands on a kind of mini-assignment for Adrenalin magazine. Mike has now discussed a fee with me, and as we step off the ferry onto one of Ireland’s most unspoiled and remote communities, I feel a ridiculous thrill of delight. I am actually being paid to be here. We check into a B&B, then I roam across a windswept mountain landscape dotted with sheep and ancient dry stone walls. I am being paid to be here, I remind myself. I almost feel guilty at the mere thought.

Fire in Hove

This photo is from the Brighton Argus... It seems my flat block has been in the news! I was away for the weekend and there was an arson attempt. Luckily no-one was hurt and only a few people were treated for smoke inhalation. My flat escaped any damage - although the corridors smell of smoke and the ground floor walls are stained black, and wet from the firefighters hoses. A lucky escape, I think.

Here's a detail from a watercolour painting of a gatepost I've just finished for a private commission....

Last week I was up in Banbury to teach an illustration workshop at the school where my brother works. He'd organized a three day literary festival for the students, with guests covering a range of topics - from songwriting and illustration to poetry. The opening speaker was Germaine Greer, who delivered an intriguing speech describing how she came to write her most recent book "Shakespeare's Wife". (To be honest I thought neither speech nor book would be my cup of tea. Who really cares what Shakespeare's wife did? She didn't write any plays or sonnets...) Greer had a contemporary point to make, though. The book serves, in fact, as an attack on snobbish and lazy Shakespeare academia, using Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare's wife, as a case study. Little is known about her, but for decades scholars have judged her unfairly, assuming she trapped Shakespeare into a loveless marriage. In challenging these traditional positions, Greer made a speech that proved to be both fascinating and thought-provoking (even if I have forgotten the finer points of it...).

I also managed to resist the temptation afterwards to destroy the gravitas of the occasion by asking her all about Celebrity Big Brother.