Debbie Greenaway

Over the past few months, I have been in contact with a newly-graduated illustrator called Debbie Greenaway whose work I really like, I have spoken about her work in a previous post. After seeing her work at the New Blood exhibition, I decided to contact her regarding her work, and we have stayed in contact, which I hope will continue. Debbie has been fantastic in responding to my emails and it is interesting to see how she is coping since finishing university. Here is some of our correspondence:

LEANNE: I recently saw your work exhibited at the New Blood exhibition in London, and of all the work there, yours was my favourite.

I really liked your Robber Bird character and your use of type in the "Wanted" poster. I am really inspired by your character designs and was hoping that, as part of my research, you could tell me about you inspirations and work processes.

DEBBIE GREENAWAY: How are you? I was wondering if you had any specific questions you would like to ask me that I could answer in order to be of more help. I am just struggling to explain my work and myself at the moment. I am having a bit of a mental brain freeze moment as no sooner have I come back off holiday, I have has to work my socks off part time at the cafe to keep my cash levels high as well as doing illustration work in the spare time. My next free day/time is Thursday evening so I will brainstorm a bit more about what to write and email back to you.

Thank you for the comments about my work. Your words made me smile as daft as it sounds, but they did. As a recent graduate it is very nice to know people like yourself like my work. Do you have a blog or web address with any of your work on so that I can see your work?

Hope you are well and sorry for the delay in getting a proper response back to you. I think I know what to write now, it's just having the time to sit and do it properly for you. I hope you other dissertation research is going well.

LEANNE: I have a very basis website: www.leannehughes.com that has some of the work I have done but at the end of my 2nd year, I had a nervous breakdown and feel I have lost my way!

Some of the questions I have are:
1) How and where do you get your inspiration?
2) What print techniques do you use and why? (I most often use mono-printing but I hope you learn how to screen print this year)
3) How did you develop your style to the point where you are now? (I'm finding it quite hard to find my "style")
... and basically anything else you think would be helpful to me!

DEBBIE GREENAWAY: How are you? I hope you are well. I am so so so sorry that I have taken forever and a day to reply to you when I promised to reply asap. My organisation is a bit all over the place since finishing uni. There are so many odds and ends to chase up and tie knots in. I hope I am not too late to help you out. If you would like any further information etc please email me and I will try and reply alot quicker next time. I hope your projects are going well. I wish you all the best for your final year. Make the most of it!

Answers:
Sometimes I find it difficult to explain my work or where I get my inspiration from. Through really thinking about it, I would say I get inspiration from many things, things that surround me. My inspiration is hard to pin point, as I might just get an idea from out of the blue but more often than not, some ideas are a combination of many little ideas. Inspiration comes in many forms. I particularly like looking at children's books and some editorial illustrations. I also like finding my own inspiration while I am out and about. I do a lot of observational drawing and think about people or situations I have seen. Sometimes conversations I have overheard sometimes spark off little doodles in my sketchbook as well as things I may have read about. I suppose I absorb my inspiration though it is all a but random at time.

Simone Lia, Oliver Jeffers, Donna Child, Shaun Tan and Calef Brown are some of my favourite illustrators. I like drawing things as other things. For example at the moment, I am trying to improve my characters by doing observational drawings with a twist. I used to always draw the same things, repeatedly. For example, robot fish, fish, robots and teeth but they were getting very boring. It is unfair to say they were getting boring but I was just looking for something new. I still like drawing these things but anyway, when I was younger I really liked lions and drew them all the time. For some reason after I finished uni, I decided not to leave it too long until I picked up a pencil and just wanted to keep drawing so I thought about what I used to draw and thought, I wonder what it would look like if I drew it now. So off I went out and about drawing people I saw as lions and now they look much more me. My style. I don't like the work style but I think as an illustrator you develop one over time without knowing it. During foundation year and first year of uni, I was worried I did not have a style and used to avoid thinking about it.

In a way, I gave myself my own style when I stopped thinking that I should have one - I hope that makes sense. So currently, I like going out and drawing people I see as lions. It has helped me with my character development. I am still afraid of colour but the print-room and screen-printing in particular is helping me learn more about experimenting with colour. I am still a bit wooden when it comes to playing with colour but I do try.

I love printmaking. I love handmade mass-produced things. Printmaking is quite calming, hands-on, physical and methodical. I first started printmaking in 1998 when I did my A-level at college. I was not really interested but we had to do it as part of our course. It was compulsory. I always wanted to do big things back then. Big pieces of work. We used to get given small pieces of lino or small etching plates and were asked to pick a section of our work then then etch or lino print. I always wanted to pint my entire image and was often the last one to finish my projects but I learnt a alot more by choosing to tackle large images via printmaking.

There was a three-year break in between my A-level and foundation year. During foundation year, I did a lot of printmaking and I loved staying in the print room all day long. I picked UCLAN at Preston when I saw the print room. It was huge. We did a little printmaking introduction during the first year but the projects moved so fast that there was never enough time to make use of the facilities. I started living in the print room when I entered my second year of university. I made it my mission to screen-print and to learn about photo etching. I never left the print room, even when I graduated as I still go back now for the artlab printmaking group.

I like all types of printmaking. If I had to pick one, it would be screen-printing. I like it because as I have issues with colour, once I have my images and if so - all the layers - I can print all day to my hearts delight, playing with different colour combinations, different coloured paper, materials, fabric, cardboard, t-shirts etc without worrying about the outcome of my final image. Being able to replicate my image, in a variety of ways on a variety of surfaces allows me to experiment as if I was to paint it by hand, I suppose I would only get the one chance to get it perfect. I wouldn't be able to paint my illustrations by hand as it would terrify me. It is something I am trying to overcome at the moment. I like both creating screens by hand using screen filler and soluble paint and by exposing transparencies via a light box whether they be photo-realistic ones or ones drawn by hand etc.

I would suggest trying simple things with printmaking. Do not ever be scared to experiment and combine printmaking techniques. In addition, you can combine print made images with day, traditional techniques, you can draw over screen prints with pencils or stitch into etching plate prints that you may have printed onto fabric. Remember that once you have a plate, or a screen or a lino block, you can print on to anything to create anything. There is a whole range of products you can create.

LEANNE: Thank you for your fantastic reply, it is really useful. Also thank you for looking and commenting on my blog. The blog is part of my professional practice project, rather than gathering research in a file. I also went to the Little Big Planet shop, the game is really addictive. I heard that you were doing a session there but I was unable to make it, it would have been nice to meet you.

Also, I was wondering if I am able to send you some more questions? It might not be for a while yet as I need to better prepare myself but I hope that will be okay.

DEBBIE GREENAWAY: How are you? I am sorry it took me so long to reply but I got there in the end! Please feel free to ask me any more questions etc. I won't take as long next time. I was good for me to think about my work but it was a bit difficult to write about. I forgot to write about combining screen-printing and fabric to create plush type items and typography. I really enjoyed reading through your blog about the various illustrators/artists and what other things you have been looking at/watching, like the many circus films. I have put your blog on my "following" list so it tells me when there is a new post etc.

LittleBigPlanet is a wicked game! I was so lucky to be involved in that workshop! The game is great to play but I get frustrated with all the control buttons on a PS3. I think the game is released at the end of this month - 24th October according to Amazon UK. It would have been nice to meet you but there are other times, if you have an exhibition or anything please let me know and I will see if I can come along.

Thank you and I hope you are well.


Visit Debbie's fantastic blog: theimaginationofladysnail.blogspot.com