David McConochie is a freelance Illustrator and Artist who creates work for newspapers, magazines and books that is painterly, rich with colour, textures and contrasting processes. He is known to work with a variety of media including paint, collage and photographs, creating pictures that are often haunting and romantic. Isolated figures often appear, as do huge skies, and dramatic landscape. His recent book design for The Folio Society’s Book of Ghost Stories was awarded the V&A Book Cover Design Award, as announced on the 23rd May 2016. His other clients include Royal Mail, The Guardian, The BBC and The Sunday Times. McConochie lives and works in East London. We got in touch with him to ask him more about his work.
Lisa: How did you create the illustration for the Folio Book of Ghost Stories?
David: I had been looking at old photos that I remembered from books about ghosts and other strange phenomena that I used to love reading when I was a boy. The pictures were usually blurry black and white photos of hooded figures in graveyards, distorted faces in the background and the like. They were pretty dubious as evidence of ghosts but there was something in the grainy ambiguity that to me made them all the more interesting and un-nerving. I had this in mind when creating the cover and began putting together bits of found imagery and textures. I didn’t have an exact outcome in mind and I created lots of variations of smudgy ghostly apparitions and different colour variations. I think the challenge became creating something that was ethereal and ambiguous but also visual arresting and confronting to the reader.
Lisa: What commissions are you most excited by and why?
David: I’m excited by commissions that take me in new directions that I wouldn’t have necessarily thought of. A few weeks ago a design agency was interested in getting me to create several very large non-figurative paintings on un-mounted canvas and was talking about making a short film about the process. I’d never done anything like this commercially and like any new experience it’s harder to predict the outcome so there’s this kind of nervous excitement.
Lisa: How important is keeping a sketchbook to your work?
David: Whether it’s sketchbooks or any other on-going personal projects; it’s very important for me to keep a sort of visual dialogue going with myself. It helps keep me interested in my own working processes and techniques and allows me to develop new ones so as to prevent work from becoming stale.
Lisa: What do you use as reference material for your work?
David: My source of reference definitely depends on the subject. Much of my personal work is location based so I rely on going out with my camera and writing notes in my sketchbook. Starting a project often used to involve a trip to the library and a stack of change for the photocopier though I do this less frequently now. I still use books a great deal but now it’s more a case of seeing or reading something online that provides a starting point. Search engines allow us to be so specific in our research now. I recall in one of the roughs I created for Elizabeth Bowen’s the Demon Lover, I needed to represent a London black cab from a very particular time period. I’m sure it would have taken hours if not days to find the right image without the aid of Google.
Lisa: What techniques do you like to work with to build up texture in your work?
David: I often start an image by creating a very loose, almost frenetic sketch in acrylics or pasted together found images and cut outs. These are usually quite clumsy and crude at this stage and from here I tend to work to and fro between the computer and then re-working the image by hand and back to the computer again. Of course with the aid of a scanner and image editing it’s possible to create individual textures which can be added and removed in isolation. I often just roll out some ink and see how it looks when it’s applied over the top if the image.
Lisa: What do you enjoy most about working with collage?
David: Working in collage suits me as it allows me to work quickly and freely with a spirit of trial and error. I admire artists who apply their craft carefully and methodically but for me it’s more a case of putting together perhaps seemingly disparate elements and then seeing what happens. There’s not really any pre prescribed techniques or accepted methods to creating collage and mixed media and this appeals to me… or maybe I’m doing it wrong and I don’t realise.
Lisa: Which artists most inspire you?
David: There are a lot artists, illustrators and graphic artist whose work inspired me. I could create quite a long list but I think the biggest influence particularly at college was Robert Rauschenberg. Looking at his work (particularly his assemblages) changed the way I read imagery and set me down a particular path in how I approached illustration.
Lisa: Do you find working to a deadline constraining or liberating?
David: Personally I enjoy having some element of time constraint as it helps me focus on what I need to do. I’m quite a bad procrastinator so it imposes the structure for me. Of course if the deadline is ridiculously tight it can be a bit hampering as there needs to be some freedom to play and experiment but I think the correlation between creativity and time is a fairly loose one.
Lisa: Describe the place where you most like to make your work.
David: I have a upper room in my house which I have converted into a studio. It’s not as bright as I would like but it has a large drawing desk, computer table and my record player so that’s all I need really.
Lisa: Where online or in the flesh can we view more of your work?
David: My work can be seen on www.davidmcconochie.co.uk and the winning works from the V&A Awards will be on display 24 May until 21 August 2016
Image at the top is:
‘Trans-Siberian Railway’
Gelatine Print and Oils on Wood, 2016
by David McConochie
