It’s all in the eyes
Illustrator Donovan Bixley tells Dionne Christian about his obsession with the great Italian master
Some of the things that Leonardo did 500 years ago still really affect my work.
When Donovan Bixley decided to be a children’s book author and illustrator, he didn’t know exactly how he’d do it but figured it would take a long time. There was no five-year plan; rather a 25-year one.
If he’d managed to completely walk away from graphic design to concentrate solely on books in that time, he’d be happy. Given it’s only taken him 15 years, it’s no surprise that the fatherof-three is smiling and animated, about to embark on a new adventure. Bixley is to follow in the footsteps of the artist who inspired him. Thanks to an Arts Foundation’s Mallinson Rendel Illustrators Award, he’s now in Italy at the four-day Bologna Children’s Book Fair — more than 100 countries represented and 26,000 visitors — where he’ll lead a workshop and meet with international publishers.
Then Bixley will set out on the trail of Leonardo da Vinci. He goes armed with the English translation of da Vinci’s notebooks, given to him by author Joy Cowley. When Bixley was in his early teens, because of the discovery of some lost da Vinci manuscripts, there was renewed interest in the Italian artist. Bixley had already written a sequel to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings — it was around 100 words long — so wanted a new project.
“My dad went to San Francisco in the early 1980s, saw this exhibition and came back with some of the books from this grand exhibition,” he recalls.
“I really just fell in love with Leonardo then, just sort of lying on the floor, poring through these books about his notebooks and discovering what an amazing guy he was.
“He’s the father of illustration and some of the things that Leonardo did 500 years ago still really affect my work and what I do, such as ensuring characters aren’t just flat ... He would say that the eyes hold the window to the soul and that’s what every single illustrator does. You can tell so much story-telling through the eyes.”
Bixley, who’s involved with the Taupo Theatre Company, notes that da Vinci did a lot of work in the theatre and there’s theatricality to the art of illustration: “You’re telling a story, you’re putting on a show and all the characters are acting, you’re setting up a stage.”
Da Vinci’s been important to Bixley’s career in more ways than one. When, in the late 1990s, he decided to aim for a career as an author/ illustrator, Bixley wanted to write three books about three great artists: da Vinci, Shakespeare and Mozart.
“One of the reasons I started on this whole track — which seems utterly silly — and before I had published a single thing, was because I wanted to show off and I wanted to draw pictures, or paint pictures, of sumptuous, beautiful clothes. I wanted to paint the Elizabethan era and the Leonardo Renaissance era.”
He started with Faithfully Mozart, which, after many rejections, was eventually published in 2005
(and is being reformatted and rereleased later this year); put out
Much Ado About Shakespeare in 2016 and is now making a start on the da Vinci book.
While the Mozart book was declined by several publishers, it showed Bixley could draw and he started getting freelance illustrating work, starting in 2002 with Harry Hobnail and the Punga People by Barry Crump.
Now the recipient of numerous awards, he’s worked on 110 books — his own as well as for
others. It will take him time to produce the da Vinci book; Bixley has about 10 books on the go in the next few months alone.
As with Mozart and Shakespeare, he aims to make da Vinci a human figure.
“As an illustrator, I can see different things in Leonardo’s notes. Say, for example, you’re writing an academic book on Leonardo and he mentions, just in one line, that he’s going somewhere and he says, ‘I’m going to take my goggles because I want to compare, when I go for a swim, how fish swim as opposed to how birds fly’. As an academic, you might go, ‘Well, there’s no more information; I can’t do anything more with this — all I can do is say it’, whereas as an illustrator, I can go, ‘What can I do with this idea of Leonardo as a guy who had goggles and life jackets and went and did really interesting things like that?’”
So, what does he think these greats of visual art, music and literature would say to one another if they were to meet in a bar?
Bixley laughs. “I think that the key link between all three of them, for me — and it’s often not thought about — with Leonardo in particular, is that they were all tremendous raconteurs and they all hung out with the most famous people in the world — kings, popes and emperors. So I think they would probably have a great time comparing all the famous people they’ve met, because they’d probably have a great old gossip.”
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Donovan Bixley