I was always good at drawing. Where the talent came from was one of those mysteries of childhood, and remained a mystery to me until I was much older, when I discovered that both my father and mother had harboured secret artistic talents, but, given their working class backgrounds, had never been able to pursue them or even acknowledge the value in such talent. But it did explain why they supported me so unwaveringly when they saw I had ambitions to become a comic illustrator, a painter, and an artist. They expected a great future for me, but my teenage years were difficult, and I descended into myself, lost my confidence, and eventually became afraid even to leave the house.
My time inside was spent painting and drawing and writing stories. I’d paint into the night, scribble down scripts for comic books I’d never finish, or teach myself how to paint in acrylic, how to collage, how to build a story. Time passed, and whatever terrible, debilitating cloud had attached itself to me, eventually lifted as inexplicably as it had arrived. I was twenty, and had no friends and no way of making money, and after doing all I could to find work as an illustrator in Leeds, lugging my portfolio unsuccessfully from local advertising agencies to image rights companies, and even applying to the Yorkshire Evening Post for a job as a graphic designer, I eventually applied to art school, something I’d resisted until then because I didn’t know how I’d afford to live away from home. But living away from home had by then become a necessity to me.
Glasgow School Of Art was my first choice, but when I went to pick up my portfolio after having delivered it to be reviewed as part of the application process for their Fine Art course, I found it had been vandalised, which I took as a rather unsubtle rejection. Brighton was my second option, but after a disastrous interview where I was accused, maybe a little unfairly, of valuing style over substance, I ended up in Falmouth. I’d applied to their illustration course as a last resort, but I immediately fell in love with Cornwall, and, at my interview, Falmouth School Of Art appeared to fall in love with me. It proved to be a brief romance, however, and not long into the first year the tutors considered throwing me off the course for being wilful, stubborn and, to quote the course leader, ‘an angry young man’. None of which was true, although I can see how my shyness and withdrawn nature might have appeared like surliness. It would be over twenty years later that I’d realise what in fact friends had suggested for some time, that I was ADHD. At Falmouth, in the end, I was reluctantly given a merit on graduation, but only after having secured myself an agent, Eunice McMullen, who quickly found me professional work. It took a long while to make enough money to pay the rent, but with her guidance I established myself as a successful illustrator of picture books and book covers. I was afforded great opportunities, but, inevitably, my career has suffered as many downs as ups, and I’ve survived due to my ability to adapt to the new fashions and disciplines that publishing is subject to. Because of this stylistic flexibility, I’d always assumed I didn’t have an instinctive, natural artistic style of my own, and yet I return over and over again to elaborate black and white illustration, and I think this is at the heart of who I’ve been as an artist since those teenage years drawing comics in the night.
I’ve been lucky. Both to have the talent I had, and to have the family support I enjoyed. You learn a great deal working professionally, but probably the most important lesson, and one that is commonly learned late, is the need to be able to tap into the passion, obsession, desire and blind faith you had as a child in order to continue to put the tip of a pen or pencil against a blank page, not knowing where it will take you, but following it regardless, and hoping or even, very quietly, expecting the best.
Jason Cockcroft has been a professional illustrator and artist since graduating from Falmouth School Of Art in 1994. He has illustrated over sixty books, and worked for all the major publishers in the UK and the USA. His books are widely published in Europe, South America, Australasia, Japan and China. He was nominated for the Kate Greenaway and Carnegie prizes, and won the inaugural Blue Peter Award for his work on Geraldine McCaughrean’s retelling of John Bunyan’s A Pilgrim’s Progress. He has illustrated books by Michael Morpurgo, Leon Garfield, Helen Cresswell, Melvin Burgess, Jill Paton Walsh, Tony Bradman, Jean Ure, Berlie Doherty, Brian Patten, Martin Waddell and Chris Packham. His picture books include A Song Of Sun And Sky, published by Henry Holt; and Night Walk, published by Walker Books. His artwork has been exhibited in galleries throughout the UK and Europe.