Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Illustrator and author, former Children's Laureate, three-time Greenaway winner, and political cartoonist for The Observer.
On the island
Eight records
Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas TallisFavourite
Sinfonia of London, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli
This is one of my favourite tracks to draw too. It's Vaughan Williams, Fantasia on the Theme of Thomas Talis. And I think I first heard this on Desert Island discs. It could have been Jenny Agata, I'm not sure.
Original Soundtrack from Cry Freedom, conducted by George Fenton
This is really the backdrop to my childhood. My parents were both born in South Africa, grew up in South Africa. I was born in Cape Town. I left when I was a year old. My parents were both active in the anti-apartheid movement. And this is Cosy Siculale Africa, which always brings a lump to my throat when I hear it.
I heard her first album, which was called Stranger in the Alps, and I loved the lyrics. And then I found myself going to the Bologna Book Fair in Italy, and I was listening to this, and I was drawing, and I looked out of the window, and there were the Alps below me. And so I was drawing to Stranger in the Alps whilst flying over the Alps.
A band that I loved as an art student. They come from Wales, they're called Young Marble Giants. And this is a track called Final Day. And the reason I chose it is it reminds me of my time as an art student in Brighton in the 80s, and also of my tutor at Brighton, the wonderful Raymond Briggs.
This is for my wife Jo. We met at Brighton Art School. ... And we put on this track. This was the track We Fell in Love To. It's by the wonderful Leonard Cohen and it's Suzanne.
The next track is by a wonderful folk collective called Bird in the Belly. They play beautifully. They are five, I think, in the collective, young musicians. And what really drew me to them is that they find material, sort of poems, poetry, prose, that they can then set to music. So we're going to hear a 19th-century poem all about a dandy who goes down to Brighton to take the air, and it's called Horace in Brighton.
Adagio from Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622
Liszt Ferenc Chamber Orchestra, Budapest; Kálmán Berkes (clarinet); conducted by János Rolla
This is Mozart, the adagio from Mozart's clarinet concerto in A, and it was my father's favourite piece of music. He had this wonderful parenting style, which I think I describe as benign neglect. ... I played that at his funeral.
Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Victoria Mullova (violin), conducted by Paavo Järvi
This piece is perfect to actually draw whatever is in one's mind, and this is such an evocative piece. It's by Arvo Pert, the wonderful composer of sometimes of sacred music. And there's an element of the sacred about this piece. It's called Silentium, and it has this wonderful D-tuned piano that is so spooky, it's doom-laden in some senses, but there's also something very soothing and calming about it.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:44You said drawing is a verb, not a noun. Tell me about that.
one of my very earliest memories was of drawing on my father's study wall in sort of Crayola crayon, in a wax crayon, and then getting into terrible trouble when he came back and found the scribbles all over his wall. And my mum went off and got a great big pack of paper from a local paper mill, and she just fed me this paper, you know, when I needed it, you know, which was often. And now I keep a sketchbook with me at all times.
Presenter asks
2:25What's the joy of drawing for you?
I think it's a relaxing thing. It's almost like a meditation. So I will start on a blank sheet of paper and I will draw something without thinking, and that will lead to another decision and another decision. ... But one of the lovely things about a sketchbook is that it's your own personal space.
Presenter asks
7:04What is it that stops us? Why are we inhibited, do you think?
I think we compare what we do with things we see in the world around us. We live in a visual world, and often if we can't draw sort of perfectly our version of Homer Simpson, we give up. And I love the awkward and the inadvertent. I love drawings that aren't quite right.
The keepsakes
The luxury
so that I can illustrate the Bible, I can illustrate the Shakespeare, and then I can move on to illustrating Alice in Wonderland all over again.
Presenter asks
15:04Tell me about the job you took on before you went to art school. You were 16 and you've described it as the best job I've ever had.
It was a job at my local library, and I got to do that wonderful thing of stamping books. I love doing that, asking for overdue fines, that was great. But my favourite thing was stacking the shelves, because I could get this great big trolley, load them up with books, and then disappear into the bookstacks and find a comfortable corner and read all afternoon. It was fantastic. I think I read Mervyn Peake's Gorman Gast at Coulston Library in the corner when I should have been stacking shelves.
Presenter asks
16:15Do you think it's had an impact on you as an artist creatively? Do you see those experiences and those ideas in your work?
I think inevitably I draw from my imagination, but I think I've always been one of those people who looks at things. Now, I see this in my daughter as well, who's also an illustrator. But Katie, when she was little, always looked at things, scrutinized things, didn't say too much, but looked at things. Now, that's what I used to do, my mother tells me. So I've always been an observer in that sense. And I suppose an experience of wandering round Cane Hill was a chance really to observe, I think, all sorts of things. And it was, undoubtedly, a very sort of gothic environment.
Presenter asks
18:07You've described deciding to pursue art as the most transgressive thing you've ever done. Why was that?
I was going to do English. That was in an academic subject. ... It was this feeling of running away. You know, it felt wonderful. I felt like a rebel and going off to this wonderful, wild, exciting place called Art School.
“one of my very earliest memories was of drawing on my father's study wall in sort of Crayola crayon, in a wax crayon, and then getting into terrible trouble when he came back and found the scribbles all over his wall.”
“I will have a sketchbook at all times, and then every so often I'll want to know the story behind something I've drawn, quite inadvertently.”
“I remember reading Where the Wind Blows and thinking, wow, this is something I want to do. And then seeing Raymond's studio and thinking, I want to work in a studio at the bottom of my garden one day. So Raymond was an inspiring figure.”
“don't go looking for a style. A style should find you.”
“drawing often has a therapeutic value, and we know that it can help to externalise feelings and thoughts. It can make us feel mindful or calmer.”