Finding Creative Confidence 🚢 | Summer camp sketchbook week 3

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Good Ship Illustration – "Finding Creative Confidence 🚢 | Summer Camp Sketchbook Week 3"

Release Date: August 15, 2025

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Introduction

In the third installment of their miniseries, The Good Ship Illustration hosts Helen Stephens, Katie Chappell, and Tania Willis delve deep into the pivotal topic of finding creative confidence. Recognizing that self-doubt is a common hurdle among illustrators, they explore strategies to bolster confidence, emphasizing the significance of community and authenticity in creative endeavors.

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1. Overcoming the Inner Critic

[00:00 - 01:23]

Helen introduces the episode by highlighting how confidence is a primary barrier for many illustrators. She references their course, "Find Your Creative Voice, Fly Your Freak Flag," noting that confidence issues emerged as a central theme.

Question Addressed: "How do you stop the niggly voice, 'My work isn't good enough,' from interfering with your creative voice?"

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2. The Power of Community

[01:23 - 07:01]

The trio discusses the isolation often felt by illustrators working solo. Marianne emphasizes, "Isolation is one of the main problems of being an illustrator," elaborating on the self-doubt that arises when one is alone with their work. They advocate for the team mindset, sharing how their collaboration on The Good Ship Illustration strengthened their confidence.

Molly shares, "Us three working together for the Good Ship has given me more confidence in my own work," underscoring the transformative impact of collaboration.

The conversation transitions to the scarcity mentality, where illustrators perceive limited opportunities. Molly counters this by pointing out the vastness of the publishing world, stating, "There's space for you and your weirdness... You need to get over that scarcity mentality."

Helen adds, "You don't have to do it alone," reinforcing the importance of building a supportive network.

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3. Embracing Authenticity Over Competition

[07:01 - 15:19]

The discussion shifts to the fear of deviating from established styles. An illustrator shares concerns about changing their artistic approach and its professional viability. Molly narrates her personal journey of shifting from creating baby books to a more authentic, expressive style. She recounts, "I felt trapped by [baby books]... I just got my head down and got on with it... the publisher got in touch immediately, yes, yes, we really love it." This highlights that authenticity can lead to unexpected successes.

Marianne further elaborates, "The moment you [find your creative voice], that sense of desperate competition against other people just disappears because you're just being you and no one else is like that." This sentiment encourages illustrators to prioritize their unique voice over conforming to market expectations.

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4. Valuing One’s Work and Pricing with Confidence

[15:19 - 17:22]

The conversation pivots to the challenge of pricing one's work appropriately. Helen shares the hurdle of overcoming fears related to pricing, especially for those juggling multiple jobs or financial constraints. Marianne provides insights from her experience, emphasizing the importance of design awareness and restrained imagery in securing well-paid opportunities.

Molly reinforces this by noting, "You never know 'till you've done it," advocating for taking risks in pricing to unlock potential opportunities.

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5. Building Connections: Action Steps for Creative Confidence

[17:22 - 20:51]

As an actionable takeaway, the hosts encourage listeners to connect with fellow illustrators to foster a supportive community. They suggest utilizing platforms like Instagram, Substack, and their own Good Ship community on Facebook, which includes diverse members ranging from beginners to seasoned professionals.

Molly shares her enthusiasm for building friendships online, stating, "I've bought some pieces of work from her [Pia Brambley] and I just immediately fell in love with her work." This exemplifies how online connections can translate into meaningful, supportive relationships.

Helen summarizes the action step: "Connect with fellow illustrators and know that there's plenty of work out there. There's more than enough for everyone. It's not competition. It's community over competition." This encapsulates the episode's core message on building confidence through community.

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Conclusion

Throughout the episode, The Good Ship Illustration emphasizes that creative confidence stems from embracing authenticity, overcoming isolation through community, and valuing one's work appropriately. By sharing personal experiences and actionable advice, Helen, Katie, and Tania empower illustrators to navigate their creative journeys with assurance and support.

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Notable Quotes:

• "Isolation is one of the main problems of being an illustrator." – Marianne [01:14]

• "There's space for you and your weirdness." – Molly [04:14]

• "You don't have to do it alone." – Helen [03:42]

• "The moment you [find your creative voice], that sense of desperate competition against other people just disappears because you're just being you and no one else is like that." – Marianne [05:20]

• "You never know 'till you've done it." – Helen [12:49]

• "Connect with fellow illustrators and know that there's plenty of work out there." – Helen [20:31]

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Additional Resources:

• Freebies: Visit thegoodshipillustration.com/freebies for color workshops, picture book templates, and more.

• Community Groups: Join their Facebook group "Sketchbooker's Friend" or participate in their Art Club events on Instagram.

By The Good Ship Illustration (Helen, Katie & Tania)

Transcript

[Helen]

Sa welcome back to number three in this miniseries. Number three is finding creative confidence. And this is absolutely something we. We. We thought about it, obviously. But then when we created Find your creative voice, fly your freak flag, it immediately became super apparent that confidence was one of the main things holding people back. And since then, because everyone has lifetime access, we've improved the course. And it now has a whole section just on confidence. But yeah, in this section, we're going to talk about all about confidence and finding creative confidence. And we've had two really good questions on this.

[Molly]

Shall I read out the first question? Yeah. How do you stop the niggly voice? My work isn't good enough. I'm reading it wrong.

[Marianne]

Get in your special voice.

[Molly]

How do you stop the niggly voice, My work isn't good enough voice from interfering with your creative voice. I've said voice three times. But we know where we are, don't we?

[Helen]

All these competing voices.

[Marianne]

So I think we were saying earlier that isolation is one of the main problems of being an illustrator. So you have those voices. You sit in drawing alone, thinking, really, am I any good? What was I thinking, taking this up? Will I get anywhere? I mean, it's not like being in an office or with a group of people. That team mindset is really helpful. You can do anything in a team. We even did the Good Ship in a team, and it was one of the best things that happened, I think, for all of us to come together as part of a community and it gave us confidence. So it's no wonder you have that niddly mindset when you're alone.

[Molly]

Us three working together for the Good Ship has given me more confidence in my own work.

[Helen]

Me too.

[Marianne]

Me too as well. I feel like we can do anything. Yeah.

[Helen]

It's like a foundation, isn't it?

[Molly]

Yeah.

[Marianne]

Just because we started going for coffee every two months in a little cafe to get rid of the niggly voices in our own head and ask each other, is that normal? Or how can I sort out problems within my illustration work or within my business side of things? And all this kind of helping each other eventually grew into this idea of having the Good Ship illustration. And now it is a big old ship with loads of people on it, all supporting each other in the same way. And it's like it's after 30 years of working on my own, most of it in Hong Kong, with no illustrators around and not even illustrator friends, it's a revelation to be part of a community, and it really deals with the confidence issues.

[Molly]

I Think it really helps just to know that everybody else goes through the same confidence issues. Because if you're just looking on Instagram, other illustrators, you just see the best bits of their career and you assume they have absolutely no self doubt. They've never had it, they've never suffered with it. It's just you sat alone in your studio worrying about everything doom scrolling. You suck.

[Helen]

Everyone else is doing the so well.

[Molly]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. We all have that. We all have that.

[Marianne]

And I think community gave us the confidence to find a way out of that.

[Molly]

Yeah.

[Helen]

And that's the thing. You don't have to do it alone. I think when I first started out as an illustrator, I was like, I'm self employed and I'm doing it myself and I don't need anybody else. Um, and yes, it's so much harder that way, isn't it, when you haven't got people cheering you on and, or.

[Marianne]

Guiding you or giving you advice.

[Helen]

Yeah, exactly.

[Marianne]

I remember when you said to me, right, I've left college, how so how do I get work? I was like, oh, my brain's just melted. It's so big, I don't even know where to begin. And so varied. But that other thing that you feel you. We talked about competition. Didn't you come out as an illustrator and you think everyone is your competition? And I thought that for ages we're alone, we do this and we've got to beat everyone to those jobs. But the, the opposite is true. We need to team up and we need to help each other out.

[Molly]

Scarcity mentality, isn't it? Thinking that there are only limited jobs and you need to get them and don't tell anybody about what you're working on and it's just not true. When you go to the Bologna Book Fair where all the publishers arrive to sell their books to other countries, to sell it in different languages and of other countries all over the world. You see how many millions of books are being made all over the world and there is space for you and your weirdness. You're fit somewhere. There's just such a huge amount of work. Yeah, I get. You need to get over that scarcity mentality, I think. Yeah.

[Helen]

And any time I've made friends with illustrators, only good things have happened. The good ship, for instance. Or like one of my friends from when I lived in Newcastle then went on to be a lecturer and I was like, do you want to try lecturing? Like just little things and it's people that you meet and then years later because you've kept it in touch online, you know, opportunities come around again and I've only found illustrators to be generous and supportive.

[Marianne]

Yeah, I think other illustrators are as important to your career as art directors. And if you take part, kind of jump into the pool of illustrators and make friends, whether it's online or off, it massively improves things. I would say the only place where you can feel that sense of competition is where you're in a genre illustration area where you haven't got a defined creative voice and you look like a lot of other people. That can feel really uncomfortable because you kind of are competing against lots of people with a very similar approach to illustration, which is why creative voice is so important and becoming quite singular. And the moment you do that, that sense of desperate competition against other people just disappears because you're just being you and no one else is like that. Exactly.

[Molly]

Instagram's really great for making friendships online, isn't it? You know, then you can, then you meet them in real life and they become proper friendships. It's really great for that. Not just other illustrators, but if you want to get in, publishing editors are on there as well and art directors are on there and they're all lovely humans and you know, those connections are really important. You could be friends with somebody for years and years and then all of a sudden they find the right project for your work. So it's worth building those friendships.

[Helen]

You never know who's watching.

[Marianne]

Yeah, of course, I didn't believe any of this, being the oldest one. And then Helen was saying, no, it's a really great community. This is say about four years ago before we started Good Ship and she told me how much fun she had on Instagram and I just saw it as a doom scrolling, anxiety inducing, competitive place. But now I found it to be true. It is. You meet people and they, they become your friends on Instagram. I'm sure loads of people already know that. It's just because I'm a bit older that I was resistant to it. But it is a great place to take part in the illustration community.

[Molly]

This is a really good time to mention maybe is it about how we have so many different people from different backgrounds and age groups joining the Good Ship?

[Helen]

Yes.

[Marianne]

Oh yeah.

[Helen]

Because sometimes people send us a message and they're like, I see. It's obviously only for experience, graduates who've been to art school and all this. There's so much. We have a huge spectrum of people on the courses from people who've just picked up paper and started drawing a.

[Molly]

Couple of weeks ago.

[Helen]

Right up to, like published illustrators at the peak of their career. Yeah, because people, I think when you're an illustrator, any creative really, to keep learning all the time is so valuable. And also just to meet other illustrators and have that community thing going on.

[Marianne]

Yeah, because the community in. Well, in the Facebook group is so strong. I mean, even on sketchbooker's Friend, which is not the course as such, there's so many people joining and showing their work, talking to each other, giving advice. It's an incredibly generous and supportive environment.

[Helen]

Especially after three years, isn't it?

[Marianne]

That's a free one. Yeah. So you can. You can go along there to Facebook and just join Sketchbook as friend. If you Google that on Facebook, if that's the right thing, you Google something. Oh, can you sound like an old doffer? Well, there's another question there from someone who's established as an illustrator.

[Molly]

Oh, yeah, that's right. What if I discover I'd rather work in a completely different way? How would I step off the train and change the way I work professionally when I am hired for a certain look and expectation in mind? What if working in a new way feels better, but is actually less professionally viable than what I do now? It's a great question.

[Marianne]

So many aspects to unpack there.

[Molly]

Yeah.

[Marianne]

I mean, first up, this relates to the thing they talked about in the very beginning about your career.

[Molly]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I really like changing up materials all the time. I get quite easily bored working in one way all the time, you know, so I've often kind of changed direction in my career quite a lot. But there was one point where I'd been doing baby books for a long time and I just felt a bit trapped by them. I felt like I painted myself into a really bright pastel colored corner and I couldn't get out of it. It was driving me insane. I wanted to do something darker or sadder or more complicated. Obviously that doesn't happen in baby books because Five spreads of Happiness. Of course. Nothing wrong with baby books. It's just I felt trapped by it. So I took a year out, I went back to my sketchbooks, remembering what I loved best when I was at art school. Went back to that for a while and then came back with a new, looser way of working that was more like the work I'd done at art school, more like my sketchbook work. And I had all of these worries that this person has written here. I had all of those. Will I ever be Published again. Will anybody like what I'm doing? It was quite stressful, but I just got my head down and got on with it. And actually as soon as I showed it to my new agent, to my, not my new agent, my agent and she, without telling me, showed it to a publisher that day. The publisher got in touch immediately, yes, yes, we really love it. I made a book. In that way of working, I did better than all the books I'd ever done before. I think people can detect when you're being your authentic self and when you're happy, it shows in the work. So my advice would be go for it. Those are very normal worries, but go for it. What was it?

[Helen]

So it's quite brave because I know you sort of paused everything, took a year to dig into this new way of working. What made you brave enough to do that? Where did you get the confidence from?

[Molly]

Well, you know, sometimes when you just can't physically carry on doing something that way anymore. Like I had to use my left hand to force my right hand to do the drawing. Now I was so. I was so frustrated by it. You know, when something's just not a choice. It was like that. I would never now take a year out to do this. I made a massive drama over it. Now having had that experience, I'd just think, well, you know what, I'm not going to use those acrylic paints anymore. I'm going to use this stick and dip it in ink and I would just do it. But at the time it felt like such a massive challenge and a mental hurdle that I took a year out to do it. I was lucky because the baby books were pay me enough royalties that I could live without some publishing work for a little bit.

[Helen]

Because that's part of it as well, isn't the financial thing. Knowing that your bills are sorted and stuff makes it easier to make creative leaps in new directions.

[Marianne]

You could almost do. You could use a part time job superpower for that as well if you really wanted to make that change. And I think it's harder for early career illustrators to be brave enough to change their work because you're so worried about building your career. So it's amazing that you did that in rep. You wouldn't say it's mid career.

[Molly]

It was early, Quite early, yeah. I think I'd probably been in publishing five, six years. Five years, yeah, probably so it was earlyish. I think that's why it was so stressful because it would. It'd been so difficult to get in and now I Was in. Was I about to just throw it all out?

[Marianne]

Yeah.

[Molly]

But it was completely the opposite.

[Marianne]

And I think people in mid career begin to. You know, there's a lot of people talk about this, of feeling absolutely burnt out. They resent their own style, they don't even want to do it anymore. But I would say, how do you know that it may be less professionally viable to change until you can give it a go? Being unique may make you stand out a lot more than if you are stuck in a style that has been commercially art directed because it's highly marketable, it will inevitably push you into an area that's highly populated and highly competitive. I mean, it takes huge bravery. But, yeah, making a leap of faith could be exactly what you need creatively and for your life so you can enjoy your work a lot more. Yeah.

[Molly]

I think you'd make a mistake to try to decide yourself whether your work was professionally viable.

[Helen]

I was going to say, you never know till you've done it.

[Molly]

Yeah. And publishers are looking for new things and it's so exciting to see how sophisticated, I've noticed over the last sort of 15 years how much more sophisticated artwork is in picture books. And at the beginning of my career, I know that art directors would have steered me away from that, saying it's too sophisticated, we can't go there. But then other people have dared to do it and publishers have dared to publish it and everything moves forward. So I think it's a mistake for you to decide not to do something you're passionate about, just in case it's not viable. You don't know. You don't know till we've done it.

[Marianne]

I think, yeah, the whole design sensibility, particularly in the uk, has moved forward so much. I mean, the advertising industry has always been something that, you know, searches for new things, which is why someone like Molly Fairhurst, whose work is just wild, if you haven't seen her, look her up on Instagram. And we're big fans of her work. And in fact, we got her on the. We did an interview with her for Fly your Freak Flag, which is specifically about confidence. Because we all kept saying, how does she have the confidence to produce this work that's so out there? But that work was picked up by H and M, it was picked up by mailchimp for their rebrand. So these were seriously big jobs. And it was because she's so unusual and so outstanding and that kind of greedy design machine, particularly in advertising, was craving something that looked immensely different and she did. So if there's any evidence for saying, you know, make that change, be yourself, fly your freak flag. There's a lot of people like Molly Fairhurst out there who are very successful for being really brave.

[Molly]

What we were really interested to know about when we were interviewing her was how, you know, her drawings look as if they take a minute or two. And I think in the interview we did with her, she said that sometimes she does a pile and chooses the best one, or sometimes the first one is it. And it's the bravery of being paid by H and M for an advertising campaign, however much money that is, however many thousands, and thinking, here it, I've just done it, I did it in the first three minutes. Here it is. That's so brave. It's so brilliant because you could labor. You think, okay, £10,000, that must be O. That must be 24 hours a day for three months until you completely kill all the life in the drawing. You've overthought it so much, you daren't hook pent up labor anymore. And that's just so brave.

[Helen]

Yeah, that's such a huge hurdle to overcome as well. Even just as an early illustrator, if you've been in retail working 8 hour shifts at minimum wage, or, you know, if you've got a working class background, I think it's so tricky and it's such a mind bending thing to jump into pricing. You know, I'm going to do two jobs this year, so they've got to pay a good chunk and it can be really quick and I can just, you know, dash it off when it's done and it's allowed, nobody's going to come be like, you already spent five minutes on that.

[Marianne]

In the early days, I used to share a studio with my old college mate, Marianne de Charles, and she had that kind of confidence as well where she was being employed by designers. And this was interesting because I got to see this firsthand in action. So I knew it was true. It was proof that this is how it worked. You know, if you've got a designer with a very minimalist approach, but they need maybe some spots of color, some marks or some textures that bring humanity to the printed page. But you don't want them going over the top. You don't want them seeing the equivalent of an opera in illustration. You just want a few marks. You need an illustrator who's got that design awareness to make some very restrained imagery. And maybe it's hand lettering as well. This is another area, obviously, that is really good for illustrators, a hand lettering Just writing four words for a large corporate and being paid a huge amount for it, it's proof it happens, it works. If your signature mark is aesthetically pleasing enough and a graphic designer craves that to include in a corporate brochure, you will be paid well for it. So having some restraint is a huge benefit. Not going over the top, not giving an illustration that's got everything in it. 20 people and a full background. They're not looking for people like that.

[Molly]

Because if they came to you, because they love that quick drawing that you stuck on their website, they don't want you to present them with a painting that took you weeks and weeks.

[Helen]

Oil pinch. Yeah. It's a confidence to feeling. Here's my work.

[Molly]

Yeah.

[Helen]

If you like it, good. If you don't, fine.

[Molly]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Helen]

So our action step for you can see, we could talk about creative confidence for years. Yeah, Hours and hours. But the, the action step for this one is connecting with fellow illustrators and kind of having. Creating a community for yourself. That's right, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Molly]

And it's really valuable. We've all found that, haven't we? Yeah.

[Marianne]

Now, Venice, it sounds a bit kind of open and broad, but it's the thing that will make you feel more confident and more connected to people. So how would you go about it?

[Molly]

Yeah, I was going to say there's.

[Helen]

A lot of ways to connect with other illustrators. Instagram comes to mind easily, of course, social media in general. If you find other illustrators on there, it's going to be good. Substack's brilliant.

[Molly]

Sometimes I get really excited when I find somebody new on Instagram and I'm just so greedy to find out who they are. I send them really, really crazy messages.

[Helen]

Like, how did you get to be.

[Molly]

You tell me that they've never met me. Them. That's a warning in hel. Do they answer your hell a lot? I messaged. I love her work so much. Pia P I A Bramley Brushy. Her surname. I love her work so much. We'll put her name in the description on the podcast. And I bought some pieces of work from her and I just immediately fell in love with her work. Very, very characterful line drawings of often her in the bath or her looking in a mirror. Kind of weird, awkward. Just beautiful, beautiful drawings. Yeah, I sent her a message like that and she was nice enough to reply in a similar tour.

[Helen]

Amazing.

[Marianne]

Just pretend you're Helen and overcome your fears of approaching strangers on Instagram and just write to them.

[Helen]

How did you get to be you.

[Molly]

Tell me now.

[Marianne]

Yes, Can I have a picture?

[Helen]

And then of course, a shortcut. We've got, we're really proud of our community inside the good ship. We've got on Instagram, we've got an amazing community because we do art club every. Not every Friday. It's a special pop up thing now. But when we do art clubs, everybody on there is really lovely. And then we have sketchbook is friend on Facebook, which is our free Facebook group. And then we also have the creme de la creme, which is the page online community bit for the course. And that's where everyone is like cheering each other on, sharing their work in a safe space.

[Molly]

That's where it's really great that we've got such a broad section of people doing the course because we've got really, really experienced illustrators at the top of their career in the Facebook group answering questions from people who are just at the beginning of their career and they might have pricing problems or contract problems or creative problems. And so we've got a big range of people and yeah, it's pretty much.

[Marianne]

We've even got an ex military U. S. Spy.

[Molly]

Have we? Yeah. Donna just says the name.

[Marianne]

Yeah, it's not her real name. I'm making it okay. No, she answers all the difficult questions like my Instagram account's been hacked, what can I do? And she's really clever, she knows all that stuff. So we have data, scientists, illustrators. What are the.

[Molly]

We've got doctors, nurses, data analysts, painters, teachers, lots of teachers, new parents, illustrators, illustrators, graphic designers.

[Marianne]

Lots of people moving into illustration from other creative careers. And that brings a lot of interesting things with it as well.

[Helen]

So that's your homework for this session. Score, connect, make friends with other illustrators and know that there's plenty of work out there. There's more than enough for everyone. So you're not in competition. It's community over competition.

[Marianne]

That's when you'll get your confidence.

[Molly]

Yeah, okay, Bye bye.

[Helen]

It.