I have been working as an illustrator full-time for about 30 years. I have had short periods of nothing happening, but thankfully those have been few, and I have been busy working all the time and can now make a decent living from it. I started out in Children’s Book Illustration, as you do, but it always bothered me how the older readers grew, the fewer illustrations appeared. I was always asking: “Why is this a thing? What’s wrong with grown-ups having picture books?”
While working on various paid projects, books, magazines, album covers, and maps, I started working on a personal project, based on the nerdy love life of Nobel Laureate, and noted sex-pest, William Butler Yeats. I had heard from the President of the Yeats Society, Stella Mew, how Yeats had proposed to his muse, Maud Gonne, no less than four times, and was rejected each time. Undeterred, he waited for her daughter to grow up and then proposed to her.
This was a story that needed to be told, but in a funny way. Nobody had seemed to have made Yeats funny before, so I was pretty nervous. I started this as a series of limited-edition prints, which made their way into an exhibition called ‘Yeats in Love’, first shown in Sligo and then nationwide. It turned out to be more successful than I had ever imagined. I did not get excommunicated from Sligo, with my car set on fire; rather, the Yeats Society enjoyed the jokes.
Sometime later, I was chatting with the commissioning editor of New Island Books, who suggested I make a book out of the ‘Yeats in Love’ series. Because I was not in any position to adequately write a biography of Yeats to accompany the images, I instead did some deep-digging and found many quotes by his contemporaries – some charming, some unbelievably bitchy.
Yeats in Love was published in 2014 and sold out the first edition quickly, which led to a second edition. It was noticed by Tom Foley, the, then, United States Ambassador to Ireland, who became a mentor and great supporter of my work, especially in helping me with my terrible grammar. New Island Books were also very supportive of me in my quest to bring picture books to grown-ups, and we produced some more: What if..?, a book about historical what-ifs, and Another Fine Mess, which explores peculiar and amusing ways to die.
The fourth book was published in 2023, and was my very first, nervous step into the genre of graphic novels. I had an idea for a book that emerged during my research for Yeats in Love: that the great Irish writers of yesteryear were really horrible and mean and bitchy about each other. Also not one single woman seems to be widely celebrated amongst them.
I made a suggestion to Edwin Higel at New Island, who agreed there was a story there. After several false starts, I decided I would develop it as a graphic novel. It seemed to make perfect sense, as it involved almost entirely visual gags. The whole thing took place in the gorgeous surroundings of the National Library of Ireland, and, according to people who know about these things, graphic novels are big now.
My former job as an art director for film and television suddenly made a bit of a comeback; I started by laying out the basic shots, as one would with a storyboard. I wrote it out like a film script, which made things a lot easier and avoided having to go into big descriptive passages. Also, it was quite workmanlike and easy to break up into sections. It had a beginning, middle and (finally) an end, so I was all set.
At this point I was still working on paper with pen and ink, which meant this project took an extraordinary amount of time to execute. With the exception of the holy grail for illustrators, the Christmas RTÉ Guide cover, I had to clear my desk and turn down all other work to get this done. My office was so cold at night I had to construct a spare desk in the sitting room, so I could do a few pages in the warmth and occasionally say hello to my family. It was that intense.
After weeks of agonising, I decided on a title for the graphic novel – The Late Night Writers Club – and made a promise to myself that I would never, for as long as I lived, draw James Joyce again. We published the book in August 2023, and it was well-received by reviewers and readers. In 2024, I was approached by The National Library about acquisition of all the original illustrations, notes, script, scribbles, drafts, mistakes and Post-its. I was happy to oblige and the whole collection can now be viewed in the National Library Archive.
As luck would have it, the library at Trinity College Dublin also spoke to me about acquiring the originals and ephemera of Yeats in Love. I decided to donate those in memory of my mother, who worked in Trinity back in the day – they can also be seen in the Long Room by appointment. It was such an honour and a thrill to be immortalised in two of our finest institutions.
I was so wrecked after The Late Night Writers Club that I decided to take a break from most of the commissions I had been booked to do. I am at present doing occasional work for Sligo County Council on their unique illustrated walking maps, ‘Sligo Walks’, which show walkers a realistic idea of what the walk looks and feels like, rather than the somewhat sterile ordnance survey maps. It’s a real pleasure to work on those and is a big change from being stuck in the office all the time. I think I have a book or two left to do, but there is no immediate rush. I’m enjoying the time off with my dogs and my walks, and generally catching up on things after 18 months of non-stop grafting.
After years of resisting, in 2024 I gave in and bought an iPad, an Apple Pencil Pro, and the app, Procreate. The paper-like screen changed the whole process for me. I had hated the feeling of drawing on glass, but this product changed that. I’m having a great time experimenting and trying new things. I realise I could have made life a lot easier, had I created the book on the iPad, but I have no regrets – there is an archive of actual paper with art on it, which can be seen and held and looked at by anyone.
As a senior, I watch how things are going with AI, copyright problems, plagiarism and straight-up theft, and am pretty sad for young illustrators starting out. It must be really hard. I do think there is a place in society for real, human-made creativity, but society needs to remind itself about that, because once it’s gone, it will be hard to get it back.
Annie West is an illustrator and writer based in Sligo. She has spent all of her working life in the creative industries, including graphic design, film and TV art directing, and as a graphic novelist.
