Enric Lax studied illustration in Barcelona and later the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna. His work has been exhibited in Catalonia and Belgium.
Born in Catalonia, Spain, he now lives in Brussels, where he teaches art.
We asked him about the ideas and process behind his new book Start with a Teapot: An Unexpected Guide to the Art of Drawing.
Where did the idea for the book come from?
One reference was Magritte and his “Words and Images” series.
Then a few years ago Alexis Deacon published a series of drawings in The Guardian How to draw a crocodile, where the instructions lead the illustration further away from what we expect.
That was the seed of my idea. I started to get interested in making a completely useless manual.
How did the book develop?
I started some sketches and trials. Little by little I found the right tone of silliness and parody, which I
liked, and one thing led to another.
The book took a few good months of work. This part of the process was a game and a pleasure. I
found a tone that was fun and poetic. Little by little everything was taking shape.
Why did you choose to end the book in the way you did?
I tried several ideas and the one that convinced me the most was this one, where the narrator stops
giving instructions and starts getting frustrated and talking to himself. The ending adds another
dimension to the book—I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but it adds to it!
What do you do when a drawing doesn’t work out for you?
It depends on my mood. Sometimes I tear up the paper and sometimes I put it in a drawer and finish it
at another time.
How do you create your illustrations?
The illustrations in this book are a style I hadn’t tried before, but which feels very comfortable. I work
with Chinese ink, pen and digital colour.
I start with pen because it gives me more expressiveness and freedom. If there is a mistake, I cover it
with Tipp-Ex. The shadow gives it volume and a finish, like an old book.
I wasn’t sure at first about whether to make the illustrations for this book black and white or colour.
I tried watercolour and marker but wasn’t happy with the first colour tests. In the end, to find a
chromatic range, I worked digitally—and that was the solution.
Who are your drawing influences?
I had a teacher who said that to be good illustrators we needed good references in painting. I could
go back far in time to Goya, Delacroix, William Blake, Matisse, Picasso. These artists have played with
line, stretched its possibilities.
My first great reference is Saul Steinberg. Steinberg is a poet of drawing. He takes line and drawing to
another dimension in a way that is comical and at the same time very poetic. Steinberg is a master of
social satire. He is intelligent in his concepts and takes drawing beyond the act of drawing itself.
Other influences include Tomi Ungerer: his style, line and colour, but above all his acid and intelligent
humour. Ungerer’s spontaneous and uninhibited strokes have the tone I most identify with this book.
Meet Enric Lax on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/UOz6D_bxQjY?si=4OjUzQMOIrnWVIVU
Start with a Teapot: An Unexpected Guide to the Art of Drawing is a brilliantly original drawing book that flips the tradition of drawing guides, combining puns, stories and useful techniques to encourage imagination and experiments—and above all, no rules and no mistakes.
