David Lucas

As a child

I was born in Middlesbrough, in 1966, the third of six brothers, and as children we were all dressed the same - same haircut, same jeans, same jumpers. We came to London when I was five and at first we lived in a tent before moving to a council flat in Hackney. My parents both loved nature so I often spent holidays exploring forests and wandering on the moors in Yorkshire or by the seashore. I loved ruins and castles too - magical, haunted places.

As an adult

I always enjoyed drawing and in my teens I became fascinated by mythology and folklore and began writing stories, but I didn't do well at school. I failed Art O' level and left school at sixteen. Later on, I went to art college and afterwards did all kinds of part-time jobs and it wasn't until I was in my thirties that I rediscovered my old love of fairytales and began writing stories and inventing characters again.

As an artist

I am a romantic: I believe the world is alive with gods and spirits and magic. My drawing is picture-writing - I never draw from life - I make patterns, as if I was knitting with ink. Writing, for me, is pattern-making too - combining words as if they were simple shapes, making story-patterns that mix themes from my own life with those of myth and fairytales. I love medieval art and folk art – art that is decorative, not just to be beautiful, but because pattern-making is like a magic spell, a ritual, or a prayer.

Things you didn't know about David Lucas

1. All my stories are autobiographical.
2. My first drawing was a picture of an owl, when I was two.
3. When I was young I spent a lot of time drawing maps of imaginary cities and kingdoms.
4. I remember being particularly proud of my plan for the Capital of the World.
5. When I was a teenager an owl used to sit in the tree just outside my bedroom window, like a guardian angel.
6. I keep a diary that I write every day.
7. I like to go to quiet places on my own - an empty beach or a forest or an old churchyard and just sit and think about everything.
8. I would like to have lived long ago - perhaps painting illuminated manuscripts in the Middle Ages.
9. I believe in ghosts - and in fairies - and that everything, even each twig and leaf and rock is thinking and feeling.
10. I can't sing and I can't swim and I can't drive.

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