At school I used to get in trouble for doodling. It was usually when I was meant to be doing maths. I have nothing against maths – believe me, you really need to understand it when you start earning money and paying bills. But my brain always felt freer when I was drawing, especially when I was meant to be doing something else.
Here are some of my doodles from school:
This one is of a giant ibis terrorising a city.
Yep, I was a slightly weird kid.
The biggest trouble I ever got into at school was for drawing pictures of my high school teachers in my homework diary. It was an impressive collection of artistic impressions. The problem was that I wasn’t very good at drawing clothes, so I didn’t draw any.
Unfortunately the school principal didn’t appreciate how I had applied my artistic talents. He discovered my best friend looking at the diary during maths (again!) and I was called to his office.
He slowly flicked through the pages of diary, glancing up at my with a look of disdain as he studied each hand-drawn image. These were his exact words:
‘Michael, I have been teaching for over forty years, and these are without a doubt the most disgusting drawings I have ever seen.’
I thought this was particularly unfair, especially for the teachers in the drawings. I had drawn them pretty well, even if they weren’t wearing clothes.
Anyway, I learnt a good lesson that day, which was that if you get an extreme emotional response to something you’ve created, you’re probably doing something right.
Fast forward a few decades and now I get to wake up every day and pick up my pencil (or Apple Pencil these days) and draw disgusting pictures. And I get paid for it. And people all over the world love them.
For my Squidge Dibley series, I drew over a thousand illustrations, many of them far cheekier than any of the pictures I’d doodled of my high school teachers. Here are a few examples:
I’ve had letters from readers as far away as Germany saying how much they love them.
I sometimes wonder what my old school principal would think of all this. Because in a way I have him to thank for giving me my first critical review and helping me find my calling in life. So when I was illustrating a special cover for the Fathers’ Day catalogue for my favourite local bookshop, I decided to do it in the style of those drawings I used to do during maths.
And if you look super closely, you might even see my old school principal in there amongst the faces. (But I am not going to tell you where. Hee hee!)
Today’s question: What is the best (or worst) reaction you have ever had to your drawings? Share your comment for a chance to win a signed Squidge Dibley book! (Final book winners chosen by 5pm on March 31, 2022.)
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