David Hughes (illustrator)

David Hughes is an artist and illustrator. He lives in Marple, , Greater Manchester, UK.

David Hughes, born in Twickenham (in 1952? (See: "Sandy Turner", below)) describes himself as "a graphic designer who happens to illustrate." Expressing the desire to become an artist from a young age, he studied at Twickenham Technical College in the early 1970s, completing a four-year course on (largely technical) Illustration. Towards the very end of his course, he discovering an interest in etching and produced "a small series of etchings based on a piece of jazz by Charlie Parker."

After leaving college, he produced his first commissions for The Daily Express's cookery page, but became frustrated and disillusioned by the lack of creativity involved. A lack of "sympathetic advice" saw him abandon drawing for "a year or so," to become a postman. During this time (mid-1970s), he was re-inspired by a Post Office colleague to take up life drawing again, and eventually became aware (through the work of "amongst others, Ian Pollock, Russell Mills and Chloe Cheese") that there was a market for his talents.

In 1980 he was given a job at Granada TV, Manchester as a graphic designer, giving him the financial security of paid employment to experiment artistically. This led to a freelance commission from David Pocknell to "produce 40 black and white pencil and charcoal illustrations" for Eric Morecambe's book "On Fishing," which ultimately inspired Hughes to leave Granada in 1985 to become a full-time illustrator – a decision that some found hard to understand:

Another key moment occurred in 1988, when, having long been working on Strat and Chatto by Jan Mark he found that after his "early drawings in pencil/charcoal [were] rejected as too sophisticated," and he felt that pencil-work often suffered from printing techniques he experimented in improving his pen and ink style. "Submitt[ing] a rough pen and ink drawing to Pentagram", he found that they "chose to use it as a finished piece" as the cover to a book by Don Marquis entitled "Archy and Mehitabel". In late 1989, "he was invited by The Observer magazine to produce drawings for a topical weekly medical column, "A Doctor Writes" by Dr. John Collee," first as one of a number of rotating artists, but soon as the solo, regular weekly artist. Describing his aversion to roughing out his work, Hughes notes the immediacy and challenge of producing full work as tending to allow an artist to produce better work:

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