Hello Ian, do you want to say a little bit about what you do?
I draw things…with a pen, little characters and strange things…little animals…

[The drawings] are quite simple but I think about them a little bit.
I’d say it’s a bit like therapy, for me, because it’s better that this stuff is out and drawn than in my head. You’ll have to believe me.

Do you think anyone else does a similar style to you?
No!... It’s completely unique…

What was the first big project you did with these sorts of drawings?
I left a graphic design job and wanted to move away from computers. I would sit on trains and just draw in sketchbooks and kind of go into this weird trance…I’d get to wherever I was going and look at the sketchbook and think “that’s a bit weird.”

Then I was commissioned to draw in a ladies’ toilets, which is a good job because first of all I wanted to see what they were like - women’s toilets - and you feel it’s legal to go in so it’s good.

Weirdly I was going to do it when women were there, doing whatever they do, but then we had a meeting in the toilets and there were women coming in and we quickly realised that was wrong and so I did it at the weekend.

That was good to draw on the walls, little characters saying things next to taps, light switches, being a bit cheeky…maybe behind the toilet seat so you didn’t see it until you put it down or lifted it up. That was fun because it was like getting in their minds when I probably shouldn’t be… >>>

Which other places can people find your art? You don’t just draw in toilets?
No! That’s a good answer isn’t it? I do screen prints, t-shirts, animations, little idents for TV…Rubbish! That’s quite a big part of my life.

Tell me about the rubbish.
I will…I’ll tell you now…I did an exhibition in Berlin and then we were given a massive space to draw and we had loads of pens. When we got back I wanted to carry on doing that but didn’t want to draw on paper so I started walking around and saw loads of rubbish and thought, look! There it is.

So I started to draw on rubbish, giving bags characters, bringing them to life by drawing a face saying something you wouldn’t expect that rubbish to say.

It’s also good because it gets me out of the house…and I get to draw on fridges, cookers, bin bags, boxes, bits of wood and I quite like the fact that I only have five, ten minutes to draw on it; I just do it, take a photo then walk away and leave it.

I like that it’s not permanent. Lots of people go “oh I’m going to do graffiti” and it’s all, you know, bombs and war and that’s not my angle, they can do that.

Originally I went out in the night time or when the sun was coming up and then I thought, hang on a minute, I can do this whenever. I don’t know, doing illegal things, it’s not necessary.

Sometimes I’ll draw on a bit of rubbish and it’s quite nice because I’ll see people looking at it and I’ll have walked the other way but other times no one will see it. There was one time the bin man came around the corner straight away, and I like that because only one person saw it and then it was gone.

Man walking down the alleyway: “Hey do you guys mind if I go to the toilet?”

[to the man] Oh go for it, go for it.

[back to Wheel] So there was one time I came back to take a picture of something I’d drawn and an elderly lady came out of her house and said, “do you know who’s doing this?” And she was quite happy, she wasn’t offended at all.

What annoying things do people ask you or say about your art?
Comments like “that’s wacky.” I know they like it but I don’t know what they mean and whether or not I should talk to them anymore…Or, “that’s cute.” That’s a good one because like when girls say that to you it’s not the best is it? You’re cute? It just doesn’t work, it doesn’t make me feel sexy.

Ian, did you know that David Beckham has recently done an advert for Sharpie? If they asked, would you to be their spokesperson? Now I can try to do an impression of David Beckham [talking in a very high voice] “Hey there Posh.” A spokesperson? Sure I’ll talk for them. Free pens for life.

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