art

Enabling Courageous, Confident & Creative Leaders

Cameron Schwab – Artist & Illustrator

I have been drawing since I was a kid, and even when I was embedded in often overwhelming leadership roles, I had Moleskine sketchbooks and Blackwing pencils in my bag.

A couple of years after I finished in football, I took myself to art school, including a stint studying a Bachelor of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA).

I started out copying Batman and Superman comic books, and could lose myself for hours.

Soon I was drawing my other heroes, the footballers of the mighty Richmond Football Club, as if they were gracing the pages of my comics, and perhaps in many ways, that is how my artistic style evolved.

I enjoy the superhero metaphor, the vulnerability of even the most powerful. We will quickly lose interest in Superman if there is no Kryptonite, and such were my childhood football heroes who would eventually succumb to the ravages of the game itself.

That is why I’m drawn to boxing as a subject. I do not particularly enjoy the sport, although that has not always been the case, yet I am attracted to its imagery, both its reckless hope and desperate sadness, and the fleeting difference between the two states.

I also like to capture a moment, be it a nostalgic celebration of an old footballer who you try to bring to back to football life, or a game-changing happening as I watch a game won and lost and honour those who influenced it most.

The majority of my drawing is now on an iPad, using the Procreate App. But I enjoy pencil and charcoal the most, both are brittle, and embody many of the images I am seeking to represent.