EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 16 © 2016 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

63 Will Davies Join Leif Peng as he lifts the lid on the life and career of an artist who captured the essence of North American lifestyle in the latter half of the twentieth century. “One of these days I’m going to have to learn how to draw!” These are not the words I’d ever have expected to hear from Will Davies, one of the most celebrated and revered Canadian illustrators of the last century. But say them he did in a moment of frustration as he sketched what would be one of many rough drafts for an illustration assignment that seemed to refuse to take shape. It was a spring day in 1998 and I’d just arrived at the studio I shared with several other illustrators in the tiny Yorkville neighbourhood of downtown Toronto. Will was the grand old man of our group and the originator of the space we six artists shared on the second story of an old Victorian building. When I stuck my head in the door to say hello he was in the midst of sketching what looked to me like any other of his countless, impossibly beautiful pencil drawings. At age seventy-four, Will had spent nearly half a century as the quintessential representative of the highest standard in Canadian illustration. His draughtsmanship was impeccable. But here he was crumpling a sheet of paper and tossing it aside in disgust. I learned a valuable lesson that day; the best illustrators are never satisfied