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Roman Muradov: The Q&A

By Peggy Roalf   Monday October 6, 2014

Q: Originally from Russia what are some of your favorite things about living and working in San Francisco?

A: The weather in San Francisco is very moderate and the food is good. I make a point of going to a little park practically every day following the exact same route and observing the little changes in color, smell and sound of the streets. This is the chief pleasure in my life right now.

Q: Do you keep a sketchbook? What is the balance between the art you create on paper versus In the computer?

A: I almost completely stopped drawing in sketchbooks a few years ago when I started to feel more confident in my drawing abilities. Now, if anything, I try to sabotage myself instead of honing my skills. I do carry around a sketchbook, but it's almost entirely filled with notes, bits of writing, grocery lists and vague ideas.

For my recent projects I loosely sketch the composition on the computer, then print it out and go over it with brushes, pens or pencils. Then I scan, compose and color everything digitally again, so it's probably about 50/50. I always want to have the natural, accidental look to my linework, so I sometimes deliberately use cheap paper, old brushes or smudge ink with my finger. 

Q: What do you like best about your workspace? Do you think it needs improvement, if so, what would you change?

A: I live and work in a basement, which gets rather stuffy and unpleasant in the summer. Worst of all, the windows offer a view of the parking lot. Ideally I'd want a quiet pleasant room with a nice view, separated from the kitchen and the bedroom, unlike my current studio, where the bed is dangerously close to the desk, tempting me all day long.

Q: What is the most important item in your studio?

A: A little teapot. I'm actually not that much of a tea snob, but I love the process of brewing a cup or two.

Q: How did you prepare for the assignment to create Google doodles commemorating Leo Tolstoy's 186th Birthday? How did you select the titles to illustrate?

A: The first few months were dedicated to close rereading. War and Peace and Anna Karenina were obvious picks, but I really wanted to have his late style represented as well, so I was thrilled to have the doodle close with The Death of Ivan Ilyich, my personal favorite of Tolstoy's.

For the format, scenes and details, I studied the author's style and attempted to approximate his clear, robust rhythm through layering of brush and ink drawings with details and colors that highlight the crucial movements and patterns of repetition.

 

Q: What is the most rewarding thing about creating illustrations for great literature, such as the Penguin Classics covers you have done?

A: A feeling of approaching the work closer than you normally would. In a way, it's almost a form of visual criticism as it allows me to play with subtler visual connections in arrangement, color and detail. If my illustrations act as an invitation to a deeper reading I consider my job well done.

Q: What is the most challenging aspect of creating illustrations for great literature?

A: The constant awareness that what I'm doing is entirely unnecessary. Great books are complete in their original form and need no illustration. With authors like Tolstoy and Joyce in particular, each word counts and any visual addition breaks that purity. My work, however, relies heavily on reduction and stylization, so it's more of a peek between the lines rather than an attempt to re-create the written text with images.

Q: What are you reading now?

I'm rereading Gogol's Dead Soul and slowly making my way through The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne. In my coat pocket there's a delightful 3-story collection called Never Love a Gambler by Keith Ridgway.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: My first graphic novella (In A Sense) Lost & Found came out from Nobrow Press on Tolstoy's birthday (coincidence? Yes!). Currently I'm working on some children's books and slowly writing my next long(-ish) project, along with short stories, strips and visual experiments that I self-publish in my Yellow Zine series, of which issue 5 just came out.

Q: What was your favorite book as a child?

A: I can't remember what I liked as a child; my taste took a pretty long time to develop.

Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?

A: In the last few months I read and enjoyed Peter Mendelsund's Cover and What We See When We Read, Tom McCarthy's C, Deirdre Bair's biography of Saul Steinberg, John Gray's Immortalization Commission and Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice. I just finished rereading Nabokov's Pnin and now I'm moving on to Pale Fire, which is always a treat.

Q: If you had to choose one medium to work in for an entire year, eliminating all others, what medium would you choose?

A: Probably brush and ink, since it provides the greatest range of markmaking, although this idea is frightening. I like to pick different tools for different purposes and I use every other thing around the desk, from pens, pencils and brushes to post-its, scissors and fingers (my own, dipped in ink). 

Q: What was the last art exhibition you saw and what did you take away from it?

A: I spend enormous amount of time walking alone aimlessly and it probably informs my work a great deal--thre's a walking rhythm to pictures and words,  a self-interrupting monologue without beginning or end. In general, I dislike the concept of inspiration and I sometimes come up with self-imposed constraints to avoid it completely. A copy of Ulysses is always by my bedside.

Q:  Where do you teach—and what do you like best about teaching?

A: I started teaching an illustration class at California College of Arts and another at the Academy of Art University this semester, so it's the first time I spend a good deal of my week as an instructor. So far it's both exciting and exhausting!

Q:  Where did your idea for title of your most recent book originate? What was the most difficult part about getting from idea to finished art?

A: The title came to me in a flash around 2010, along with the image of the protagonist's protracted awakening from a dream into another dream. Since then the story went through so many drafts, revisions and changes that the published book has nothing in common with the original version apart from the title.

Drawing the actual pages was the biggest challenge since my skills weren't strong enough for the task, so certain pages had to be redrawn 4-5 times.

Q: What advice would you give a young artist about applying to an art school or college?

A: Spend more time not drawing. It may feel wasteful but counterintuitive, but I'd argue it's just as important (if not more) as actual work.

Q: What would be your last supper?

A: Fresh bread and butter, good cheese, wine, blueberries. Then a cup of tea with a splash of booze.

You can meet Roman at a book signing for In A Sense (Lost & Found) at Desert Island Comics in Brooklyn on Friday, October 10th.

 


Roman Muradov
 is an illustrator and cartoonist from Moscow, Russia, currently living in San Francisco. His clients include the New Yorker, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Penguin, Random House, Vogue, Time, NPR, GQ, Washington Post, Google, Lucky Peach and many others. His work has been featured in American Illustration, the Society of Illustrators (Gold Medal), and numerous other shows.His graphic novella In A Sense (Lost & Found) was published in September 2014 by Nobrow Press. He loves tea, books and long aimless walks.


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