Thoughts from the desk of Will McPhail (and the man himself)

December 5, 2015 in General

The supremely gifted cartoonist, illustrator and PCO member Will McPhail is about to celebrate his one year anniversary of contributing to New Yorker magazine. In recognition of this event he was asked to talk about his work processes, choice of materials and so on. Witty and provocative, Will expands the conversation beyond the 2B or not 2B into a wider discourse on life, love and lucre. Or something like that…

With thanks to Ink Spill for the link, Will’s thoughts can be gathered here on the ‘A Case for Pencils’ website.

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6 responses to Thoughts from the desk of Will McPhail (and the man himself)

Bill Stott said on December 6, 2015

Very interesting stuff, Will. Encouraging too, for those of us who still use pencils, inks and other real, physical items.

I’ve mentioned this before elsewhere on the Forum, but a friend of mine, recently qualified as an FE Art teacher, and a capable traditional artist in his own right, was dismayed to find that one of the teaching groups he took over mid-course [doing Video Games Design] had never used paper and pencil to draw with.
BRIGHTY said on December 7, 2015

And yet, the Cintiq Companion I’m looking at in front of me looks so real I can almost touch it…

Will, you are a superb artist and cartoonist. Thankfully, you have no need of Steve Jobs to do any of your work for you, unlike we talentless gits who use digital tools.
Bill Stott said on December 7, 2015

Have a lie down Steve. It IS real. I don’t think either way of working is the only way. Its only when peculiar Beetles pop up that there’s a problem.
Gerard Whyman said on December 9, 2015

What a nice studio set up – tidied for the camera? Bit harsh on digital artwork, sounds far too young to be an old git. Though I can understand Bill’s mate at the FE college – I’m at one with the Foundation students who keep things called ‘sketchbooks’ that have writing, photos and collected material in them but barely a sketch! It’s a scrapbook! When the tutor was introducing the new module last week she mentioned using them for putting in their own photos – I almost piped up and said you can even use them to sketch in but held my tongue. I don’t want to get a bad reputation…
Bill Stott said on December 11, 2015

[Off top of head]…….And this is where a digital sketch book would be really useful because instead of ONE physical sketchbook being passed from tutor to tutor or whomsoever, a digital sketch book could be transmitted to all, simultaneously. Of course, the content really should include as much drawing from life as possible, as well as photos and notes.

I don’t understand the thinking behind allowing graphics students NOT to use a pencil on paper. I would have thought that digital and physical should work hand in hand here.
Will McPhail said on December 11, 2015

Hey thanks for sharing this, guys!