KS. What was the first thing you remember ever
drawing or painting?
JK. A butterfly in junior
school at the age of about seven.
KS. What do you think you would have been if
not a painter?
JK. No idea, I don't think
there was an alternative. I decided very early to be a painter.
KS. The first Discworld painting was in
watercolour. Why did you decide to do the rest in oils rather
than watercolour?
JK. I always worked in oils
and the first Discworld painting (Colour of Magic) was done in
watercolours because I happened to have a very good piece of
watercolour board at the time and I wanted to use it. It was of
the old-fashioned sort that then went out of production (Whatman
watercolour board) and it seemed a shame to use it for an oil
painting.
KS. The Discworld paintings all vary in shape
rather than being one standard shape why is that?
JK. The shape of a hardback
or paperback cover vary and I've had to do something to allow for
the cropping of the image in different ways according to the type
of book it was going on.
KS. If you could be commissioned to do the
cover for any fantasy book ever written what would you most like
it to be?
JK. I prefer to paint my
own subjects so any other subject is secondary to that.
KS. What do you think of the new breed of
artists who manipulate images on computer?
JK. I don't know anything
about them.
KS. Who do you think are the most promising new
talents to have emerged in the art world in the last ten years?
JK. I live away from the
mainstream of art and therefore don't have a great deal of
contact with what other artists are doing.
KS. How did the idea for Voyage of the Ayeguy
come about?
JK. It came about because
it is traditional subject matter from Renaissance times and
carrying on today. They painted altar pieces and frescos
commissioned by the church. It was one of the main occupations of
painters in the early days. Bruegel and Bosch embodied that
tradition and it appealed particularly to me and I wanted to
follow that tradition.
KS. Who do you think have been the most
innovative and influential fantasy artists of all time?
JK. Bruegel and Bosch.
KS. What is your favourite colour?
JK. I don't have one.
KS. What made you decide on the incredible
floor-level perspective for the cover of Small Gods?
JK. I just do angles that
seem to make a striking picture. I work by intuition and it's a
different level of thought to intellectual thought.
KS. What advice would you give to young artists
who want to become really top-class in their artistic
achievements?
JK. Learn to draw. They
have to draw everything that is around them and become proficient
in drawing the world around them.
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