“Football is yelling out to be drawn!” – artist Millie Chesters Calendar

2 Jun 2021

Artist Millie Chesters has produced two online Drawing Drills workshops for arty families. She is encouraging families to make their own football stickers (inspired by The Euros) and learn to draw footballers in motion. We caught up with Millie to find out more…

Where are you from?

I’m from Runcorn in Cheshire. It’s quite close to Liverpool, where I studied graphic design and illustration.

Tell us about your work/art.

I love the drawing process – playing around with different drawing tools, mark-making and colour. I try to convey this as much as I can in my work. I gravitate towards drawing people, sports, and still life/observational drawing – I draw a lot of Nike trainers!

A lot of your art is around football – what is it about the game that inspires you?

I think football is such a visual thing, especially on TV. The way football is captured on TV – bright green pitch, the colours of the crowd, the colours of the football kits – along with the telephoto zoom on the players’ faces. To me it is just yelling out to be drawn! I love drawing people in motion and football is perfect for it. I’d love to draw in a real-life match someday – the real challenge is drawing from life!

Lily Parr by Millie Chesters

Tell us about your support for Man Utd.

My support for Manchester United began from my dad. He was a huge fan, a lot of my childhood memories are about him and Manchester United. My whole family support them and it’s great. I think they’re such an exciting team with a huge history, I’m really proud to support them.

You’ve worked with the International Slavery Museum, can you tell us about that?

I worked alongside artist Hwa Young Jung, who developed an educational card game called Civil Rights & Freedom Fights. It is about the civil rights movement, with a focus on the city of Liverpool. Each card has a photograph/illustration of an object, place, event or person – with a detailed description below. The aim is to teach people about the impact of racism and the slave trade – as well as the people who have dedicated their lives to make the world a better place. It felt like an incredibly important project and I learned so much from it.

What can people expect from your online sessions with the National Football Museum?

Hopefully people can see how fun drawing is, and how there’s really no rules to drawing – except to just enjoy it and have fun. The videos are here:

MAKE YOUR OWN FOOTBALL STICKER:

Collecting Euro 2020 stickers this summer? Join Millie and take inspiration from the tournament’s sticker collection to draw your own. Pick a country, choose your favourite player and get drawing! Download our A4 sticker template here to print off at home.

FOOTBALLERS IN MOTION

Brush up on your illustration skills and learn to draw footballers in motion using the artist’s unique style. How does a goalkeeper move when saving a shot? What’s the best way to draw a striker putting their laces through the ball? Find out in the second of our Drawing Drills tutorials.

Subscribe to the National Football Museum YouTube channel and see even more creative how-to videos, as well as our educational First 11 series.