Do you think you’re too old to be an illustrator?

I did have the answer to this written down somewhere. Now where did I put it…? Longevity in this profession isn’t any particular advantage, but there are distinct disadvantages. Being asked to draw in what I recognise as an old, abandoned style can be a difficult pill to swallow. Self-doubt sets in, and I have to bolster myself up by artificial means.

Possibly the greatest disadvantage to having a few professional years under your belt is nothing more remarkable than the industry’s clamour for novelty, for new names and new techniques. I know a couple of illustrators who have reinvented themselves, producing new bodies of work which they have marketed under pseudonyms. I can see nothing wrong with this practice, but could not do it myself. I wouldn’t know which of me was answering the phone.

But no, I’m not too old.

How much has the industry you love changed with the event of the digital age?

You mean illustration? I love working digitally, although I’m sometimes a little resentful that a style of drawing which took me years to develop using technical pens, airbrushes and lightboxes, is now so immediately available courtesy of Adobe. But what a box of tricks! I don’t believe that the fact that so many of us use the same software has caused homogenisation, any more than the airbrush made all airbrush art similar. I do though see a lot of work which I read as more computer than illustrator, and perhaps there might be a case for teaching restraint. I wish I’d grown up with technology and were more at ease with it, but I manage. I rarely see printed versions of my commercial work these days, it used to be a courtesy afforded by clients, to return artwork and some printed samples. Read more…

News posted - Sunday, July 6th, 2008 | Visit - Kevin O'Keefe's profile..