I'm calling myself 'The Doodler,' and with the simple addition of a small burglar's mask, I achieve utter anonymity.
As a child, I copied Tenniel's illustrations from 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' obsessively, particularly his drawing of the white rabbit in waistcoat and frockcoat, umbrella tucked under one arm and a fob watch in paw, a look of suppressed panic in his eye.
I don't feel uncomfortable in forbidding institutions, and work with, say, prisons or psychiatric institutions could be one of the things that evolve out of the Laureateship.
Do you have hands? Excellent. That's a good start. Can you hold a pencil? Great. If you have a sketchbook, open it and start by making a line, a mark, wherever. Doodle.
The computer is a tool, just like pencil or charcoal, allowing illustrators to manipulate images from their sketchbooks.
In the digital future, texts will be annotated visually, animated and illustrated like never before. The austere 'prayer book' paper that permitted the space for Shepard's illustrations to Pepys' diaries is now being recreated in the digital era.
