Feeling stuck? Creative block be GONE!

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Good Ship Illustration – "Feeling stuck? Creative block be GONE!"

Release Date: April 24, 2024

Introduction

In the April 24, 2024 episode titled "Feeling stuck? Creative block be GONE!" of The Good Ship Illustration podcast, hosts Helen Stephens, Katie Chappell, and Tania Willis delve deep into the pervasive issue of creative block among illustrators and image-makers. Drawing from their collective 60 years of industry experience, the trio offers practical advice and actionable strategies to help creatives overcome obstacles and reignite their artistic passion.

Listener’s Question: Struggling with Imagination Drawing

The episode kicks off with a listener-submitted question addressing the challenges of transitioning from observational drawing to drawing from imagination:

“I've done lots of observational drawing over the years. Now I'm learning and growing. I can see my drawings improve whenever I start drawing from imagination, though. It's still so hard and I so dislike how they look. It's almost as if when drawing from imagination, I can only draw the way I did when I was a child and I don't feel freedom to change how I draw. Is this weird or common? And how do people tackle this? Is it just a matter of doing it more or do you have any tips on how to approach it?” (00:00).

Understanding the Common Struggle

Anne responds empathetically, affirming that the struggle is neither weird nor uncommon:

"It's not weird, it is common. Like when we first launched the Freak Flag course, this was a question we got asked more than anything else." (00:56).

Helen echoes this sentiment, emphasizing the importance of observational drawing as a foundation:

"Absolutely the right way around. Because that observational drawing is really going to feed your illustration work. It's going to make your illustration work much, much stronger." (01:14).

Bridging the Gap Between Observation and Imagination

The hosts explore various techniques to bridge the gap between observational and imaginative drawing. Helen suggests leveraging visual references to aid imagination:

"Maybe you should try drawing, taking your observational drawings and then going home and redrawing them when you're not actually there." (02:11).

Katy contributes by highlighting the role of muscle memory and subconscious recall in enhancing creative output:

"You can't think of an example. Like, sometimes I'll see a really nice roof, and in my brain I'll be like, ooh, my ginger on the roof." (03:29).

Anne shares her personal journey of rediscovering joy in sketchbook drawing to alleviate the pressure of professional illustration:

"I went and started doing that again. And then I thought there must be a bridge between this sketchbook work and illustration work for a book." (04:09).

Practical Tips and Techniques

Several actionable methods are discussed to facilitate drawing from imagination:

1. Quick Glances and Reduced Detail:

   • Anne advises using quick looks to capture the essence without getting bogged down by details: "Have a quick look, look away. Maybe even draw it with the wrong hand." (02:57).
   • Helen recommends viewing subjects from a distance to focus on overall impressions: "Look at things from a very long distance so all the detail is cut out and you just get an overall impression." (03:14).

2. Maintaining Playfulness:

   • Anne discusses the importance of retaining a playful mindset to prevent drawings from becoming overly rigid: "You need to sort of keep your playful hat on to be able to do that." (02:16).

3. Creating a Bridge Between Sketching and Final Illustrations:

   • Anne elaborates on developing a transitional process that allows the freedom of sketchbook work to flow into polished illustrations: "I worked out a bridge between the observational drawing and the illustration so that the illustration still felt as free as the sketchbook work." (04:38).

4. Drowning Out Negative Self-Talk:

   • Katy and Helen discuss using loud music or other distractions to silence the inner critic: "You almost get, like muscle memory, don't you?" (03:59). "You need to play the really loud music to drown out the bad voices." (07:39).

Insights from the Freak Flag Course

The hosts highlight the comprehensive resources available in their flagship course, Find Your Creative Voice – Fly Your Freak Flag. They mention specific modules and contributions from esteemed illustrators:

"Jill Calder made us a film in the course. And that's full of good advice for that, isn't it?" (06:02).

Helen adds that contributors like Marion Duchars share their unique methods, reinforcing the idea that each illustrator develops personalized strategies:

"People just develop their own ways. Yeah." (06:13).

Personal Experiences and Testimonial

Katy shares a heartfelt testimonial demonstrating the course's impact:

"I'd 100% recommend this course. It has helped so much with creative block. I'm really enjoying trying new things again and not worrying about messing it up." (08:36).

Anne reflects on her early struggles and the relief she found in returning to sketchbook work, underscoring the course's value in facilitating similar breakthroughs for other illustrators.

Conclusion: Embracing the Process

The episode concludes with a reinforcement of the importance of consistent practice and embracing imperfections:

"Have a goal to do so many bad drawings... You've got to plough through the negative stuff and guaranteed you will get some winners out of it." (09:22).

Katy affirms the inevitability of improvement through daily drawing:

"Do you think it's possible to draw every single day and not get better at drawing? It's probably not possible. That is not possible." (09:31).

Anne and Helen wrap up by encouraging listeners to join their community and take advantage of ongoing resources:

"Course doors are open. They close on Friday at Art Club... join our mailing list and you'll always get a heads up." (09:52).

Key Takeaways

• Commonality of Creative Block: Struggling with drawing from imagination is a widespread issue among illustrators.

• Foundation in Observational Drawing: Enhancing observational skills strengthens imaginative illustration.

• Practical Techniques: Utilizing quick sketches, reducing detail, and creating a mental bridge between sketching and final illustrations can alleviate creative block.

• Personalized Strategies: Each illustrator develops unique methods to overcome obstacles, emphasizing the need for tailored approaches.

• Consistency and Practice: Daily drawing and embracing imperfections are crucial for continuous improvement and creative growth.

• Community and Resources: Engaging with supportive communities and educational resources, like the Freak Flag course, provides invaluable guidance and inspiration.

Final Thoughts

The Good Ship Illustration podcast episode "Feeling stuck? Creative block be GONE!" offers a blend of empathy, practical advice, and personal anecdotes to empower illustrators facing creative challenges. By emphasizing the importance of foundational skills, personalized strategies, and consistent practice, Helen, Katie, and Tania provide a roadmap for creatives to navigate and overcome creative blocks, fostering a more fulfilling and productive artistic journey.

Transcript

[Anne]

Hello.

[Katy Chappell]

Welcome to the Good Ship Illustration Podcast. We're here to offer no nonsense advice to illustrators and image makers navigating a creative career in the Good Ship. There are three of us. Anne, Katy Chappell, and there's Helen Stevens and Tanya Willis, too. We are celebrating our flagship course, Find you'd Creative Voice Fly youy Freak Flag, being open this week. So we've got lots of episodes all about Finding youg Creative Voice. Welcome back. We've got another question about finding a creative voice. This one says, I've done lots. I've done a lot of observational drawing over the years. Now I'm learning and growing. I can see my drawings improve whenever I start drawing from imagination, though. It's still so hard and I so dislike how they look. It's almost as if when drawing from imagination, I can only draw the way I did when I was a child and I don't feel freedom to change how I draw. Is this weird or common? And how do people tackle this? Is it just a matter of doing it more or do you have any tips on how to approach it?

[Anne]

I love this question. It's not weird, it is common. Like when we first launched the Freak Flag course, this was a question we got asked more than anything else. We ended up making a whole module about it. It's really good to hear that you're doing lots of observational drawing, though. You're doing it the right way around.

[Helen Stevens]

Absolutely.

[Anne]

Absolutely the right way around. Because that observational drawing is really going to feed your illustration work. It's going to make your illustration work much, much stronger. So you're doing it the right way around.

[Helen Stevens]

So I think it's. You've got to try and take photographs in your head, haven't you? To draw from imagination? It depends what you define as imagination, because it's. You can be kind of. You'll have nothing to work on if you don't give yourself a little bit of help. You need some visual reference to go to the imagination section. Maybe you should try drawing, taking your observational drawings and then going home and redrawing them when you're not actually there. I mean, that's one way of training your brain up. Another one is if you need something like a bicycle in your drawing. Have a quick look at a bicycle. Make it really small on the computer screen or outside in the world. Imagine you're taking a photo of it, then go back in and draw it. I mean, they will. They'll be a bit crunky to begin with, but that's just how it is, isn't it?

[Katy Chappell]

It's sort of charming as well.

[Helen Stevens]

Yeah, they do have their own charm, don't they? No one likes a perfectly drawn horse or bicycle.

[Anne]

I think the problem is when you've got. When you're drawing from life, it's like you're against the clock in some way. You're in against the clock because if you say you're drawing a bicycle, somebody could get on the bike and ride off any minute. Or you might be in other people's way, or you just might. There's always a sense of urgency when you're drawing from life, and so those drawings will be full of energy. And then when you decide this is those dreaded words final illustration, then it's like, oh, I have to make the bicycle really good now. And that's the death of that bicycle drawing. So you need to sort of keep your playful hat on to be able to do that.

[Helen Stevens]

And now I'm thinking I said photographs. And it's one of our golden rules, isn't it? Don't draw from photographs. But all we mean is have a.

[Anne]

Quick look, Have a quick look and then look away. And then draw it. Maybe even draw it with the wrong hand. Like, just do something that makes it feel easy and playful. Quick look, look away. See what you remembered. Draw it again. Choose the best out of five very fast drawings, or squint at things, or.

[Helen Stevens]

Look at things from a very long distance so all the detail is cut out and you just get an overall impression. That's really good for drawing people. If you overcoming the fe of drawing figures, give yourself as little information as possible. So, yeah, long distance and squinty eyes always works.

[Katy Chappell]

You almost get, like muscle memory, don't you? Like, you know, sometimes I really struggle to draw something and then I'll draw it from observation. And then when I go to draw it on a job, when I don't have that observation in my brain, I can kind of remember what it looks like when my hand remembers how to do it, really, like perspective and stuff. Like, I can't think of an example. Like, sometimes I'll see a really nice roof, and in my brain I'll be like, ooh, my ginger on the roof. Like, when I used to play guitar, I'd be like, sitting there like, I'm practicing guitar, but I wasn't doing it. I was just in my head like.

[Anne]

No, I do that as well. Sometimes if I see something really lovely that I would like to draw, but I don't have my sketchbook on My pencil, I draw it in my head. The lines are in my head. I'm imagining how I would draw it.

[Katy Chappell]

I'm thinking specifically of like rooftops in Amsterdam. You'd be going on, oh, that's a really nice rooftop. But like no sketchbook.

[Anne]

I'm thinking of when PI was small, when she was little, and the gorgeous shapes of toddlers heads, you know, the lovely. The bit, the back of their head and the shape of their cheeks and everything. And I'd be staring at her thinking, I should be drawing this and I haven't got a pencil. I'm just going to draw it in my head and I would imagine how the pencil would move.

[Katy Chappell]

I think it still counts.

[Anne]

Yeah, I think it does. It's practice in a way.

[Helen Stevens]

So it's really memory, isn't it? It's trying to improve your photographic memory. It's like exercises in the gym. Just sort of keep training up, try and remember things.

[Anne]

When I was early days in my illustration, I'm always talking about this, but in that time where I was first working as an illustrator and I wasn't, I was taking so much advice that I actually wasn't really liking my work anymore. And so I took some time out and I remembered that the time I was happiest was when I was drawing in sketchbooks. And I went and started doing that again. And then I thought there must be a bridge between this sketchbook work and illustration work for a book. And I don't like the illustration work I've done before, but I've learned so much doing that. I've learned what makes a lovable character, what kind of faces and eyes I like to use, how I like to draw hands. But I don't really like how I'm doing it. Like I was. It was just getting flatter and brighter and flatter and brighter because that's what I was being asked to do. So I had to work out like a bridge between the observational drawing and the illustration so that the illustration still felt as free as the sketchbook work. So, yeah, I took some time out and worked out a bridge between the two. And then in the course we have a whole module about it, don't we? Bridging the Gap, it's called, because it.

[Katy Chappell]

Is a really cool, common thing. And also like tricking yourself into doing final artwork without saying those words.

[Anne]

Oh, those words. Yeah, the death knell.

[Helen Stevens]

You've got lots of tips and lots of our contributors in, in the course give their own takes on that as well. The different techniques they use to create so called.

[Anne]

Jill Calder made us a film in the course. And that's full of good advice for that, isn't it?

[Helen Stevens]

Yeah. And Marion Duchars doing lots of them, piecing them together, all those kind of things. And you can see how it works for them. People just develop their own ways. Yeah.

[Katy Chappell]

You get own workarounds. And that's a fascinating thing about talking to other illustrators, is seeing how they've cobbled together their own way of working and even ways of starting working. Like, I remember our friend Jules Patton talking about, like, she would listen to really, really loud music, sort of distract herself enough to start working. I was like, that's genius. And it works. Like, if you just blast music really loudly, you can't think.

[Anne]

Like, oh, I'm really scared.

[Helen Stevens]

Jump in a cold river, then straight out and draw.

[Katy Chappell]

Strap yourself.

[Helen Stevens]

It's the adult version of the drunken artist, isn't it?

[Anne]

Yeah.

[Helen Stevens]

Because get yourself out of the way.

[Katy Chappell]

Absent.

[Anne]

It is kind of removing yourself from it. I think that's why observational drawing is so much easier because. Because you kind of. You. You're out in the wild and you're up against it. The weather might change, people might walk away. You kind of forget yourself. You're just like, I am here to draw. I've just got to get it down on the paper. And you don't worry too much. And when as an illustrator, I find I need to also get myself out of the way, like, send the critical eye, the one that wants to finish everything too much, send her out so that the other bit can get on with the playful stuff.

[Helen Stevens]

That's in that question as well, isn't she? She's talking about hating what she does and seeing that. You do kind of need to get your bad voices out of your head.

[Katy Chappell]

You need to play the really loud music to drown out the bad voices. Then you can carry on making some work.

[Helen Stevens]

Yeah. Be kinder to yourself and find the play in it as well.

[Anne]

Because.

[Katy Chappell]

Sorry, I was gonna say there's two modes, isn't it? There's like making stuff mode and critiquing it mode. And you're almost a completely mute. Critiquing mode while you're making it.

[Anne]

Yeah. And that's a habit. That's something that you can learn and that becomes a habit. So the way you work is always like that. It's. You switch into that brain mode. In every interview that we've done with everybody for the courses, and we've interviewed loads of our favorite illustrators, almost all of those Chats with Start with the person saying, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I don't know what other illustrators do. So I don't know if I'm doing right. Which is so good to hear because it means we all kind of learn these things in our own way. We cobble together a method and it works for us. And you assume everybody else has an answer, but actually everybody else has just cobbled together a way of their own as well.

[Helen Stevens]

And comfortingly, their ways are often the same. You know, we're all in the same ballpark at the end of the day. Some people have yet. LOUD music like little details that make it different. But the way people do things come up with the best answer is the way we all kind of do it.

[Katy Chappell]

Yeah.

[Helen Stevens]

As long as you're doing lots of it, that makes it work. Working out your mistakes as you go along. Yeah. Have you got that nice testimonial?

[Katy Chappell]

Testimonial, yes. So I'd 100% recommend this course. It has helped so much with creative block. I'm really enjoying trying new things again and not worrying about messing it up.

[Anne]

Hooray.

[Helen Stevens]

Perfect. Yeah, that's exactly it, isn't it? You've got enough drawings to not care whether some of them don't work. It really doesn't matter.

[Anne]

Yeah.

[Helen Stevens]

Churn them out.

[Katy Chappell]

It's going to be a good one in there somewhere.

[Anne]

What is it you said? You said once. I don't know if it's on your website.

[Helen Stevens]

Yeah.

[Anne]

Get the bad drawings out of the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Katy Chappell]

Have a goal to do so many bad drawings.

[Anne]

Yeah.

[Helen Stevens]

It's like the no thank yous, isn't it? Like you've got to plough through the negative stuff and guaranteed you will get some winners out of it.

[Katy Chappell]

Yeah. Do you think it's possible to draw every single day and not get better at drawing?

[Anne]

It's probably not possible. That is not possible.

[Helen Stevens]

No, it can't be possible.

[Katy Chappell]

So like just draw every day.

[Helen Stevens]

Done. No one has to see them all.

[Katy Chappell]

Next problem.

[Anne]

Okay, so course doors are open. They close on Friday at Art Club. And for anybody who doesn't know, we don't run Art Club, every week we do special pop up ones and if you don't want to miss Art Club, then join our mailing list and you'll always get a heads up.

[Katy Chappell]

Lovely to see you there.

[Helen Stevens]

Okay, bye.