I first made linocuts when I left art school. Now I only cut letters because I’m too impatient to do anything more laborious. But I do upper and lower case. I don’t discriminate.
A word in your shell-like…
Five years ago I recorded Becky Smith reading my picture book Waiting for Chicken Smith, then I started work on another book. Then I moved house, then there was Covid, – and now it’s 2023.
I remember how pleased I had been when I heard Becky make the original reading, so when I listened to the recording again recently, I wanted to be sure to publish it in a video alongside the pictures.
It’s not easy to get a good reading of a picture book. In my picture books, the text is wholly dependent on the illustrations and vice versa. My illustrations extend the meaning of the words, and weave and dodge around them with their own message, making the book a sum of the parts. Introducing a human voice to the mix is like a distraction, but not if it feels right. I think it works well here.
I wrote this book with my childhood summers in Australia in mind and although that’s not apparent in the text, the illustrations make some direct references which probably only have meaning to the author. However, Becky’s voice captures the youthful spirit of the characters and it transcends any sense of place.
I think we recorded it twice, and used the first one. Thanks Becky.
Becky Smith. No relation to Chicken.
Ink on paper…
Painting in ink on newsprint is one of my favourite pastimes.
The paper is a little unforgiving, and the ink doesn’t dry fast enough for my liking, but it’s not bad all the same. I use Artist Spectrum ink and also a big bottle of Indian ink of unknown origin. Well, I know it’s India, but I don’t think it was made there. The label came off the bottle which suggests the ink isn’t the best quality, but I like it and it’s plentiful. I’ve had the bottle since 2015 because I dilute it with tap water.
Pencillustration screen print now available…
The new Pencillustration two colour A1 Limited Edition screen print is now available in the Little Shop.
This print is a limited run of 50 and will make a fine gift for a loved one who misses the days of the wooden pencil and the need to sharpen a pencil with a knife or scalpel.
85 Fleet Street…
I made a drawing of Edwin Lutyens’ building at 85 Fleet Street for a commission.
Built in 1935, it was the London headquarters for Reuters until 2005 but now it looks as though it’s a restaurant (on the ground floor at least). It sure looks like a Lutyens building: austere (with flourishes), classical, monumental and built to last. It has fine art deco touches too, especially the entrance on Fleet Street.
But compared to the giants he created in India and elsewhere, this building is quite neat and tidy. Like the Cenotaph here in London.
The half finished drawing of 85 Fleet Street.
God Save the Date…
My diary entry for the coronation last Saturday was as showy as the event itself.
And it didn’t cost anyone a penny.
A little about Joe…
This new book is about two boys, one named Joe. It’s a friendship story and a story about similarities and differences. And it’s all drawn in ink and some pencil.
Joe and the other character. Illustrations © David Mackintosh. 2023.
The rest is natural history…
There’s a short film about how I made the illustrations for the picture books published by the Natural History Museum, London. The Titanosaur exhibition is on at the NHM even as I write.
NEW Two-colour Sharpened Pencil screen print coming soon…
I happened to make a limited run of two-colour screen prints of Sharpened Pencils, suitable to frame.
Printed in uncompromising coal black, and dazzling school-pencil yellow, this lavish A1 print is impressed upon a sumptuous cream-ish 120gsm Munken paper, stamped and signed in graphite (what else?).
Limited to an edition of 50, this screen print will be available via the Little Shop in June.
