{"id":225,"date":"2011-04-04T16:11:33","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T16:11:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polymathperspective.com\/?p=225"},"modified":"2019-07-08T17:20:43","modified_gmt":"2019-07-08T17:20:43","slug":"graham-oakley-the-man-who-created-the-church-mice-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/polymathperspective.com\/?p=225","title":{"rendered":"Graham Oakley: The Man Who Created The Church Mice (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In Part 1, Graham discussed his career up to and including the start of his Church Mice series of books. In Part 2 he speaks in depth about his techniques, thoughts and plans for the future.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Graham at his desk. Photo: Peter Wiles<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Part Of The Process<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before Graham began work on his first book, The Church Mouse<\/em>, he had to provide his publisher with a rough version so that they could get an idea of what the finished product might look like. It was a practice he continued throughout the Church Mice series. Graham explains the steps he took.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe normal thing is you produce a dummy first, which is exactly the same format as the finished book, but done by hand. Once I\u2019d thought of the story I could do a dummy in two or three weeks, if the working was very rough. But it usually took me a full six months to do the finished book.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn those pre-computer days I used an ordinary typewriter to indicate the type on the dummy, and did rough sketches, mostly in black and white, to show what the picture would be like. Then I\u2019d paste it together to look virtually as the page would be, and bound it in book form simply by sticking the loose leaves together with tape. The book length was restricted to 32 pages, so if the story needed more scenes I\u2019d fit several pictures on a page. Then it had to be approved by several people who all wanted to make alterations and suggestions which I normally wouldn\u2019t take any notice of! Once you get that approved you can start the finished artwork.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of artists work half up. When it is half up you don\u2019t actually reduce it by half for printing, you reduce by a third. But I work at SS \u2013 same size \u2013 because I like to see that what I am doing is what it is going to look like when printed. You get more of an idea of what you can get in if you work same size. I have tried working half-up, but what I do doesn\u2019t seem to look very good when it is reduced. As one\u2019s eyesight tends to get worse, I suppose in time I\u2019ll be compelled to work half up, but I don\u2019t need to quite yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I thought the rough was good enough, I would square it up by putting one-inch squares all over it so that I could make an accurate copy. Then I would start a new pencil drawing referencing from the squared-up original. So if, for example, I had sketched a face in rough, I would copy the rough but add more detail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once Graham had completed his pencil outlines for the finished artwork, he went over them using Indian ink, thereby creating a line drawing. To colour in he used a selection of coloured inks which he diluted with water and painted on with a brush.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ink line would still be visible, so they were essentially line and wash drawings,\u201d says Graham. \u201cThe problem with ink is that once it is dry you can\u2019t move it or do a thing with it. I developed a dodge in the end, using a paper which used to be called CS10, made by Colyer & Southey, who are now defunct. It had almost an enamel-like surface, which you could scrape off. So if you made a bad blunder with the ink, you could get a razor blade and actually scrape the top layer away without destroying the surface. It was even possible to do it two or three times, but after that you got through the enamel-like surface down to the board underneath. You\u2019d had it then because it was yellow and just bled when you tried to paint on it. But at least it gave you a few chances!<\/p>\n

\u201cIndian inks have a cleanness and clarity to them, but they also have the rather unfortunate characteristic of fading in sunlight. I sell my originals and I\u2019ve sold virtually all the Church Mouse drawings, but you have to warn anybody who buys them not to expose them to sunlight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe inks also had a slight sheen and tended to reflect the light, and printers hated that. They could overcome the problem easily because virtually every artist was using inks back then. But despite the dislike printers had for them, they did reproduce very well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe printers could reproduce more or less any colour you painted, so there weren\u2019t really restrictions, but there are certain colours they found hard to match, particularly the very bright ones. Purples somehow don\u2019t seem to come out very well either, but it\u2019s pretty good when you think that in printing virtually every colour is made from cyan, magenta, yellow and black. These days they can do virtually anything and if they are prepared to spend the money. They will add a separate plate for a colour which is hard to get just by mixing the three primaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that The Church Mice At Bay<\/em>, with the swinging vicar, was the first book I did using watercolour paint which, unlike the ink, you can wipe off if you make a mistake. From then on I started laying down the washes first and painting in the line work afterwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the Church Mice books, with a few exceptions, were done with either transparent ink or water colour, but I now use opaque body-colour paint which requires less skill because if you make a mistake you can just paint over the top of it. For body colour I use gouache which is basically watercolour containing Chinese white to make it opaque. I didn\u2019t really use gouache until the last couple of Church Mice books.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese days I work on top of the dummy, so I don\u2019t really do roughs any more. What I sometimes do, if I feel a thing is not going well and starts looking a bit overworked, is make computer print of it and then paint over the computer print, rather than do the whole thing again. I just don\u2019t have the patience for that anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

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‘Dummy’ drawing of the swinging vicar from the Church Mice at Bay<\/p><\/div>\n

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Getting Perspective<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even very successful illustrators seem to struggle to get perspective right, particularly when their pictures are composite images taken from several sketches, each with a different angle of view. It is also common for illustrators who work in a realistic (rather than cartoonish), style to come unstuck when dealing with anatomical proportions. Graham\u2019s pictures, however, are drafted incredibly well. Even when the view is from an awkward position he could only have imagined, it usually has impeccable perspective. Rooms, buildings and scenes are pictured from above, below and the side so convincingly that looking from one to another is almost like walking around the scenery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that is to do with having an interest in cinema and being a scenery designer for 15 years, or much longer if you include my repertory years,\u201d explains Graham. \u201cMost artists have something which comes fairly naturally to them. I always found that fairly realistic drawing and scenes came naturally to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s partly imagination, but also one remembers bits of one\u2019s own hometown. And then you find photographs and piece it together. My little town, where all the Church Mice stories take place, looks as though it is carefully planned, but if you study it very carefully you\u2019ll see that I\u2019ve often had to alter things from story to story in the hope that people would forget what it was like in the last one! Occasionally I have had letters from children pointing out that one street doesn\u2019t lead into another street anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Graham\u2019s anatomically accurate, but very dynamic and entertaining, rendering of people and animals, he does not, as one might expect, prepare with endless sketches from life.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing pretty idle I tend to use photographs. All the time I\u2019ve been an illustrator I\u2019ve collected cuttings and photographs clipped out of magazines. Most artists do this, particularly illustrators, because you never know what you are going to have to draw. I now have pretty comprehensive files of clippings and books, so I have some sort of reference for virtually anything I\u2019d ever want to draw.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Graham\u2019s greatest artistic feats is making his mice look anatomically correct, but have them walking and running about on their hind legs at the same time. One would imagine that this is something no reference library of photographs could help with, but Graham is quick to play down his skill.<\/p>\n

\u201cArtists have always done mice walking around on their hind legs, like in Beatrix Potter. My mice are fairly anatomically accurate because I have lots of photographs of mice and when I was living in Kellaways Mill I was over run by them. I think I did draw the mice, and particularly the cat, a lot better in the later books. I\u2019m not too happy about the way I drew the cat in some of the early ones and I made the mice\u2019s noses too long in the first book. I shortened their noses a great deal later on and so they became more anatomically correct as the books progressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what I have never done is put them in clothes. For some reason I just couldn\u2019t accept the idea of them wearing clothes. Their fur is their clothes so to me it somehow seemed extremely unhealthy for them to be dressed. I only did it once and that was in Humphrey Hits the Jackpot<\/em> where Humphrey wins the lottery and decides to buy himself a suit, but he doesn\u2019t stay in it long.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving said that, I did do another series called the Foxbury Force<\/em> about foxes and I clothed them because they are supposed to be a police force in uniforms. I was never really happy about putting clothes on them but the public didn\u2019t like the books anyway. I don\u2019t think the publishers lost out but there was no enthusiasm for the series so I only got as far as doing three. If the public had liked it I\u2019d have written some more and kept on putting them in clothes but there was no point flogging a dead horse.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy publisher had persuaded me to try and think of another series and all I could come up with was foxes. I personally think the illustrations in them are better than The Church Mice books but it doesn\u2019t matter what I think, it\u2019s what the people who might be buying them think that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Graham’s rough for a Foxbury Force book cover<\/p><\/div>\n

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The politics Of The Church Mice<\/strong><\/p>\n

Graham\u2019s book note at the end of The Church Mouse<\/em> explains that, although he had already illustrated many books for children, this was the first he\u2019d done entirely on his own, doing it his way. The words hint that Graham might not have enjoyed illustrating the stories of other people and, as it turns out, that is indeed the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThough I am not by any means a natural writer \u2013 writing comes extremely difficult to me \u2013 I really don\u2019t like illustrating other people\u2019s stories. Very often, because you are illustrating something done by a writer who\u2019s talent is for writing, there is no need to illustrate it at all because they\u2019ve done it all in words. But when you write it yourself you can create humour by making the pictures contradict the text.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really quite good fun doing that but you could never do it if you were working as an illustrator on someone else\u2019s book, and that\u2019s really why I took to writing my own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not content with simply playing the text off against the pictures, Graham introduces other layers of meaning into his work. Every gravestone, wall plaque, signpost and notice board tells a little sub-story of its own, as if left there to treat anyone who has taken the time to look more closely at the detail. Then there are the little comedy dramas taking place within the mice families. Such details are not necessarily anything to do with the main story and play out in the background.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were illustrating someone else\u2019s book they would want to write whatever went on the grave stone and wouldn\u2019t want the illustrator doing it. As for the mice, I only ever named three of them, but it\u2019s like an opera with three leading characters and the rest are the chorus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder why more illustrators don\u2019t do their own books. I suppose it is because most books are commissioned, so if you invent a book yourself, you still have to persuade somebody to publish it. Normally the writer has done that bit already.\u201d<\/p>\n

One other theme running though Graham\u2019s books is the lack of care people have for their environment. The aforementioned trendy vicar, for example, defaces his church with hippy paintings and shatters the peace; beautiful buildings are gleefully smashed to make way for hideous architectural tower blocks; and piles of litter gather on the streets and under the church pews.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve noticed with litter, that very often there is a bin nearby but none of the litter is in it,\u201d explains Graham. \u201cThat\u2019s a pretty common sight in English towns, I think. And I\u2019ve done the jokes like the crumpled and thrown away newspaper, where the one bit of headline you can see is about how the town is litter free.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also feel really strongly about the way towns are being ruined and all made to look exactly the same. We are certainly more conscious of heritage than we were in the forties and fifties. Nothing was sacred. That was the era when they knocked down old houses to make way for huge tower blocks, which are now being demolished themselves. At last it has occurred to town planners that people don\u2019t like living in them.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it still goes on. In Lyme Regis we had a Woolworths which closed down and has been taken over by Tesco. There were demonstrations to try and prevent it but they didn\u2019t stand a chance. The council wanted it here because of the rents they were going to get, and so it\u2019s here.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we\u2019ve got an old pub called The Three Cups at which people like J.R.R. Tolkien, Jane Austen, G.K. Chesterton and Tennyson used to stay, and its been closed for donkey\u2019s years because the brewery wanted to turn it into flats.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had demonstrations but they\u2019ve now got permission to do it. Even Dorchester council, are trying to save costs by closing 15 libraries, including the one in Lyme Regis, and yet they\u2019re spending a fortune building themselves new council offices.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The mice protest: ‘dummy’ drawing for The Church Mice At Bay<\/p><\/div>\n

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The Future<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although Graham is now many years past the official retirement age, he has not given up working and seems unlikely to ever do so. Nevertheless the question as to whether or not he should carry on trying to get work published is one which he is still thinking about. \u201cI think it is time I hung up my boots, or whatever the term is,\u201d he says in one breath, reflecting on his lack of success finding a publisher for his latest work.<\/p>\n

Then, in the next breath, Graham starts talking about having another go! \u201cI have just done my version of Beauty and the Beast which publishers don\u2019t like at all, but I\u2019m quite interested in self-publishing. I might have a go but I\u2019ve not priced it. I imagine it doesn\u2019t come cheap, but you wouldn\u2019t have to sell in great numbers, unlike a commercially produce book which has to pay for the building, staff and so on. Certainly if I was young again at this point I wouldn\u2019t bother with publishers at all. I would go in for self-publishing. For anyone who is really prepared to put their back into it, who is a good illustrator and writer, self-publishing is the thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the lack of publisher interest in Graham\u2019s current output, his back catalogue is still in demand and represents a relatively safe bet for profit conscious publishers. Thus, the UK children\u2019s book publisher Templar has been slowly re-issuing his Church Mice series.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people at Templar did suggest that I do a new one in the series,\u201d says Graham, \u201cbut it\u2019s something I did years ago and I don\u2019t think I could again. It was fun doing them but I now do fairly realistic stuff mainly with human beings rather than animals. Templar have got as far as re-issuing the forth book. I\u2019m not sure if the colour is as good but they are beautifully laid out and they are extremely well produced books. There is obviously a demand and it\u2019s interesting to see that the original first editions go for anything up $100 on e-bay.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Graham\u2019s own preference, he admits to having a soft spot for four books of his, none of which formed part of the Church Mice series.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of them are in print now, but I think some are the best things I ever did. There was one called Henry\u2019s Quest<\/em>, which still gets a certain amount of interest. Another was called Hetty and Harriet<\/em>, about two chickens. Then I did one called Magical Changes<\/em> which had split pages that you reshuffled to make up to about 500 different pictures. That one is still in print in France. And there\u2019s another called Once Upon A Time: A Prince\u2019s Fantastic Journey<\/em>, which I think included some of the best artwork I\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long may he continue. TF<\/em><\/p>\n

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Graham’s web site is: www.grahamoakley.co.uk<\/a><\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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\u00a0Part 1 can be found here: \u00a0Part 1<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

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A multi-image page ‘dummy’<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“For some reason I just couldn\u2019t accept the idea of them wearing clothes. Their fur is their clothes so to me it somehow seemed extremely unhealthy for them to be dressed. I only did it once and that was in Humphrey Hits the Jackpot where Humphrey wins the lottery and decides to buy himself a suit, but he doesn\u2019t stay in it long.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[85,86,87,72],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/polymathperspective.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/polymathperspective.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/polymathperspective.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/polymathperspective.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/polymathperspective.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":63,"href":"http:\/\/polymathperspective.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3765,"href":"http:\/\/polymathperspective.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions\/3765"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/polymathperspective.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/polymathperspective.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/polymathperspective.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/polymathperspective.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}