Thomas Docherty creates picture books with style

Thomas Docherty is a children’s author and illustrator known for both his own stories and his work illustrating books by other writers. He has enjoyed notable success collaborating with authors such as Julia Donaldson, and John Dougherty (no relation!), with whom he illustrated the award-winning picture book The Hare-Shaped Hole.

Thomas also has a long-standing creative partnership with his wife, author Helen Docherty. Together, they have produced numerous beloved titles, including the much-loved popular bedtime story The Snatchabook.

As someone with dyslexia, Thomas is especially passionate about inspiring young people to express themselves through writing and illustration. He regularly visits schools to encourage children to develop and share their own stories.

His latest picture book is a collaboration with Julia Donaldson, offering a fresh new take on the charming tale Follow the Swallow, originally published in 2007.

Do you feel your artistic style has been influenced by a particular illustrator? If so, can you tell us how this person inspired or influenced your work?

My favourite picture book when I was young was How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen written by Russell Hoban and illustrated by Quentin Blake. It was a story full of adventure, rebellion and fun, and or course a young boy with the same name as me, I loved it! The story is brilliant but I think it was Quentin Blake’s illustrations that really captured my imagination. The scratchyness and spodgyness of his style made it look so simple, as if anyone could do it, even me!

The other art that inspired me was the Asterix comic books by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. I found reading really difficult when I was a kid (I’m dyslexic) and I immediately fell in love with Asterix because of the pictures, in particular the way the Celtic / Roman world is drawn with such detail. Creating a whole world full of details that you can get lost in is definitely something that I have tried to put into my own work.

How would you describe your own style of illustration?

I still work in quite a traditional way and I think my illustrations will always have that hand-drawn feel to them. They have been described as ‘nostalgic’ and ‘classic’ by other people. This used to bother me when I was younger as I wanted to feel like I was creating something ‘new’ but now I’m completely happy with it. It doesn’t matters what ‘style’ you have as long as you are telling the story as best you can. Every project is slightly different and I often adapt my style to suit the story. I hope that however I work, the emotion of the characters come through and you believe in the world I have created.

Do you have a preferred medium?

I still love to paint with inks. I love the bottles of colour, the brushes and the paper. I used to do all my illustrations by hand but these days, I often scan bits into the computer and stick it all together in Photoshop. I like the freedom of moving between the physical and digital. Happy accidents happen when you work by hand and you can adjust and correct things in the computer.

Tell us about the process of illustrating another author's work - how did you collaborate? Were you influenced by artists who have previously illustrated Follow the Swallow?

I did see the other versions of Follow the Swallow but I also tried to find my own way into the pictures. My father in law has an allotment in Barry, which is a seaside town in Wales. That was the inspiration for the garden at the beginning of the book. The lighthouse is from where I live in Swansea.

I knew that Julia wanted the birds to be full of character, but not too cartoony, so I did my best to find a balance. I developed the characters first, and when everyone was happy with them, I started to build the world around them. I have been lucky to have travelled quite a lot and whenever I go somewhere new I like to take a sketchbook. Some of the things I see and draw make it into or influence my work. I painted the illustrations by hand, in different bits and ‘stuck’ them all together in the computer. I love the way that the story is a journey that takes us across different landscapes and gave me the opportunity to draw such different animals. It was a pleasure to work on.