An interview with
Matchsticks
What is, in your opinion, the best thing (or your favourite thing) that you’ve ever created? Tell us about it.
I’ve really begun to enjoy splicing and sticking different images together using apps like YouDoodle and Microsoft Paint. I enjoy designing book covers with it, though so far they haven’t seen the light of day. My best one would be for “Codex Corvidae” or perhaps “The Blackthorn Witches” though those books haven’t been published yet.
Who are your favourite creators and what influences your art?
Dave McKean has been a definite influence lately. He made all those fantastic Sandman graphic novel covers in the 80s and 90s and he has made bizarre films as well. I love all that surreal stuff, the surreal artists like Leonora Carrington and Salvador Dali. I also like the drawing style of Chris Riddell but couldn’t hope to emulate him — not off the top of my head, anyway.
What are your hobbies?
Snacking, sleeping, walking around outside and taking pictures of old buildings, allotments, building sites and ruined areas. Reading, writing stuff, listening to music. I like to teach myself to play instruments using tabs I find online - guitar, keyboards, ukulele. And teaching myself different languages, some real, some fictional.
Tell us something crazy.
We’re the same person and I am actually interviewing myself. But, this being the Internet, we have no way of knowing if that’s truth or rumour...
What’s the weirdest question you’ve ever been asked in an interview? And what did you answer?
See above.
What is your creative set-up? (E.g your garden shed, a cafe etc) and are there any things you must have to ideas to flow, e.g a lucky hat or a favourite shirt?
I tend to draw things while lying on the floor or curled up with my back against my bed. (My joints tend to give out on me). What I adore is a blank sheet of paper and either very new pencils — HB strength — or perfectly sharpened ones, sharp enough to poke someone’s eye out (not that I have ever tried). There’s nothing more annoying than lead that just keeps breaking and falling out of the end of your pencil. Mechanical pencils are great for the fiddly details. If there’s an image I have to duplicate for whatever reason then I utilise my bedroom window as a light-box for tracing using blu tack.
I’ve really begun to enjoy splicing and sticking different images together using apps like YouDoodle and Microsoft Paint. I enjoy designing book covers with it, though so far they haven’t seen the light of day. My best one would be for “Codex Corvidae” or perhaps “The Blackthorn Witches” though those books haven’t been published yet.
Who are your favourite creators and what influences your art?
Dave McKean has been a definite influence lately. He made all those fantastic Sandman graphic novel covers in the 80s and 90s and he has made bizarre films as well. I love all that surreal stuff, the surreal artists like Leonora Carrington and Salvador Dali. I also like the drawing style of Chris Riddell but couldn’t hope to emulate him — not off the top of my head, anyway.
What are your hobbies?
Snacking, sleeping, walking around outside and taking pictures of old buildings, allotments, building sites and ruined areas. Reading, writing stuff, listening to music. I like to teach myself to play instruments using tabs I find online - guitar, keyboards, ukulele. And teaching myself different languages, some real, some fictional.
Tell us something crazy.
We’re the same person and I am actually interviewing myself. But, this being the Internet, we have no way of knowing if that’s truth or rumour...
What’s the weirdest question you’ve ever been asked in an interview? And what did you answer?
See above.
What is your creative set-up? (E.g your garden shed, a cafe etc) and are there any things you must have to ideas to flow, e.g a lucky hat or a favourite shirt?
I tend to draw things while lying on the floor or curled up with my back against my bed. (My joints tend to give out on me). What I adore is a blank sheet of paper and either very new pencils — HB strength — or perfectly sharpened ones, sharp enough to poke someone’s eye out (not that I have ever tried). There’s nothing more annoying than lead that just keeps breaking and falling out of the end of your pencil. Mechanical pencils are great for the fiddly details. If there’s an image I have to duplicate for whatever reason then I utilise my bedroom window as a light-box for tracing using blu tack.