How James Joyce taught me to draw

Portrait of Leopold Bloom by Mr. Joyce When I started this project at the end of 2009, I had drawn almost nothing at all since being thrown out of my art A-level 10 years previously (it’s a long story). You can really tell in the early pages that I would do anything to avoid having to make a mark of my own on paper. That fear of actually drawing anything played a large part in defining the style of the first chapter, as you can see from the collage and tracing and big cut-out-looking shapes. But I didn’t want to keep doing that. I can’t say I’m proud of every illustration on this site, but I am proud of how hard I pushed myself. Over the course of chapter one I tried lots of different things. When I got to chapter two, I decided I’d draw the whole thing in a kind of vintage cartoon style that was well beyond my abilities at the time. Generally, I’d just start to feel like I was getting confident in one style by the time I reached the end of the chapter, and then I had to choose another one. Some of my experiments worked and some of them didn’t, but even if some of them make me cringe now, I gained something from all of them. Or, even if I didn’t gain anything, I’m pretty sure they did me make me any worse. It’s probably a bad sign if you can’t see any flaws in your own work. I can often perhaps be a little too critical (my wife says I get “a touch of the English”). But I’m really pleased with how these illustrations for Dubliners have turned out, and I can’t wait to share them all with you. To coincide with the crowdfunding campaign for the first edition, I’m going to start posting them here every couple of days. I hope you like them.

The tracing period Getting comfortable... ...and getting deeply uncomfortable Just get back on that horse! And it “only” took five years...