Illustration (aka doodle wrangling)
Illustration by Tim Martin
In an earlier post, I wrote about always read the small print (artsp)—my way of finding inspiration in life’s overlooked details, being my primary source of inspiration. But that is not where I began my illustration life. No, my illustration life began, like everyone else’s, as a child.
Crayon portraits, football, and weird legs
I drew pictures. Lots of pictures. Carefully crafted stick figures with hair like they had licked a plug socket and three fingers per hand (no thumbs). Colour palettes of both primary and secondary colours. Yellow sun. Purple grass. Green skin. These joyful, unhindered masterpieces of gallery-worthy (my mum‘s camphor wood chest) art offered up to overly enthusiastic and encouraging parents.
Tiring of the incalculable number of family portraits (mum, dad, and me—I don’t know where my two sisters went), I moved on to create images of my then passion: football.
I cannot tell you how many pictures I drew of Luton Town footballers. Hang on, aren’t you from Oxford? Yes, I am. At primary school, all my classmates liked either Liverpool or Manchester United. My parents got married in Luton, Kent. I liked the colour orange, and Luton Town (Bedfordshire), played in Orange. So, by both a twist of fate and my ignorance of UK geography, they became my team.
I created endless drawings of both individuals and groups of players. The problem I had was one of anatomy. Nothing was in proportion. Every player ended up with one normal-looking leg and one skinny leg, like they had a muscle-wasting disease. I took great care with their hair, but their faces were two button eyes and a dash for a mouth.
I could see where the problems were, but so what? Back in the 70s and 80s, the shops were closed on Sunday. These drawings kept me occupied when there was not much else to do.
By the mid-80s, my artwork habit fell off a cliff. There were two reasons:
A teacher at school gave me a ‘C-grade’ for my homework, stating ‘a good copy.’ The grade annoyed me and infuriated my mum, who sat with me (she watched TV) while I drew it. The situation did make for a fun parents’ evening as my mum decided to tear a strip off the teacher.
Hormones and hitting sixteen years of age. House parties, and then later pubs, clubs, and hangovers, doused my artistic ambitions.
The only things I drew or painted over the next few years were mixtape inlay cards, copies of band artwork, fabric-painted T-shirts, and party invites. Humour had begun to creep into my work now. Decent outcomes, but obvious anatomical flaws in any image of the human body.
Copy(!), Paste, Repeat
Jump forward to the 90s and early 2000s. My family were the lucky (Radio Rentals) renters of an Acer, Windows 3.1 PC. Microsoft Paint had its uses, but then we bought an eMac.
The eMac gave me access to purchased (🤥) versions of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. I couldn’t get on with Photoshop, but Illustrator and I became firm friends. Later, it became more than a friend. It became the tool I used for hours of obsessive late-night practice and *not for public consumption* archival output.
Three things happened during this period. Illustrator allowed me to endlessly reconstruct images—the bits that didn’t work. It allowed me to trace images, addressing my inability to draw anything to scale, or having crossed eyes, or noses that wouldn’t look out of place on a newborn elephant. It allowed me to depict my odd sense of humour in the art I produced.
I became prolific and pig-in-muck happy, tracing and collaging images that I forgot to consider one thing: copyright. Copyright puts a real downer on a budding career based on copying pictures of people. Sorry, teacher. 🙏🏻 The illustration train pulled into the sidings and stopped.
Here are a handful of images from that period where copyright infringement is not an issue. Hopefully, you can see the humour creeping in. The artsp elements.
Watercolours, Pinterest, and a new beginning
During 2015, a form of creative itch propelled me to buy a set of watercolours.
My previous experience of painting had been the acrylic plus finger, or half-potato kind, but I invested in a set of Daler Rowney half-pan paints, decent brushes, and a booklet of watercolour paper. Decent tools but no idea what to paint.
A few weak efforts later, pure watercolour images morphed into mixed media, and I began venturing outside to create urban sketches of local buildings or exhibits at museums. They weren’t too bad, but I knew I preferred making pictures of people.
I turned to Pinterest for inspiration. Several books later, my interpretations of the images racked up. I was still pretty rubbish at getting their hands, feet and heads in proportion, and I struggled with features, but there was something about using pencil and brush on paper I found thrilling.
Then came the Apple Pencil. This was a revelation. I researched iPad art tools and settled on Procreate. I did a bunch of study to see how to use it. Trials of Skillshare and the tutorials of Liz Kohler-Brown (🙌🏻) spurred me on and set me on the path to where I am now.
Here are a handful of my mixed media and watercolour images.
Current practice and my go-to kit
What do I do now, and what tools do I use?
The first thing is to think of an idea and how I want the image to look. I am lucky that ideas come thick and fast. I have too many ideas to be able to do them all. Still, better this way than to have no ideas at all. I have mentioned artsp. This is my go-to as a starting point for idea generation.
I wish I could magic up the ability to draw anatomically correct bodies, but I can’t, and I don’t want to. I have gone full circle and like making hand-drawn images with oversized hands and feet. I don’t mind fat and thin leg pairings. I can’t draw facial features properly, so I don’t bother. I continue to advocate that two dots or lines for eyes are good enough. I tend to apply shadows and shading in the same way every time, so the light source is always in the same place. Maybe it’s because I am left-handed, or maybe it’s muscle memory. Who knows and who cares?
My main source for human figure ideas is Pinterest. I scan my home feed, or search, find, and use one or more images to create an interpretive drawing.
Procreate and the Apple Pencil continue to be my main tools. Drawing on glass now feels completely natural. It is the closest thing to drawing on a piece of paper, but with the advantage of digital layers and the wizardry of undo. Procreate can create animations, which I have dabbled with, and can record what I have drawn as a timelapse video.
If I ever hanker after vector illustration, or elements I want to combine, such as my book covers, I use Affinity Designer. Version One of the app does more than I need, so I haven’t ever felt the need to upgrade to version two.
If I need to collage or resize images, I use Pixelmator Pro. This is another great tool and has recently been bought by Apple. Look out for huge improvements coming to Apple products in future Mac or iOS updates. That is, unless Apple make it a Pro app, in which case, expect to spend a chunk of cash. I wish I had spent more time with Pixelmator Pro, but I am a creature of habit and have stuck to what works for me.
And so
That’s it. I have gone full circle. I have spent much of my life wrangling doodles in some way, and now, having tried all sorts of styles and techniques, I have settled on what makes me happy and what I am comfortable with. I have found *my style*.
Go on. Give it a go. Pick up a pencil, a paintbrush, or an iPad. Whether you sketch, scribble, or splash colour around, you might surprise yourself. Whichever method you choose, have fun! You don’t have to create a gallery-worthy masterpiece, but you may find joy and relaxation. What more could you ask for?
🛠️ Tools
If you want to see how fine art illustration is done properly and beautifully (not like my doodles) then why not check out my nieces website. She is fantastic!
If you want to follow along, why not sign up for my newsletter, where I will summarise what I have learned or done. I’ll produce something once per month, and I promise I won’t spam your mailbox.
If you fancy reaching out or saying hi 👋🏻, why not contact me.