Len Grant, visual storyteller
A photographer that became sketcher
The first time I met him was in Oxford, before the global pandemic. At that time, he was still a photographer, an open-minded person who always had a smile and a head full of new projects and ideas.
Three things about him have been particularly inspiring to me:
The concept of ‘image is everywhere.’ Although his previous expertise was in sales and marketing, he shifted to photography and made it his profession and passion for over 30 years. This experience is now evident in his sketches. He constructs images with either a camera or a pen. Composition is ever-present, his keen eye perceives it, and now his hand translates it into drawings.
Style is his trademark. When you encounter one of Len’s sketches, you can immediately recognize it as his work. He has developed a unique style, much like his personal handwriting. Many artists aspire to have a distinctive style, and Len has achieved just that.
His approach to line work is the key to how he organizes spaces and scenes. He uses bold and thick lines to merge buildings, people, buses, and more into a cohesive whole. Color comes next, and he has employed an interesting technique for that. While watercolor is his primary method for applying color, he also utilizes felt pens and even colored pencils. More recently, since the global pandemic began, he has started digitally post-editing his images and incorporating real textures into his drawings, as you can see in the image below.
The sky is a colour texture added digitally. Storytelling is inseparable from his imagery. Probably one of his strengths is that he’s a great storyteller, both with images and words. This combination is a cornerstone of his work, whether as a photographer or now as a sketch artist. It has become even more powerful because he has embraced more flexible publishing formats. This adaptation helps him stay relevant in a time when books, although important, are becoming rare objects in our society.
Everything I have mentioned before you can find in his latest self-publication: “Off the Walls”. A nice zine about the place where he and his family have lived over the last years.
It is a DIN-A4 zine, and when you open it, it becomes a lovely DIN-A3 double spread, providing ample space for the entire layout. Each drawing offers a fascinating perspective, and you can easily notice how Len sat close to the ground while creating them.
While he doesn’t explicitly state that he will publish more zines of Withington, on the cover, you can find a ‘no. 1’ badge next to the title, and inside, he writes, ‘But this is a start, and there is so much more to draw.’ So, I can hardly wait for the next one. Because, Len, another one is on its way, isn’t it?
If you want to get one just visit Len’s website or shop: