A peek inside the sketchbooks of Posy Simmonds
Cartoonist Posy Simmonds has been keeping sketchbooks since she began her weekly Guardian strip in the 70s. Here she talks us through some of her pages, and explains why Princess Diana had exactly the come-hither eyes she was looking for
Posy Simmonds
Thu 23 May 2013 15.00 BST
Working in my sketchbooks is an enjoyment because I've usually seen something that's interested me. These girls were on their way to a nightclub, and I was in a taxi that had stopped where they were queuing. They had these very tight belts and these amazing, amazing, amazing shoes and they all had terrific tattoos. Some of them were quite - what do we say? - plump.
Photograph: Posy Simmonds
These are drawings of the different kinds of Muslim dress that I'd seen when I was on the bus in Holborn. Bus rides are the best because the bus goes slowly and you pass so many people. I keep a small notebook in my bag to jot down the basic details and then I look quite hard and go home and draw what I've seen. It's practice. My glance is like a fly landing on someone and then bouncing off because I don't want them to notice me staring.
Photograph: Posy Simmonds
These are the preliminary sketches for Beth from Tamara Drewe, who's rather hefty. From the start I knew that she'd go to two sheds every day: the first to collect the eggs, and the second to collect what her rather ratbag of a husband had written. He's a famous novelist. These drawings were working out her face in various guises. I don't use photographs. It's sort of out of my head. I start with the eyes. Here I was thinking about how old she'd be, and that she'd have one of those 80s sort of flicky-up hairdos, and she'd still have it even though it's 20 years later and she's put on a bit of weight since then.
Photograph: Posy Simmonds
This is the final Tamara page as it looked in the book. I used to draw two episodes of Tamara Drewe a week and I hadn't finished it when the Guardian began printing it. It became a very hairy ride by the end. I would go to bed for four hours, wake up and draw. I was so tired. When you look at the book it doesn't really seem like any work at all. But in a way it's like a film; you have to do the costumes, the lighting, the script, everything.
Photograph: Posy Simmonds
I use Bushey sketchbooks made by C. Roberson and Co. I've had them for years in various sizes. It's rubbish paper, very thin, but it takes the pen well and it's good for pencils. At the start of a project I go back through my sketchbooks because there may be somebody lurking there who I can use. All my sketchbooks are full of people. Some of them are completely invented – like these women - but I saw this man in a bar in Normandy and he became Joubert in Gemma Bovery.
Photograph: Posy Simmonds
These are sketches for the page where Tamara Drewe really appears for the first time. There had to be reactions from different people when they see her. There's the look Beth gives her, and the look Andy Cobb gives her, and the American thinking she's “Hot patootie!!” I went to my grid and started drawing freehand, and thought: I'll put her in the centre and she should be bigger and out of the frame so that her effect dominates the rest of the page.
Photograph: Posy Simmonds
My first drawings of Gemma Bovery were the rather Victorian sort of ones you can see on the left. Later I thought perhaps she was going to be much plainer and more middle-aged and in a droopy Marks and Sparks dress with a rather bad tan and not shaving her legs properly. I kept the not shaving her legs properly but I knew that once she went to France she would get a French polish. When I drew the Gemma on the right, I thought: those eyes remind me of someone. Oh, it's Princess Diana.
Photograph: Posy Simmonds
Inspired by my early drawing of Gemma Bovery, I found some photographs of Princess Diana and started drawing her. I liked the way she always used to look up under her fringe in a very come-hither way, and out of the tail of her eye too. That's really what I wanted for Gemma. I wanted her to be seductive.
Photograph: Posy Simmonds