Category — Artist of the Month

Every cartoonist has a distinctive personal working style and Bloghorn asked Kate what works for her;

“I produce rough ideas with a biro, then the final artwork with an ink pen, scanning that in to the computer, then having a bit of a tinker with it in Photoshop. If I’m working to a very tight deadline, fear helps the creative process along. Otherwise I spend a lot of time eating, hoovering, wandering about the house with no real purpose, and surfing the internet. All this is done under the guise of ‘looking for inspiration’.”

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent

Bloghorn’s featured Artist of the Month for November is cartoonist and illustrator, Kate Taylor.

Yorkshire-based Kate’s work has appeared worldwide in books and magazines for a wide variety of clients. Like many cartoonists, her work appears in many markets. Her clients include Sainsburys, Yorkshire Electricity, Honda, BBC, The Daily Mirror, The Sunday Times, Exley Publications and Pearson Education.

We will be publishing examples of Kate’s work here every Friday in November.
Bloghorn says click T for Taylor

The PCO: Great British cartoon talent

Here is the last interview answer from Andy Davey our PCO Artist of the Month for August 2008.

Bloghorn asked him what’s the future for cartooning in the digital age?

I’m sure cartoons will thrive and flourish, after they emerge from this difficult period, but in what form they will do this, I have no idea. It may be that animation will provide the extra selling point they seem to need in the rush to digital. It seems many people under 30 now think of animated cartoon art when they hear the word “cartoon”, so the deed may be already be done.

It’s increasingly difficult to get any kind of still, newsprint cartoon published at a reasonable fee, so it may have become less attractive to new entrants and this may lead to a downward spiral in the quality of work. But there are, still, good new people coming in*.

Interestingly, the route to being a cartoonist is usually circuitous or tangential; there aren’t any really useful training schools. This means it still attracts lateral thinkers, oddballs and eccentrics – thank goodness. Long may it do so. Satire and drawn humour are as natural (and enduring) as camel farts. The art-form might mutate but it won’t die.

Can I go now?

Bloghorn says click D for Davey.

* See some of it at this link British cartoon talent

Andy Davey is the PCO Artist of the Month for August 2008.
Bloghorn asked Andy some questions about what he does.

Which other cartoonists’ work do you admire?
Gerald Scarfe’s loose, carefree line, devastating caricature and command of so many styles is still pretty breathtaking. Steve Bell’s ability to nail a politician and produce the definitive image of the hapless soul (Major, Blair, Bush) is unparalleled. Matt’s ability to translate world events into demotic scenes of suburbia. Then there are the others – Robert Crumb for his weird Freudian cathartics. Thelwell for pretty much the opposite. Ken Reid, Tony Husband, Ray Lowry, Ralph Steadman, Larry, Ed McLachlan, Posy Simmonds … oh, and that Bill Stott fellow. There are many others. Anyone who makes me laugh out loud gets a special gold star.

Do you have any tips for wannabe cartoonists?
Oh bejayzus. At present, it looks like it would be recommending someone to train as a cordwainer or a wheelwright. Of course, there are several dozen scribblers making a good living out of it – and even cartoon Forbes-listers (Messrs Bell, Pritchett, Scarfe) but the rest of us live on hope, rejection and frozen peas. BUT, if you love doing something, then you just can’t stop yourself pursuing it – and it would be foolish to do so (as I have demonstrated to myself). So if that’s what you enjoy – DO IT, fer gawd’s sake, or you’ll regret it. Worry about the penury later – when the skinny-dog and pennywhistle combo begins to look like an upward career move.

Bloghorn says click D for Davey.

British cartoon talent

Andy Davey is the PCO Artist of the Month for August 2008.

Bloghorn asked him how he makes his cartoons.

I draw with small pieces of broken china, dug up from the garden, while listening to Bach fugues on the wireless. Well, that’s not strictly true. I use pen and ink too … in fact, almost anything which will make a wet and awkward mark really (excluding live crocodiles).

I have tried computers, but I’ve reverted to the wet sensuous stuff – lovely large sheets of fat white watercolour paper, ink as black as jet, the rich wonderful unpredictable colours of Messrs Windsor and Newton, toothbrushes, nibs, blots, smells and mess – it’s wonderful. I’ve been working larger and larger lately – untroubled by the trivial annoyances of deadlines … or payment. I love the free sweep of a nib across virgin Imperial sized paper. It’s a bugger to scan though, even with an A3 scanner. I’m sure I’m going the wrong way here – everybody tells me the way forward is digital, digital, digital – including you, Mr Bloghorn – but you’re all wrong, I tell you – do you see? – Wrong! Ha ha ha (at this point, Mr Davey was heavily sedated under restraint).

Bloghorn says click D for Davey

It’s British cartoon talent

Andy Davey is the PCO Artist of the Month for August 2008.
Andy’s cartoons and caricatures have appeared in UK publications including The Guardian, The Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Independent on Sunday, Private Eye, The Spectator, The New Statesman and Prospect. He has wielded his pen for TV too, drawing for the animated satirical cartoon series 2DTV and covering occasional political news events on Channel Five TV News and Sky TV News.

Bloghorn asked him a few questions, starting with a predictable one: What made you become a cartoonist?

First, I’m very embarrassed you asked me, because it’ll look like nepotism (Andy is the chairpersonman of the PCO, which runs Bloghorn – Ed). However, since you’re holding a water-pistol to my head …

The Voice from within made me do it, m’Lud. Hoarse from years of unacknowledged yelling, it shouted from atop a small grassy knoll somewhere in my gullet. It was only when someone asked me what all the shouting was that I took notice. Ah yes; the little noisy chap within.

He’d wanted to be a cartoonist from the age of about eight, seduced by an imagined life where ties were not essential but getting up late and being rather louche were absolutely expected. Although he didn’t know what louche meant. He wanted to draw characters from the pages of Wham! and Beano comics all day, essentially – with short breaks for football on the park – and saw a career in cartooning to represent just that.

My dour, rational self wilfully ignored such fancies and went about the long, long dreary task of establishing a deeply mediocre career in something hard, unrewarding and smelly (research chemistry). But the Voice kept shouting, letting up only while the usual unhealthy distractions of adolescence and early adulthood kept my mind off … well, anything really. Finally, I gave in – albeit far too late to build anything other than the career I have now.

Bloghorn says click D for Davey.

British cartoon talent

Bloghorn is giving Artist of the Month a week off this Friday but we will be back with a new featured cartoonist next Friday. In the meantime, have a look back at the talent we have already featured over the past year.

It’s British cartoon talent

Clive Goddard has been the PCO Artist of the month for July 2008. If you’d like to see the four featured pieces of Clive’s work we have published on Bloghorn during July, click the term, Clive Goddard, in the labels underneath this writing, or, click G for Goddard here.
It’s British cartoon talent

Clive Goddard is the PCO Artist of the month for July 2008. Bloghorn says click G for Goddard.
British cartoon talent

Clive Goddard is the PCO Artist of the month for July 2008. Bloghorn says click G for Goddard.
British cartoon talent