Describe a creative person you know

The creative person I know is Deniz. He was my flatmate for two years when we were students in Izmir, in Turkey, and now he works as a engineer for a company that makes machines for factories.

But in his free time he draws comics. He makes short funny stories about the daily life in Izmir, for example old men which play backgammon in the tea garden, or people running for the ferry. He posts them on Instagram and he has nearly ten thousands followers. He also sells prints at a market every Sunday, and last year a children's hospital asked him to paint a big picture on their wall.

He never went to art school. When he was a child he was always drawing in his notebooks and the teachers was angry with him. Later he borrowed books from library and he copied the old Turkish cartoonists again and again, and he watched a lot of videos on YouTube.

I think he is creative because he can see stories in normal things. One time we waited in a very long queue for the ferry and I was only complaining, but Deniz took out his notebook. The next week that queue was a comic, and the people in it looked like characters in a film. So for me, creative means he can make something interesting from boring situations, not only that he draws good.

The most creative person I know is Deniz, who I shared a flat with for two years while we were studying in Izmir. By day he's a mechanical engineer at a firm that designs factory equipment, which isn't what you'd expect.

In his spare time, though, he draws comic strips, little four-panel stories about everyday life in Izmir: old men arguing over backgammon in tea gardens, commuters sprinting for the ferry, the street cats who basically run the city. He's built up a following of nearly ten thousand people online, he sells prints at a Sunday flea market, and last year a children's hospital commissioned him to paint a mural in their waiting room.

What's interesting is that he's entirely self-taught. As a kid he covered every exercise book in doodles, which drove his teachers mad. Later he started borrowing collections of classic Turkish cartoonists from the library and copying their panels over and over to figure out how they built a joke. He's picked up the digital side from online tutorials, and he did one evening course in watercolour, but that's about it.

Why do I think he's creative? It's not really the drawing; plenty of people can draw. It's the way he spots a story in situations the rest of us find boring. I remember once we were stuck in an endless queue for the ferry, and while I was grumbling, he was sketching. A week later that queue had turned into one of his most popular strip, with every passenger as a recognisable character.

I'd pick Deniz, my flatmate for two years when we were at university in Izmir. On paper he's the least likely artist you could imagine: a mechanical engineer who spends his working week designing conveyor systems for factories.

Outside work, though, he's a cartoonist. He draws short comic strips about Izmir life, the kind of scenes locals walk past without noticing: retired men squabbling over backgammon in tea gardens, office workers sprinting for the last ferry, the city's famously entitled street cats. He's quietly amassed nearly ten thousand followers, he has a regular stall selling prints at a Sunday flea market, and last year a children's hospital commissioned a mural for its waiting room, which is now covered in cats in tiny doctors' coats.

Remarkably, he's had virtually no formal training. He was the child whose exercise books were more doodle than homework, much to his teachers' despair. As a teenager he'd borrow anthologies of classic Turkish cartoonists from the library and copy their panels obsessively, trying to reverse-engineer why a particular joke landed. Everything digital he's picked up from tutorials, and a single evening class in watercolour is the closest he's come to art school.

What makes me call him creative isn't technique, because technique can be learned. It's his knack for finding a story where everyone else sees an inconvenience. I'll never forget being stuck with him in a ferry queue that seemed to go on forever; I was moaning, and he was sketching. Within a week that queue had become one of his best-loved strips, every grumpy passenger instantly recognisable. That ability to turn irritation into something people genuinely enjoy strikes me as the real thing.