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1. The death of my father.

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1. The death of my father.

I guess there are many people in the world nursing a book they have written, or want to write, because I’m often asked if I can help by illustrating them, or getting them published.  I very rarely work with authors directly, but the boom in digital books is changing all that and I am more inclined to keep an open mind. As a writer I’m a bit of a fraud, I had to leave school at the age of fifteen to take care of my mother. I  have very few grammatical skills, putting in, commas, where they, are not needed’ and periods when I breath in,  helped only by my trusted spell check, I limp through what you are about to read. For those who want to know who I am or how I got here, or there, this is the history of a self-made illustrator, along with all the gnarly bits. Mum and Dad’s wedding I was born in a small Manchester suburb in the United Kingdom. I  was pretty young and wasn’t yet ready for the world, I certainly didn’t have my shit together. I got all my artistic talents from my father who would help me build animals out of modeling clay and make forts and stuff like that. Unfortunately he died when I was 4 years old in a traffic accident, and my career as a sculptor took a downward plunge. Shortly after, my mother remarried and I inherited a new brother and sister. But to my new family I was just baggage and from there on we became locked in mortal combat! More about that later! For now I was a stranger in a strange land and I had to survive. I grew up in a yellow nicotine stained house and I was miserable. But survive I did. Continued . ....

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2. Growing pains and raging hormones

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2. Growing pains and raging hormones

   Growing up, I was always looking for the magic pen and  perfect paper to create the masterpiece that would make me a published artist. Here I am decades later, having published hundreds of books and greetings cards, and most recently having launched my own e-book company, Breadcrumb Books. I guess you could say I’ve been a success, but I’m still looking for that perfect pen and paper–except now it’s on a Wacom touch screen!   In those early traumatic growing up years my drawings kept me focused and my art decorated the walls at school, making an example to others who had less talent. It was kind of embarrassing and I didn’t think I was all that good. But I got to be known as an ‘artist’ and got lots of admiring responses. Cool, but I was very shy so I totally missed capitalizing on the attention from girls who would smile playfully and ask me,  “Can you do a drawing of Cliff my favorite pop star”. Later I did take some advantage of that but I was thirteen and filled with raging hormones.  continued . ....

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3. Art teachers.

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3. Art teachers.

  It was my art teachers who, on seeing this poor shy little kid, helped me pave the way to where I am today. But much to their dismay I transferred to third year ‘Mary Baker’ cookery classes thinking of muffins instead of art, I decided to be a chef, so avoiding that thick gooey stuff they called paint, and brushes that I later used as pastry glazing tools!  But later in 1962, and thanks to one of those teachers, I sat an exam as a scholarship entrance to art school, passing with flying colors, if you’ll pardon the pun. It took me to a new level and I began my stint at Rochdale College of Art with my best friend Mike Wood. Our days were filled with lunches of chocolate bon bon’s in the musty old corridors of the college, and creating very little art except for rude little drawings of the professors. But it wasn’t to last long because  on one sad weekend my good friend Mike took his own life. College life was never be the same so I walked out and I never went back……  Continued . . ....

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4. The step father

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4. The step father

My step father, who had become my arch enemy since my mother remarried, told me he could bend six inch nails in his teeth, and showed me that life could be a bitch, and to make it you had to have a ‘real’ job, not some fancy art college, and so for the first fifteen years of my working history, I built places and stuck pipes together, sidetracking only to start my own appliance repair shop, but that’s another story. It was then, I realized,  that I had been born into the working class. How come you screwed up so badly God? At about eighteen I won my independence when my step-father died, and in celebration of that freedom, ironically, two years later I got married and had my first two kids! Now being married, for better or worse, (more worse than better),  at least I had an engineering job that gave me a solid income, and though it was not where I wanted to be, it also gave me many different surfaces to draw on.  Whether it was a oil tanker needing a logo, or a canteen table, I was there with a pencil decorating it. That really got me noticed, and it wasn’t long before my fellow workers had me drawing pornographic images to sell to truck drivers, my first encounter with fame and mass production, but no fortune, and worse, I later became a plumber driving a Reliant Robin! Continued...

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5, Normal life

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5, Normal life

Having two kids and my first house purchase, I settled down to normal life, washing my car and mowing the lawn each Sunday.  Boredom set in and I started brewing wine, playing pool and  lusting after loose women. Being showed the error of my ways by a friend who thought I was in need of psychological intervention,  I joined a local cult to gain stability and a more ‘ethical’ life. My marriage suffered badly and finally my wife, exploring greener pastures, ran off with the cult leader.   My marriage in ruins and no  thoughts of my future, I abandoned  the engineering life for a more relaxed existence in the cultish way. Living off the proceeds from the sale of my house, I had a good time for a while, but I was soon on a downward path, that in the end, was to lead me to my salvation. But not from my little group ‘Art and Soul’ that I had high hopes for. It was at this point in my life I met Maria, who was to be the next Mrs Gordon. Maria was returning from the States and was planning to return, I on the other hand had other ideas for us. Maria was bright and full of life’s enthusiasm and like me she was totally broke. . . We needed a plan and along came the man with the magic beans! Art and Soul: Maria, Chris, me and Chris   Continued...

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6. Motivation!

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6.  Motivation!

It was in 1978, cold and broke searching for change down the sides of the sofa to feed the gas meter that I took my artistic talents seriously.  I was living with Maria in a small studio apartment in Manchester England, looking for ideas that would pay the rent. That was when we had this brilliant idea of sketching public houses and selling the framed art to the proprietors. Armed with a polaroid camera and using a makeshift studio in one corner of the apartment we drew and framed some fine pieces. But of course though England boasts of many quaint inns  and pubs we finally ran out of them, and having no bus fare to take us further afield we were broke once more. But still in awe of the great cartoonists like Ronald Searle who bowled me over with his opening credits to the movie ‘Belles of St Trinians’,  and Ralph Steadman’s works of genius, I got the motivation I was looking...

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7. The MAGIC beans . . .

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7. The MAGIC beans . . .

In a local card shop I saw a series of cards by Sandra Boynton, little hippos and ducks and stuff. “I could do that” I said and proceeded to create a series of humorous  greetings cards with little witty sayings like ‘It’s your Birthday … SCREW YOU!’ That was the easy bit! Next came the selling and walking from publisher to publisher trying to convince them to buy these works of art. Nobody wanted to take them on, they were so different to the gaudy humorous cards they were used to. I don’t know how much desperation was involved but I kept on trying and pushing those cards until I met a T-shirt salesman from London, he had that glint in his eye and told me he would make me rich and famous, it was almost like being offered a handful of magic beans for a cow! He may have been a lot of wind but we soon had over a hundred designs on the market and a growing company. Although we tried hard to make it work, I guess we didn’t try hard enough. The business was soon struggling and I had to bring home the bacon, One day after an unusually big argument I walked out and took on a job in a print studio for a weekly wage. So with security to buy another modest little home in East Grinstead near London, I started again. But it was all too unexciting, I needed another cunning plan . . . Continued . ....

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8. The cunning plan!

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8. The cunning plan!

I was now married to Maria and with my two kids from my earlier marriage, I settled down with my pipe and slippers again  only to find I was going to be a dad once more! At this point I decided we needed a better plan! So we created a freelance art company. With a small drawing board and a tin of cow gum we took on many clients, gluing together leaflets and business forms, business cards and letterheads. I ended up with little money and sticky fingers. But, the earlier success in the card market had given me lots of my own card designs and with the help of the greeting card portfolio I walked the streets of London and landed yet more card work. Let me tell you at this point, sitting at a desk all day thinking up silly ideas for humorous cards is soul destroying and will render you isolated from friends who get tired of your punny quips in between their deep and meaningful conversations with their wives. Their wives found them dull and boring, me of course they found highly entertaining! “Isn’t your friend funny!” they would...

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9. Breaking Wind

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9. Breaking Wind

Writing funny shit week after week drove me completely nuts! So we decided to get into books. So armed with a portfolio of cards I landed my first board book work with a small company who went broke shortly after but sold the books on to a multi national publisher. Not a good start! But not my best work! I learned much later that under the new publisher those books had sold a quarter of a million copies! Bummer! Now I was armed with a portfolio of cards and I landed my secondbook contract ‘Breaking wind!’ Obviously the wind was behind me! The second book came just after ‘Breaking Wind’ it was ‘Sit on the Roof and Holler’ by Bell and Hyman. It was a poetry book that needed some cute illustrations, and although my work was still very ‘cartoony’  it gave me the boost I needed. Now I was able to approach other publishers and stand at the bottom of the proverbial ladder to success. I settled in to promoting myself and spent a few years building my portfolio of books filling in any gaps with greeting cards. Just as I was about to give up on cards, the three hundredth card sitting on my desk,I was picked up by Hallmark the giant of giants! My art was getting much better at this point and Maria had written to tHallmark and they had asked us both to meet them for dinner in London. I explained that I was the proud father of my fourth child and my wife and I would have a hard time finding a baby sitter. Why not bring him along they said (being American) the Brits know you have to be off your head to say something so stupid! I won’t say any more about that dinner but I would have to thank that Italian waiter who took our few month old baby into the kitchen while we talked, looking at my son now I wonder what they did with him and why he loves to cook. More to come! . ....

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10. California

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10. California

Illustrating books was great after spending so much time on greeting cards, and I soon landed four titles with Wayland Books (Hodder) a series we called ‘The emotions’!   I feel Sad, I Feel Angry … you  get the idea. That series I still do today in one form or another and has kept me in annual royalties for many years. I think myself very fortunate to be doing work I love and freedom to do it when I want. There are jobs I do of course that I wish I had never got involved with but they are now few and far between. At this point In my life I felt rather secure, great job, great kids, I loved life, oh if only we had that forsight that said “don’t get too comfortable, life is about to throw you a curve ball!’ Celebrating our success the family took a break and flew over to Canada to see my sister, and later down to LA, calling in at Santa Barbara. One hour after arrival I came down with a nasty case of ‘kidney stone’. Within minutes I was in the front seat of my friends car driven by Maria, who just about managed to scare me to death going the wrong way up the off ramp onto the busy American freeway, We really freaked out some drivers coming towards us, a deranged woman at the wheel and a guy with a paper bag on his head  hyper ventilating, I can tell you now those drivers looked like rabbits caught in the head lights of a monster truck, I only realized our predicament, having my head in a brown lunch bag, on hearing my wife screaming “oh god, oh god!” I spent the rest of my vacation  on a daily dose morphine and I fell in love with Santa Barbara. . . Next . ....

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