Sketchbook Keeping for Dads

...or Mums.

"There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hallway." Or so said the critic Cyril Connolly. With the school holidays still stretching copiously ahead this quotation has been trundling about my mind lately. Not that there is a pram in my hallway – these days it's heaps of Lego, rubber swords and broken Spiderman merchandise – but the effect is the same. Or maybe worse.

When my first son was born, five years ago now, my sketchbook began to accumulate dust. I didn't notice because I was busy doing other things, things I had never had to think about before. Soon afterwards a very small digestive system began misfiring with very substantial consequences. Somehow 24 months slipped by and then, just as nappies, midnight screams and purée flinging began to recede it all started again and the dust on the sketchbook became so thick I could have drawn my portrait in it. If I'd had the time.

It is taboo to complain about having children. They are a gift and a privilege, and to display resentment at the time they take up and the limits they impose on their parents is considered shabby. It is shabby. Good parents are supposed to stretch and accommodate and keep smiling. But every parent knows, no matter what stance they take publicly, that they are slaves to their little ones. In the relay race of life, once that baton has been passed on it's time for the next generation to take priority while the oldies (that's us) wheeze to a stop and cheer them on.

But that being the case, why is my sketchbook no longer dusty? Did I wheeze it clean? Possibly, but the fact remains that I am back in the sketching business again, despite the steadily rising tide of scratched DVDs and nameless bits of plastic. So how have I managed it? And how am I able to write this with one child wriggling on my knee while the other bleats that he's 'hungry' and 'needs' chocolate?

Well, firstly it turns out that Mother Nature hands out extra supplies of patience when babies are born. Goodness (and my wife) knows that I've never had much of that, but somehow art manages to get out amidst the chaos. Whether or not it's good art is another question, but at least the flame splutters on. Of course, it also helps if – like me – you have lovely and incredibly generous parents-in-law.

Secondly, I sketch my children. They are the most challenging subjects, but they are also powerful antidotes to prissy drawing; get those sprightly forms down in three stokes, or don't get them down at all.

Thirdly, forget those A3, 100gm hot-pressed watercolour blocks. Leave behind those over-stuffed pencil cases with their pots of masking fluid, craft knives and bulldog-clips, and don't even think about charcoal. No, go to your nearest Muji and buy a few of their passport-sized sketchbooks (or get the Moleskine equivalent), then select a simple drawing implement, such as a Faber-Castell Pitt artist pen or a stubby pencil. Stick them in your pocket (with the baby wipes and sticky toys) and you're all set.

It seems to me that good art needs 'sombre enemies'. If your time is being devoured, you must put what remains to better use. If having children means you can't be creative and play computer games then be grateful – Mother Nature is helping you discover if you're a real artist or just a poser. Therefore don't despair, fellow sketchers, just downsize and keep going, and before you know it your children will want a sketchbook too. And besides, if that pram in the hallway looks too sombre, you can always come over all Bloomsbury and decorate it.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and be a dragon.

A bientôt

Pirates in the Bottom Drawer

In common with most people these days, I have an un-published novel. Mine's a 70k word seafaring adventure about trickery, treasure and pirates, directed at nine to twelve-year-olds. Did you notice the word pirates? Something else I seem to have in common with most people these days. Arrrr.

Being visually-minded, I can't help wanting to illustrate my own story. Not in a full blown way, but if ever Puck and Ogwe get into print I'd like to do some chapter heading line drawings, and maybe some elements that can be incorporated into the cover. Maybe. Illustrating books for this age group is a thorny business. But since I am now entirely free of any editorial control in this matter, here's a colour sample.

 The pencil line is strong now that I have found a new approach to reinforcing it in Photoshop (though still too heavy in parts), and the colours are taken from scanned images (and toyed with so that I won't get into any copyright issues) and not actual fabric. I have also thought more thoroughly about the apparent scale of these textures in relation to the drawings they colour. I'm pleased. Click for a closer look.

Now all I need is a suitable approach to backgrounds.

Monsieur Insoumis

This is the third in a series of Rouen characters I will be posting. His treatment is different to the previous two, partly because I have gone back to pencil (my first love) and partly because I'm still experimenting with using scanned textures for colour. Don't forget to click for a closer look.

There is an anarchist bookshop near where I live. It's not easy to glimpse inside because it's only occasionally open and then only at certain times of the day (ie. when the police are at lunch – this is France, remember). Even when it is open the owner seems determined to keep his clientèle limited to a trusted few; the look he gave me when I last peered inside wasn't welcoming. Was it my shoes? In any case, I'll have to go elsewhere for my subversive pamphlets.

The shop, in its usual shut-up state, has its windows covered by lift-down wooden shutters, painted in burnt-barricade black. Just in case anyone still doesn't think that political power is accursed, the following words of the great Louise Michel are stencilled there in white:

'Le pouvoir est maudit, c'est pour cela que je suis anarchiste!'

We inhabitants of Rouen recently received an official letter telling us to report to our local police station to be vetted. This was so we could declare our race, sexual orientation, political views, and to state which trades unions we belonged to. Obviously it was a stunt. I don't know how many actually turned up to do this, or who was to blame, but my guess is that Monsieur Insoumis knows something about it.

The Dishwasher Dragon

Just for fun, here is the Dishwasher Dragon. He gets his name from the fact that I used only items from the kitchen sink to colour him: rubber gloves for his scales, head and wings, a sponge for his soft underbelly, and the red bristles of a washing-up brush for his, well, for his bristles. The bubbles were lifted from photos – I didn't even try to scan those.

He's not of publishable quality -- just for fun, remember -- but he's certainly a big colourful step in the right direction in terms of a new picture book technique. Click for a closer look, (but watch your tea-towel).

Monsieur Chevaline

This is the second in a series of Rouen characters I will be posting.

When we moved to Rouen it was to a flat in one of the most pungent streets in the city, off the bustling market square of St Marc. The shopping was fantastic, but the gutters ran with fish juice and brown cabbage on market days. The courtyard entrance to our building was, at that time, flanked by a greengrocer on one side and a horse butcher's shop on the other.

Well, 'shop' might not be the right word – it was more of a kiosk. When Monsieur Chevaline was open for business the front extended into the street, extended in fact beyond the shade of the stripy awning above it. The enormous red sausages he sold were therefore part-cured in the sun, as well as being lightly seasoned with fag ash as he leant proudly over his wares. Behind him there were posters of prancing ponies, cute enough for the wall of any little girl's bedroom.

I didn't shop there. I don't believe a horse is something that should be eaten, at least not by anyone who isn't living in the Pleistocene. And I'm not the only one; someone who owns a fat black, wedge-nibbed permanent marker wrote 'Barbare!' and 'ça se mange pas!' on the shutters one night. It wasn't me. Honest.

M. Chevaline is long gone now, but I do have one particularly clear image of him, vivid enough for a memory drawing.

Just inside the courtyard, set halfway up the grubby brick wall, was a metal door exactly like something from an elderly submarine. I only ever saw it open once. Monsieur Chevaline stepped out, wearing his bloody apron and holding an evil-looking blade.

He was chewing something tough.

'bon shooer,' he scronched

I suppose it might have been an After Eight mint.