Meet the Artist… Garry Parsons

We grabbed a nice cup of tea and chat with Garry Parsons, whose work we regularly frame for exhibition. He is also one of our Creative Courses tutors.

Hello Garry, please introduce yourself to those of us who don’t know you.… 

Hi Megan. I’m Garry Parsons, I’m an artist and illustrator living in Herne Bay, Kent.

Did you always know what you wanted to do as a career?

It was very clear from an early age that I wanted to draw for a living, even though I wasn’t sure what shape that might take.

I studied fine art at Canterbury Art School when it was an amalgam of colleges known as the Kent Institute of Art and Design. I trained as a painter, working in oils in a figurative, post-expressionistic style which featured animals and odd vehicles. Following the degree and a few years in

the ‘wilderness’, I switched to a more illustrative drawing style and completed the MA in sequential design at Brighton. It was a brilliant course with self-initiated projects over two years. In the final year I experimented with animation and made a quirky film based on the life of Pythagoras and his communion with animals.

Animation turned into illustration, and I settled into a career in children’s publishing as an illustrator and occasional author. I’ve been lucky enough to work with some of the UK’s most talented children’s authors and I’m the illustrator of a well-known pooping dinosaur. Whilst the illustration career has kept me busy for 25 years, I’ve continued with my fine art practise and my love of drawing, which is how you and I met, Megan.

How did you learn to do what you do?

Observation and repetition, I think. Art school is an odd place as far as learning is concerned. There is constructive criticism of the work you produce but no formal technique training, it simply progresses on the principle of art as practise. I was very lucky to have tutors who had an infectious passion for drawing. The

learning never stops though. Every time you make a new drawing you are adding to your skills as a draughtsperson. The very act of drawing is learning.

What materials do you use? OR do you have a favourite material, paper or pencil?

Charcoal is my favourite drawing medium because its mark making potential is so vast it's almost overwhelming. I like to draw on smooth 425gm hot-press watercolour paper. The paper thickness helps you vary the line pressure. Charcoal is fast and immediate to work with and never ceases to reveal new qualities. I’ve been playing a lot with scale recently, making two very large drawings in charcoal, 1.35 x 5.5m, and a series of micro drawings, 30 x65 mm, sometimes using the same charcoal thickness. Charcoal is wonderfully adaptable.

What is your process?

I take a lot of photographs and collect a lot of reference material and these filter down into ideas for drawings. I will often put an image together in Photoshop from these reference points before I start to draw.

How has your practice changed over time?

I tend to move through different phases and ways of working; some are short lived but some last for years. I’ve always enjoyed paper and spent a period combining collage and black ink drawings. This merged into paper cutting and making fold out forms in a way you might make a snowflake at Christmas, except the subject matter for these pieces were made-up of benign creatures like demons and allies. The papercuts grew in scale, moved into screen prints and ultimately, a wall mural in southeast London.

Your recent art pieces are mostly birds in charcoal, what inspired this body of work?

The bird drawings were initially born from a concern for the decline in the country’s bird populations. I envisaged a museum-like gallery with rooms of oversized monochrome drawings of our most common garden birds that had recently gone extinct, the idea being that these drawings were the only surviving record of their presence on earth,

like the images of the Passenger Pigeon or Dodo. So, the first bird drawings have no background or shadow reference and simply sit in an empty clean white space on the paper. This has turned into more of an honouring of birds in all their beauty and detail. Charcoal has an ability to describe feathers with such contrast and detail I’m compelled to continue drawing them.

You’ve illustrated many books; do you have an all-time favourite?

I’m fond of quite a few but the standout titles are There’s An Ouch in my Pouch! by Jeanne Willis and My Daddies! by Gareth Peter. I also worked on a series of books set in space written by Lucy Hawking, the daughter of astrophysicist and cosmologist, Stephen Hawking. Unusually, I had to work closely with the authors to render aspects of life in space in a way that was broadly accurate, which meant discussing illustrations over lunch with Stephen Hawking!

When working on illustrations for a book, do you work with the author?

Generally, not, no. The publisher acts as a producer, bringing a match of talents together to make a whole, so my involvement as illustrator is with the design team and the editor.

Do the drawings ever come before the story is created?

I know that the author Jeanne Willis, who I mentioned earlier, liked to work this way, so an illustrator might be asked by the publisher to send character sketches as prompts for stories she might be inspired write but this is not the norm. If I’m writing for myself, however, the drawings always come first.

In your non-illustration-based art, is there a piece you are most proud of?

If things are going well in the studio, then it will be the last piece I’m working on. Right now I’m drawing trees from photographs I’ve taken laying down in the leaf litter and looking up. Each new drawing incrementally moves ‘forward’ in some way. From the bird’s series though, I kept the Robin I drew for myself. He’s hanging on our stair wall at home.

What have you learned about yourself through art?

Art is compelling and drives me to create.  It gives meaning, eases problems and changes perspectives. I recommend making and creating for everyone!

Dogs or cats?

Dogs, because cats and birds don’t mix.

If you ran away and joined the circus, what type of performer would you be?

Definitely nothing off the ground, hanging from a rope or swinging. Selling ice cream perhaps?

Where can we next see your work in exhibition?

I am showing drawings of trees at the SARAH BAULCH GALLERY in Herne Bay from 8th - 24th May and various places through out the year. My Instagram and website have details of shows. Please come!

Can we buy or browse your work online?

Yes, visit my website for original artwork and prints. https://www.garryparsonsart.co.uk/

And can you tell us what the dinosaur will poop next?

FOOTBALL!

Thanks Garry!

CHARCOAL WORKSHOPS

You can also join Garry for an in-person charcoal workshop here at Creative Courses in Faversham. Our next date is the 26th July, but if that's sold out please keep an eye out for future dates, and sign up to our newsletter at www.creativecourses.co.uk