Previously I mentioned that I wanted to do things without any help from my mentor. I did mean that. But when she asked if I wanted to visit the actual Tom Gauld in his studio, all of my convictions went out of the window and I said yes without even thinking about it.
If you are not familiar with Tom Gauld, he’s a man who makes really clever, funny and brilliant cartoons like these ones:
He’s massive on the internet, he has a comic strip in the Guardian and the The New Scientist and loads of other really cool stuff in the UK and internationally. I’ve been a fan of his for ages and once followed him and got a photo with him. Hopefully he doesn’t remember that, I’m a bit embarrassed about it. I still can’t believe I was in his actual real life studio last week.
I wish I took more photos of his studio to show you, but I was too star struck to think properly. Even though I was speechless, Tom Gauld was very kind to me. He asked if I wanted to sit on a cardboard box in a corner. That was exactly what I wanted to do, it gave me a chance to sit and look at all the nice things in his studio. And I didn’t have to speak or join in his conversation with my mentor.
I think my favourite thing about the studio was his drawing set-up, he draws his artwork by hand using a light-box. The light-box was balanced on top of two mini-filing cabinets. Sorry I didn’t take a photo to show you. I’ve tried to recreate it from memory. I drew little lines like he does but it doesn’t look that good when I do it, it just looks like a filing cabinet with a weird beard.
Anyway, Tom opened up some of those drawers to show me what he keeps in there. What a treasure chest! He keeps all of his actual drawings that end up in the newspapers and magazines, there were millions of them. It was very organised and neat and the artwork looked beautiful in real life even though it was all in black and white. He must colour it all in on the computer. I forgot to ask him about that. Also there’s something about things on paper whether it’s a book or a drawing that makes you want to sniff it. Actually, I‘m not sure if that’s normal or not. I didn’t sniff his pictures, in case you were wondering.
I felt more relaxed after he showed me after his show and tell and I asked him about my artwork and if it mattered that I can’t really draw. He said that it didn’t and that the main thing is to keep drawing and not think too much. “Just make art” he said. He also said that it was good that I was sharing things online. I felt really brilliant afterwards. I wanted to go home, do a load of drawings, buy a filing cabinet with mini-draws and become a famous cartoonist like he is. When I did get home in real life though my dad asked me how my job hunting is going. Complete buzzkill. He’s said that he’s lined some work experience up for me for next month so I’m going to have to do that. In the mean time I will do what Tom Gauld says and ‘just make art’.
Bye for now and thank you,
Fluffy Pulcino.