NATHAN BRENVILLE

Sketching a story is choosing what lines to put on the page and what to leave out.

I met my partner while we were both studying Character Animation at Central Saint Martin's. I invited her on a “sketchwalk” I’d organised, as a way of getting to know her. Everything felt like it was finally falling into place, and it was drawing that had led me there. The course was everything I’d wanted, with its strong emphasis on drawing and traditional paper animation. My graduation film was an animated telling of the sketchbooks I'd kept during all the years I’d lived in London.

A few years later, we moved to Madrid, and I had a new reason to keep sketchbooks: chronicling this dramatic change, all the culture shocks large and small that make up life in a different country, learning to fit in and learning to stick out. These sketchbooks now form the basis of the autobiographical comic I'm currently working on.

We had a daughter, and I filled more sketchbooks drawing my experience of parenting too. Wherever I go, a sketchbook comes with me. It's the starting point in my personal life and professional: be it drawing events in situ, editorial illustrations, comics, or animations. To each project I don't just bring a skillset but a lifelong practice of careful observation and curiosity, telling stories with personality and humour. If that's the kind of artist you're looking for, I'd love to hear about your project.