Meet David Sparshott

Gifted South London illustrator who counts Nike and The Times among his recent clients. 

When we speak, David Sparshott is sat in his south-east London flat, drawing bread. Sixty different types of loaf of bread. Next week, he will be drawing 60 different cuts of meat. He used to think bread was hard to draw. Too uniform, too undifferentiated, too brown. “But after the 50th loaf, I’m starting to feel that drawing anything is just a matter of practice,” the 27-year-old illustrator says. “I’m hoping that meat will also conform to this theory.” Since graduating from the University of West England in 2006, David, a member of the Toy collective of illustrators, and a fan of David Hockney and Peter Blake, has won a raft of praise for his fine draughtsmanship. He’s worked for the New Statesman, Nike, the Creative Review, the New York Times and Umbro, among others. Early on, he picked up flagship work from the Times, who commissioned him to do an ongoing series for their Monday football coverage. The result was a series that combined his low-slung pencils-and-coloured-pens style with a similarly easygoing wit. Most were six-panels long, taking apart the highs and lows of one of the weekend’s big games with a dash of Roy of the Rovers panache.  “It was an amazing brief, looking back,” says David. “Of course, at the time it seemed a bit of a pain on the arse. The deadlines were so tight. When you’re on the 12th or 15th round of having to work 24 hours straight through, it can get a little wearing.” The easiest thing to draw, by the way, is a dog. “I get accused of putting dogs into everything. Well, I am a bit obsessed with drawing dogs.” He pauses to consider how this sounds. “I just like dogs, OK?”