Sketchbook Research (Tom Gauld)

These are photographic examples of the original research I produced for the illustration brief focusing on Tom Gauld.

Presentation Artisit Research (Tom Gauld)

Self-portrait.

He regularly travels in America and Europe to take part in comics festivals.

Since 2005 he has been illustrating a regular column for the letters page of the Guardian’s Saturday Review.

Tom's clients include: The New Yorker, Coca-Cola, The Guardian, Wired Magazine, Granta, EMI Records, The Walrus, The New York Times and Penguin Books. 

Source: http://theillustrationgallery.com/artists/tom-gauld 

I sit and think and doodle in my sketchbook until I have a good idea. Then I’ll make rough pencil sketches on copier paper till I have things worked out visually. Then I hone these sketches on paper and in photoshop till I have a rough version of the image which I can send to anyone who needs to approve it. Then I will print out the image and use a lightbox to trace an ink version which I crosshatch then scan back into the computer where I can clean it up, tweak bits and add any colour. I love using the computer but I try to stay away from it till I’ve done most of the thinking for an idea, looked at it from all sides, because I feel that once the computer is involved things are on an inevitable path to being finished. Whereas in my sketchbook the possibilities are endless. 

Cartooning heroes: William Heath-Robinson, Gary Larson, Roz Chast, Richard McGuire, Ben Katchor, Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, Jochen Gerner.  

Source: http://www.casualoptimist.com/2011/08/23/q-a-with-tom-gauld/

Interviewer - It seems that a lot of your work — from Hunter and Painter, to your illustrations for The Guardian — also explores the nature of art. Do you think that comics, which seem to straddle the high- and low-brow, are a good vehicle for criticism? 

Going back to the idea of contrasts, I think there's a fascinating (and funny) contrast between the near-perfection a work of art can achieve, and the messy imperfection everyday-ness of its creation and of the artist’s real life.  

Interviewer - It seems that a lot of your work — from Hunter and Painter, to your illustrations for The Guardian — also explores the nature of art. Do you think that comics, which seem to straddle the high- and low-brow, are a good vehicle for criticism? 

I think because comics can have a lightness about them they are a good way of looking at, criticizing and making fun of anything, but High Art and its occasional over-seriousness is a good topic to have fun with. 

Interviewer - I notice that in your sketchbooks you’ll often riff on a topic — like the Bronte sisters, or pigs — over a whole page, then eventually we’ll see some of those ideas appear in your illustrations, fully formed. I was wondering if you could talk a little about your process of producing your Guardian illustrations — how much lead time you’ll have, how much art direction you’re given, and so on. 

I've been working for the Guardian since about 2002, not long after I left college. Roger Browning the art director of the Review hired me to do a spot illustration; I've worked regularly for him since, and in 2005 took over the illustration on the letters page every Saturday. 

Source: http://www.graphic-e-y-e.com/2011/12/interview-tom-gauld.html

 

 

The Brief