Well, I always loved drawing. I probably wasn't very good at the start, but I certainly
loved monsters and dragons. Why dragons? When I read the text in the descriptions of
Tolkien made of Hobbits, it wasn't really enough just to sort of have them imagination.
I wanted them drawn in paper and I read the Hobbit in the 70s and special effects weren't
what they are today. So yeah, we had to draw our own dragons back in the 70s. So I must say
Tolkien, yeah, for me, the dragon and the Hobbit is what got me into dragons. And I suppose there's
no limit to dragons. You can, you know, there's so many variations, you know. You can use a goat
to draw a dragon or a lion, you know, there's pelicans. Everything can be a dragon in my opinion.
Well, you think about a lot of things when you're painting. Drawing's different. Drawing, I sort of
think about what I'm doing. But when I'm painting and airbrushing, it's a bit more time consuming.
You might think about what makes a dragon look scary. It's all in the eyes, by the way.
But I must say, like, I think reading books, that must be the best way to improve imagination. I think
that's why it's so great that a lot of teachers promote reading. And I hope we never lose reading
to things like video games and Facebook, because reading is really exercise for imagination. It's
like going to the gym, you know, your imagination grows. You read a book, you know, when you imagine
the people and places. And I'm pretty sure a lot of people might look at what I illustrate in a book
and think that's nothing like what they expected. And nowhere near as good, because I suppose what
happens in our imaginations is so magical. And the words of a book can really bring it to life.
So, yeah, I'm a great advocate for the book, whether it's in Kindle form or book form, paper form,
as long as you're reading, I reckon.
Artwork, to me, is very special. I feel very lucky, you know, doing artwork, because it is my job
now. But more than that, you know, I think artwork, if you are going through a time in your life,
which has got challenges, often doing artwork, you can channel that energy into doing great art.
And the thing about art is you'll always get better. It's all about improvement.
I think you need a bit of patience to do art. You also need to be aware of the world around you,
because all our ideas come from nature, I think. But I think, yeah, if you do art, even if it's
not good at first, keep drawing, and the rewards will be there. Yeah, definitely. So, yeah, we're
going to read into art.
