MAD CHURCHILL
EDITORIAL SILVER AWARD
PROFESSIONAL
2008 – IMAGES 32
Phil has been a cartoonist and illustrator for 20 years and regularly works for The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Spectator and GQ magazine. He is a cricket lover, LFC supporter and in his spare time is working on his first picture book.
The illustration was commissioned by The Guardian as an editorial to run in the G2 section of the paper. The piece was about mental illness and depression. Churchill referred to his bouts of depression as "the black dog" which I used as the subject for the illustration.
“Since receiving my award the selected image has certainly attracted more comments than any other illustration I have made. I have no doubt this is due to the high profile of the Images competition and the AOI.”
phildisley.com
MATERIALS: Charcoal, ink and digital.
RESEARCH: Black and white photos and memories of a misspent youth.
PROCESS: Single pencil rough and artwork completed in a day keeping the whole process spontaneous.
RESISTANCES: Sometimes it can be very tempting to overdraw an illustration. In this case it was important to keep the original underlying image of Churchill while trying to create a fresh new image.
INSIGHT: I wanted to create a sense of someone’s true character being hidden. By starting with an iconic image of Churchill, I was able to strip it back and then work on top of it making the original image still apparent yet more translucent.
DISTRACTIONS: Nuts and bolts of everyday life, children, PPI telephone calls and toast.
NUMBERS: 1000,000 brain cells lost.
FINAL THOUGHTS: I was thrilled to accept the award from one of my childhood heroes and AOI patron Sir Quentin Blake!