Mark Chambers: Super scribbler!

We talk to children's picture book illustrator and author Mark Chambers about his work and he shares his advice for aspiring illustrators

How did you become an illustrator?

I’ve been scribbling since I was very young, drawing aliens and making up weird and wonderful machines, so I’ve always been creative, but to choose illustration as a career only came about when I took a foundation course in art. Before that it was either a career as a professional golfer, chef, fighter pilot or a master Lego builder (although not all at the same time).

Tell us about how you create your illustrations

For the past five years I've been a digital artist but I like to use different textures and materials to create my images. For example I may use a wood texture for the hair or different materials and fabrics for clothing.
I'm constantly playing around with my methods and using different digital brushes to render my artwork, this may include pencil scribbles or a pencil outline to soften the image slightly. I sketch out the initial drawings and use a pressure sensitive pen to draw the outline, I then fill in the areas with various textures and use the brushes over the top.

You worked with Bookstart to create the beautiful artwork for this year’s The Rhyme Challenge. Why do you think rhymes are important for children?

I love rhymes and there are so many amazing stories and songs out there that have been written in rhyme. Growing up I had loads of books that had rhyming texts in them including Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl. I think rhymes, whether sung or read, allows a text to bounce along at a really good pace and engage the child more. I think it makes them more memorable as well, I doubt there are many people out there who aren’t able to recite at least one nursery rhyme from their childhood.

Are there any other authors or illustrators who have particularly influenced your work? Which other picture book creators do you admire?

I have so many picture books by different illustrators in my studio bookcase but I do have my favourites. There are so many super scribblers out there that it's always difficult to narrow down which ones have directly influenced me in some way.

I have several illustrators that I like however, Tony Diterlizzi is a fantastic artist and one of his books, The Spider and the Fly is a fab picture book and I really like the concept sketches that he does for various things. Brian Froud is also a great artist that I have admired over the years. I'm a fan of the Labyrinth and Dark Crystal films and his designs for the various monsters and fantasy characters are just brilliant. I wouldn't say there was any one artist that has influenced my art style as I want to come up with something unique to the industry but there are a great many illustrators whose work I love and follow.

What advice would you give to the aspiring picture book authors and illustrators out there?

I wouldn’t put pressure on anyone to go and study at art college or to get a degree at University if they wanted to become an illustrator. However, studying an art course does give you the time and space to work up a portfolio and give you the chance to mix with other people who want to do the same thing. This can be invaluable to develop your ideas and style. Art is very subjective and having an art degree on your CV will not guarantee you a job in this industry as inevitably it is down to how strong your portfolio is when showing it to clients.

One other piece of advice that I stand by is, never give up! You have to be pro-active, persevere and get out there to make it happen and however many knock backs you take, however much work gets sent back to you with, 'it's not quite right at the moment!', keep going! One day it will click for you and you'll look back on the hard work and think 'it was all totally worth it'. Waking up each day with the passion to draw and to be able to say you love what you do is a great feeling, find a job you enjoy doing and you'll never work a day in your life.

What are you working on at the moment?

I'm working on several different projects including the next book in the Stinky & Jinks series and another book for Bloomsbury in the Zoo Stories series of young fiction books.

I've also been selected to be part of a collaboration of superstar scribblers on a project for a fab cause. It's called Bear With Me, a charity collaboration with the some of the best British illustrators. All proceeds go to Great Ormond Street Hospital and you can find out more on Bear With Me Facebook page.

Take a look at a gallery of Mark's illustrations