misskristymills

There is a man.

He draws, illustrates, sees things in lines. His mode of transport is foot and bicycle on country road. I think he must be quite interesting.

Nigel Peake is behind my latest creative Lightbulb Moment. I just finished reading his book, In The Wilds. I highly recommend it. It is Very Inspiring.

I bought it a few weeks ago in Pentimento, my favourite shop in Newtown, on a rare evening out with my oldest friend. He’s very good at encouraging other people to buy things they like. If it wasn’t for him, I might have been more budget-conscious and left it on the shelf. I’m glad he was there.

An illustrated book, I read it in a morning. And ever since I shut the hard covers with a salutary SNAP I’ve been seeing things just a tiny bit differently.

Maybe if you read it, you would find the same.

In The Wilds is the result of the artist’s three months spent getting around his native rural Ireland by foot or bike, with pen and paper handy. His point of view is amazing.

It’s all just a celebration of lines. Everything.

A farmed field from a birds-eye view (those beautiful patterns made into art)

Fallen down sheds

Farm gates

Imaginary designs made by a bird in flight

A tree’s age

A boat

A disused truck

Barbed wire.

It may be a little nostalgic to me because the subject is quite similar to my own childhood ‘hood, but the book was certainly also inspiring artistically. Very.

I remember doodling abstract line drawings way back in school. Little designs that grew from the centre outwards to cover the size of my medium (art book, diary, folder cover, whatever). I liked what I did at the time too. But it passed and I never tried line drawing seriously.

So today I set myself a Challenge:

As my small offering of appreciation for In The Wilds, I will use pen, paper and possibly also watercolour to bring Peake’s illustrative style to something in my own local environment. Regardless of how it turns out, I will post it.

This is a big call for me. I often intend to do things and then don’t do them. But now that I am writing it, I feel absolutely compelled to follow through.

Thank you Nigel Peake for being such an awesome illustrator, for inspiring me to do something myself with a pen and paper, and for creating a book that can be loved for so many reasons.

Watch this space.