Lessons for Young Artists by David Gentleman review – secrets from the studio
You know the art of David Gentleman even if you don't know you know it. Anyone who's passed through London's Charing Cross tube station has seen his life-filled black-and-white mural of medieval people, enlarged from his woodcuts, digging, hammering, chiselling to construct the Eleanor Cross that once stood nearby. His graphic art has graced everything from stamps to book covers to Stop the War posters in a career spanning seven decades. He says he's been making art for 90 years, since he was five.
His parents were also artists, and in his latest book he reproduces a Shell poster by his father to show he follows in a modern British tradition of well-drawn, well-observed popular art. Perhaps it is because he learned from his parents as naturally as learning to speak – 'Seeing them drawing tempted me to draw' – that Gentleman dislikes pedagogy. He's proud that he never had to teach for a living, always selling his art. So his guide to the creative life, Lessons for Young Artists, is anything but a how-to manual or didactic textbook.
Instead, it's like a visit to his studio where you sit at his shoulder, watching him work, while he shares tips, wisdom, anecdotes. If you have ever wished to take up pencil and paper, whatever your age, this book will sharpen your ambition by demystifying the process, making it feel the most natural and important thing in the world to draw that tree outside the window.
The book's beautiful illustrations deepen his laconic advice. As he chats, the artist rifles through drawers to show views of London, Paris, New York. 'Rifling' is possibly the wrong word, for it suggests a chaotic workplace, of which Gentleman does not approve. You should keep your brushes in good nick and your studio tidy. Then again there are no rules, he admits, remembering how Edward Ardizzone used to work at the kitchen table surrounded by his family.
The artist's workspace may seem a secondary issue but he's not alone in stressing it: Leonardo da Vinci paid attention to what an artist's room should be like in advice to young hopefuls written more than 500 years ago. In one of Gentleman's engrossing, calming drawings, his studio has a big window looking out on the city, designs on clipboards neatly hung up, a row of brushes, a couple of glasses of water (for watercolours). It's a workplace to envy, peaceful yet connected with the world. This is really a guide not just to the technical skills an artist needs but achieving an artistic state of mind.
Gentleman lures you into his day-to-day work. 'Take a sketchbook with you everywhere you go,' he says, again like Leonardo, adding that it should be pocket-sized and the accompanying tools minimal. Too heavy a kit will 'become an excuse not to take it with you'.
He adds watercolour to his drawings, either in the studio or in the open. A Suffolk church is seen through overgrown late summer weeds, with watery blotches in the sky. It started to rain as he worked: 'I like the way the spatters of rain are visible on the paper.' Another happy accident is a drawing of his son playing the piano that acquired an extra foot: a burst of motion in an otherwise tranquil scene.
You find yourself not just wanting to be an artist but to be David Gentleman. 'Becoming an artist,' he says, 'is about learning to look at the world with a very sharp eye. When you walk down the street, try to pause and notice your surroundings.' On the facing page is a watercolour shot through with sunlight of the now-gone King's Cross gasometers, by a trashy canalside, ducks floating on the silver-touched water. Finding beauty in the neglected, unnoticed moments that pass us by is a lesson that can be applied to anyone's life, 'Young Artist' or not. This is diamond advice, lightly given.
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Lessons for Young Artists by David Gentleman is published by Particular (£20). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com
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Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Sam nods as he listens – his own memories are fuzzy. He knows he was taken to an ambulance. 'I was convinced the paramedic was my friend Steve, and kept trying to escape, running around the hospital car park. It was like I'd entered this alternative, Matrix world that I'd invented in my head.' Eventually, he was corralled into a psychiatric ward in Canterbury, where his psychosis worsened. The next six weeks were a blur: two weeks at one secure unit, then a month at another. 'I wasn't able to understand who or what was in front of me.' He became conspiratorial, believing meals and medication were laced with poison. He was consumed by religious and spiritual delusion. 'I believed I was connected to God. That if I breathed deeply, I could control things. If I tapped my right foot, I'd send someone to heaven, or my left foot could send someone to hell. I thought screaming certain words gave me specific powers.' He looks to the family now sitting around him. 'And I know I said the worst things to all of them.' Sam believed he had become the character he'd constructed. On one visit, he turned to Alena and announced, 'Sam is dead, call me Mr Doodle now.' Art was intertwined with his psychosis; at times, it was the only connection the family found to the Sam they knew. 'I wanted to draw on the hospital walls,' says Sam, which wasn't exactly encouraged. 'They'd put me in a confined room, and I'd draw on the walls in soup and bread. People coming and going seemed, to me, to be artists I'd been inspired by.' His senses were heightened. 'Colours were so intense; if I heard music, it would feel like my whole body was vibrating.' On the psychiatric ward, Sam's doodling remained relentless. He still has the sketchbooks. 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We couldn't even watch David Attenborough – Sam thought the rocks were giving him dirty looks.' Occasionally, flickers of the old Sam returned – initially, in conversation with his grandparents. Over months, these became more regular. He only came off the last of the medication in early 2024. Psychotic episodes can be triggered by substance abuse, sleep deprivation, stress or specific physical conditions. 'I didn't feel stressed at the time,' Sam says. The family doesn't seem convinced. 'But there was definitely too much in my head.' Episodes such as this have no clear end point, and doctors couldn't guarantee it wouldn't strike again. Sam was unperturbed and, within weeks, wanted to return to project Doodle House. 'I thought you should never draw, never be Mr Doodle again,' Tom says. 'That this place would have to be abandoned.' 'I tried to talk him out of it,' Andrea says. 'But he was determined. So we just encouraged him to take it slow, not all day and all night: stop, walk, break, breathe. Alena was here, keeping Sam under control, making sure he took breaks and his tablets.' The pandemic helped, slowing Sam's other projects. His parents took over the business admin. 'Plus, I was sleeping a lot more because of the medication,' he says. 'There was no 24 hours of nonstop drawing, as before.' Joey the cockapoo's arrival was a boon. 'I'd stop drawing to take him out for walks.' Soon, Alena was pregnant – another responsibility. The documentary, the family hope, marks an end to this chapter. 'Speaking about it has made the whole thing feel more normal for all of us,' Andrea explains. 'Before this, I'd never been inside a psychiatric hospital.' The topic feels taboo, perhaps, even in an era of mental health awareness. 'When Sam first got ill, I wasn't telling people – not embarrassed, but I didn't understand, or know how to explain. Now we just talk about it as if he had appendicitis.' Sam and Alena take me on a tour, past doodled walls, floors and ceilings; lamps, log burner and chandelier; dressing gown and laptop; toilet and bathtub. There's a doodle garage, complete with doodled Tesla. Dream-themed doodles decorate the bedroom; each of the 2,000 tiles in its en suite bathroom are adorned with appropriately aquatic doodle designs. We step outside, passing the doodle water butt and American yellow school bus, through the evolving sculpture park. In the back corner of the four-acre estate is an imposing, newly constructed modern studio, designed by architect Guy Hollaway. Its exterior is wrapped in metal panels, each with intricate laser-cut doodle shapes. Inside, white double-height walls provide Sam with a blank backdrop to work on. In one corner, floor-to-ceiling racks display his recent works. The smallest among them sells for roughly $80,000. Another corner displays a grid of square drawings, each with crisscross coloured lines. It's a new style he's experimenting with, inspired by the NHS-issue felt-tip pens he relied on while hospitalised. The studio is a flurry of activity: Tom is taking a phone call, Alena moves materials around. Photographs are being taken. In the corner, at a table, Sam sits, thick, black pen in hand, entirely at ease. Smooth, freeform lines fill up the white page. Swoop, circle, dot dot dot. Up to the corner, looping down. Squiggle, glide, squiggle. Alena perches next to me. 'The first time we met,' she tells me, 'Sam told me this was his dream: to buy the big house, and to doodle it. I knew what I was signing up for.' I'm not convinced that grandma Sue was right, I say: my eyes haven't yet adjusted. 'When we first started,' Alena replies, 'I couldn't imagine living there. It was so sterile. But I started to make it homely, with little softening details. Now it's home. It's not too much for me, honestly, any of this. Without doodles, Sam and I would never have met. I find them comforting.' 'When I start drawing,' Sam says, 'I don't think before shapes and characters just merge into something. I enjoy the physical feeling of moving the pen along the paper – it's like that sensation of spreading soft butter on toast. It just feels satisfying. The noise that it makes. I feel content in myself when I do it, emotionally. It's when I'm happiest. Seeing the work made in front of me is a high – it's that feeling I'm chasing each time I draw. This itch that's satisfied by seeing work appearing in front of me.' He still feels that intense pull to draw: 'I don't get lost in it now, but left to my own devices, I could do this for ever' The Trouble with Mr Doodle airs on Channel 4 on 9 July at 10pm.
The Guardian
20 minutes ago
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