As an illustrator you need to understand the human body - but having looked at and understood nature, you must develop an ability to look away and capture the balance between what you've seen and what you imagine.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I am the first to point out that I really am not kind to illustrators. By that, I mean I really don't give that much to work with.
We've lost these qualities, these abilities to do something by hand. Some illustrators have it still, but it's just not art. We have photography. We have cameras and computers that do it better and faster.
I don't think of myself as an illustrator. I think of myself as a cartoonist. I write the story with pictures - I don't illustrate the story with the pictures.
I love being an illustrator because I get to read really great stories, work with amazing people, travel and see places I never would've seen. And I get to draw all the time.
The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly - to develop strategies of seeing and showing.
When you look at art made by other people, you see what you need to see in it.
Only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what another person sees.
Whether art is defined as a representation of or response to reality, it demands an intense engagement with things we haven't managed to understand fully.
Art, to me, is the interpretation of the impression which nature makes upon the eye and brain.
You don't put your head above the parapet and become a personality if you're an illustrator - it's not part of it; it's not possible. You are a servant to the story.