FANTASTIC CITIES QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE NEW COLORING BOOK 1
How do you define your style? My work is all about the lines. I love drawing lines. The idea for my coloring books came from my daughters suggesting that some of my complicated aerial drawings of cities would be really fun to color in. I had a large archive of line drawings that needed a purpose. The idea of a serious coloring book for all ages was a perfect vehicle for the drawings to reach a much larger audience and hopefully be a catalyst to helping people find a creative outlet in their busy lives. The idea that tons of people everywhere could be part of a collective concept of creativity was very appealing to me. I love that people all over the world will be coloring in my drawings and hopefully becoming inspired to do their own drawings as well as appreciate and learn a bit about the different styles architecture and habitation patterns we've created on this wonderful planet. Why did you decide to draw a coloring book? And why do you think this kind of book are now so 'fashionable'? I wanted to reach more people with my work. I also wanted to do something fun and current. My daughters and a few clients all suggested that coloring some of my drawings would be fun. So I started to build a body of drawings for that purpose. I had some ideas as to what the book would look like and when Chronicle Books brought me onboard the idea evolved a little more with their help. I love that the drawings are now reaching a far wider audience but also hopefully encouraging people to be more creative. It's all just meant to be fun. I think most people would like to have more creative outlets. The books provide a fun and stress-free activity. They are an easy introduction into drawing more. I think in the faster and faster digital world we live in everyone's time is so precious that the books provide a quiet but productive break from world around us. Can you recall the moment when your daughters Roxana and Asha suggested your art could work as a coloring book? Was the family, say, sitting around the kitchen table, the children coloring in one of your drawings? No, it was more of a gradual realization. People had been telling me for years that I should do a doodle art poster or a color by numbers drawing, but I had always laughed those suggestions off. But over the last couple of years as my daughters watched my drawings get more and more complicated they would occasionally suggest that I print one out for them to color. And then, separately, a few friends started to contact me with similar requests to print one of my drawings so they could give it to their kids for coloring. At that point, I finally realized that I should think about the whole coloring book concept as a legitimate project. 2
Why architecture? I ve always loved drawing buildings. When I was young, I even had aspirations of becoming an architect, but ended up as an illustrator instead. While I spent years working with an art collective that was best known for travelling and painting landscapes, I was the one always trying to find a house or shed to sneak into my work. When creating a piece of art, the most appealing part for me has always been the line-work, so I'm naturally drawn to architecture for that reason. Even when I was working on a painting, the part I enjoyed the most was always the initial drawing, and a few years ago I decided to simply stop there and concentrate on making that the finished product. I really enjoy lines, and I think that shows in the work. You said in Architectural Digest that you hope Fantastic Cities will help adults discover their creative side. Maybe that will even inspire some people to create their own artwork or appreciate architecture differently. What s your view on coloring books like yours being seen, and promoted, as a form of relaxation, of art therapy, of relief from stress? A digital detox, so to speak. I prefer to think of them as an easy way to be creative. That said, almost any creative activities coloring, drawing, playing music, knitting, writing naturally leads to stress relief and can certainly help you relax. If you can embrace a hobby that doesn't involve a digital device, it s bound to be good for your state of mind. We could all use more stress-free creative time in our lives. So perhaps the book can serve as a catalyst to creating that kind of space in your life. What makes a city fantastic? Its architecture or its people? Or both? No question: both. But you can add history, culture, literature, art and much more. There are so many fantastic cities on this planet. All for different reasons. There are such varieties of building styles, settlement patterns, and architectural philosophies. There are so many villages, towns, settlements, cities, and harbors. I'll never run out of new places to draw and visit. While I haven't visited all the cities that I have drawn, I do find it easier to draw a city that I've been to, so I guess I should keep traveling. I still have so many places to get to, and so many drawings left to do. What is the reason of the success of the adults coloring books? I think that the success of coloring books is due to that fact that they provide an easy and stress-free option to be creative. I think we are all more creative than we sometimes get to show and anything that allows people to be creative in a fun and not to serious way is bound to be popular. There are also some really nice drawings in some of the examples out there, the quality of the books has improved immensely in recent years. 3
Do you think there is a new interest for the freehand drawings in the digital age? I think anytime we get to do something in an simple non-digital format that we enjoy it. Coloring is a pretty basic hobby from when we were all kids, I think giving people a reason to do it as adults is going to excite a lot of people. As far as my drawings - I use all kinds of tools to achieve my finished works. Sometimes that is ink on paper, sometimes it is paint markers on board and sometimes I use a stylus on a tablet. They are all just different tools...a lot of people will be unable to tell the difference when I publish the drawings in a book at a way smaller format that I execute them. I love line work! In any medium. With any tools. How did you choose what cities to include in the book? It was hard choosing the cities for the book. I started with some cities I was familiar with. As the series grew I also tried to reflect more regions from all over the planet. Almost all cities have something wonderful about them that would be fun to draw. Because of that I had way more subject matter than I needed for the book. Hopefully the drawings show something uniquely characteristic about the place...like the canal houses in Amsterdam, or the favela in Rio, or the organized chaos of an Indian Village. Why did you focus on aerial views? My focus on aerial views is for many reasons... It's not people's normal view of things so it can be intriguing for us to get that new vantage of something...it allows you to play with some really fun perspectives as an artist. I think that the aerial views cause one to reflect on new forms and shapes that you might have been overlooking before. They always seem to have more of a story happening in them. Getting to see the way buildings have 'grown' together from above allows us to see a unique pattern of urban growth. What was your motivation behind creating Fantastic Cities? After concentrating on drawing individual or small groups of buildings for a few years, I started to gravitate toward compositions of large numbers of buildings together. And then I started to do a lot of aerial views of towns and villages, and that led to more complicated scenery of cities. As far as the coloring book aspect of it is concerned, I have to thank my two daughters for pointing out that the finished products would be really fun to color in on their own. I realized that it was a perfect vehicle for work that would appeal to all kinds of people and, more importantly, to share my work with a large population that might not be interested at the price points of the original artwork I had been doing up to that point. I d never thought of coloring books in that way before the idea that people everywhere could become a part of the creative process instead of just looking at it and that s very exciting and fun. I'm really looking forward to seeing how people might choose to color them in. Maybe it will even inspire some of them to create their own original work as well. 4
Who is Fantastic Cities for? Everyone! Given the level of detail, it might not be for the youngest artists among us, but I certainly think it should appeal to those aged 10 or 11 and older. Some of the book listings say "15 and up" but I've seen some pretty good 12-year-old artists that can out-color most adults. Still, there are some pretty complicated drawings in there that will take a lot of time and patience to fill in. As far as the type of individual, anyone that likes to draw, who appreciates art, or is sick of spending all their free time on an electronic device of some sort. I also hope it might be a great introduction to maybe doing some of your own drawings...you can learn a lot studying a drawing for as long as it will take to color some of these. Finally, I will admit I m kind of amazed at the response of the architectural community to the drawings, although maybe it isn't that surprising when you think of it. Do you have a favorite illustration in Fantastic Cities? I have a few. I love the Rocinha drawing from above. There s an organized craziness to it that is immensely appealing to me. The Amsterdam street scene is also a favorite because I love drawing that city it's so unique. I also really like the super-dense San Francisco drawing from above. It was kind of nuts and definitely the biggest challenge in the book. (One of my brothers told me that he was concerned for my mental health when he saw that one.) I can t wait to see if anyone actually gets it all colored in. But I love them all - they wouldn't be in the book if I didn't. When you aren t creating art, what are you up to? Hanging out with my kids. Sitting around a fire with my wife. Spending time with friends. I also enjoy my time alone. I read a lot. And I love to travel. You can never travel too much. I also love looking at and discovering art that's new to me. On that note, God bless the Internet. I ve been blown away at the extent to which word of this book has made it around the planet, but at the same time, I am also blown away by other artists that I am discovering every single day. There are an amazing amount of great artists out there, and I m coming in contact with so many more as a result of this work. It s so inspiring. 5