Six Boxes of Telly: Drawing the Small Rituals of a British Evening

I have a confession, and it's the kind that usually ends a dinner party: I think the television is a better drawing subject than the human face.

Not more interesting, you understand. More available. The face sits still for nobody, but a Quiz Show Podium will hold its exact shape for twenty-two minutes, and in that time you can draw it seven times and learn something new about perspective on the sixth. Britain has spent seventy-odd years building a visual language out of a box in the corner of the room, and almost none of us have thought to put a pencil to it.

So here, in no particular order of importance and one order of personal affection, are six things I keep drawing off the telly. I'm not saying they're art. I'm saying they're drawable, which is a different and better compliment.

1. The weather map

The great unsung piece of British graphic design. A green landmass, a yellow landmass, some blues doing their business at the edges, and a cloud symbol that hasn't changed since roughly the invention of weather.

How to draw it: don't. Not properly. The map defeats accuracy because the map is already a simplification of a simplification. Draw the symbols instead — the raindrop, the sun peeking out from behind a cloud like a shy man at a bus stop, the wind arrow that means "put a coat on." Six symbols in a rough grid and you've got a whole forecast, and you didn't need to know where Cornwall is.

The observation: the presenter stands in front of the map and gestures at Wales with an open palm, and it is the most British gesture in broadcasting. Pointing, but politely.

2. The soap pub interior

The Rovers, the Woolpack, the Queen Vic — they're all the same room, really, and none of us have ever set foot in it. Dark wood, brass, a bar that runs away from you to the left, optics arranged like a little family photo.

How to draw it: the trick is the receding bar top. One line going away and slightly up to the left, and everything else hangs off it. Get that line wrong and the pub becomes a corridor. Get it right and you can put six regulars along it, all facing the same direction, all having a terrible week.

The observation: nobody in a soap ever drinks more than a quarter of a pint. It's a wonder they're all still standing.

3. The quiz show podium

Four people, four lecterns, an enormous amount of space between them and the host, and a theme tune doing the work of a personality. Draw it once and you'll never see a quiz the same way again.

There's a rhythm to it. Podium, gap, podium, gap — and then that long empty run of floor where the questions go. It's basically a stage set for loneliness.

How to draw it: use a ruler for the podiums and nothing else. Straight lines against wobbly handwriting is where the charm lives. Then draw the contestants in about four marks each. Upright rectangle, head, one hand raised, done. Their faces are the least important part of the drawing, which is also true of the show.

4. The end-credit crawl

The bit everyone else ignores. A black screen, a slow scroll of names, and the very small chance that somebody you know turns up doing sound. It's the closest telly gets to a sketchbook page: lists, tiny type, no pictures.

How to draw it: cheat the perspective. The credits are meant to be receding into the distance, but if you draw them honestly you'll spend an hour on lettering and curse me. Draw four lines of scribble that suggest text, with maybe three actual legible words. Nobody's going to read it. It's about the shape of the scroll.

The observation: I once spent a whole documentary waiting for my cousin's name to appear in the credits. It didn't. I drew the credits anyway. Best page in the book.

5. The breakfast sofa

The long, low, cream sofa that every morning programme in Britain appears to share. Three presenters, one coffee table, one weather person standing awkwardly at the side like someone waiting to be introduced at a wedding.

How to draw it: this one's about posture. Television presenters sit forward. Knees together, leaning in, hands clasped or gesturing at something off-screen. Draw the lean and you've got the whole genre.

6. The ident

Thirty seconds of a river, or a swan, or a circle made out of other circles. Nobody watches the ident, and yet it's the bit with the most money spent per second in the entire evening's schedule.

How to draw it: badly, and with love. Idents are graphic design pretending to be landscape. A couple of sweeping curves, one brand-ish mark in the middle, and you're there.

Why any of this matters

Here's my argument, and it's a small one. Illustration gets very good at drawing special things — theatre, festivals, high streets with nice signage. It gets less practice at drawing the ordinary stuff we actually sat in front of for thousands of hours of our lives.

But the ordinary stuff is where the visual language of this country is. The weather map, the pub, the podium, the sofa. Nobody frames them, nobody photographs them, and they're as much a part of the furniture of a British evening as the kettle.

The telly is a genuinely excellent drawing tutor, by the way. It gives you a still subject, it gives you artificial light, it gives you a time limit. It's a life class that hasn't worked out it's a life class.

So next time you're half-watching something, put a small book on your knee and draw one box in the corner of the screen. Then draw it again. By the end of the adverts you'll have learned more about perspective than I can teach you in a paragraph.

And if it's the weather map, do me a favour. Draw the polite pointing hand. It deserves it.