Drawing in black ink, but thinking of the white areas all the while, is a constant fascination.
In the back of your mind you have to anticipate where you want white passages to be, whilst drawing in black.
You have to think of black and white equally. Perhaps it is rather like being conscious of ‘playing’ the intervals and pauses in between the notes, in music, as well as the notes themselves.
This is an old house in Ditchling. I did the preliminary drawings for this, sitting on a bench within the church grounds.
The white space on the right, by the way, is where the text appears in the book.
Wherever possible I like my illustrations to be printed the same size as the original drawings.
People often ask me how long it takes to produce them.
This one took 37 hours and 38 minutes to draw, almost a conventional week’s work.