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- [00:15]
Helen
Shall I just jump straight in with the first question that we got emailed?
- [00:18]
Tanya
Yeah, go on.
- [00:19]
Helen
Okay. It's from Diana. What are your best tips for getting out of an art block? I think I've burnt out big time. I can't draw. I. I am back to observational doodles and feel like I'm back to square one. I feel like I've lost all the steam and even finding it hard to just sit and draw. Oh, I know that feeling. We've all been there, haven't we?
- [00:42]
Tanya
Yeah, absolutely. And you write all sorts of bits and bobs down to get yourself motivated, but sometimes it just happens and the beating yourself up just makes it worse, doesn't it? Not that that's a great answer, but I actually started doing the Artist's Way. I love it just because I thought, I've never done those morning pages. I'm sure lots of you have here because lots of our students have talked about the Julia Cameron Artist's Way book and it's so popular, but I'd never done it. So I'm only on day two, so I can't tell you what happens. But my help point would probably. Why not try that with me? See, apparently it brings you back to yourself. You think about things more rather than just the kind of beating up like, just draw, just draw. Because that doesn't get you anywhere, does it?
- [01:30]
Katie
There's something magic about the Artist's Way because you start doing it, you're really into it, and then you forget that you were doing it, but you start drawing again.
- [01:37]
Helen
And that's been my experience.
- [01:38]
Katie
I've never completed it or got anywhere near like completing it. I don't think anyone's supposed to.
- [01:44]
Tanya
Also, do you think the. The artist dates are a good idea? Because that's being a. That's a kindness to yourself.
- [01:51]
Helen
Just go into a museum or gallery, just count that as work. Anything that feed your creative brain, anything low pressure, even if it's not drawing just a tangent to draw in, anything creative, it's a win. It's. It's about taking the pressure off, I think. I think sometimes when drawing is your job, you can get quite tangled up with the work aspect of it. And I think a break is really useful. And then just being kind to yourself and having absolutely no pressure.
- [02:25]
Katie
Yeah, I like what you say, Helen, about wide margins. I think that really helps.
- [02:30]
Helen
I always like to, if I've been doing one creative job, have space around it before the next one. I can't just jump straight to one immediately into another. It's I like to have like a. Either a studio clear out or a holiday or just a break before you start the next thing.
- [02:52]
Tanya
That's especially true of picture books, isn't it? Or big projects where you've been nosed to the grindstone for maybe six months, five months. And I think also true if you're in fast turnaround editorial kind of illustration where you take on lots of jobs and move on to the next one really quickly. Those can go on and on with no stop. At least a big project, there's an end and then there's like you say the studio clear out and a big treat. Sometimes it kind of gets too much.
- [03:21]
Helen
Since lockdown. Lockdown since we launched good ship. I really got out of the routine of drawing in my sketchbook from life. I would sometimes take out a massive one, but that was different because that would be pack a backpack, loads of materials, huge sketchbook, make a proper deal of it. But the every day just drawing in my sketchbook just went completely. And it started to really prey on my mind, like, why am I not doing it? Teaching a course and I'm not doing it at the moment. And I think that made it worse. The feeling of guilt, like, why am I not doing this? Yeah. And I just let. I just let it go. I just let it go and thought, well, these are phases. Like everything is a phase, isn't it? When you're watching anybody who's got children. When you watch your children grow up, you need never have a panic about anything because it's always a phase and they're out the other side soon. And yeah, and I think that happened with sketchbook and I've suddenly got into it again and now it feels easy. I had to tell myself it was totally low pressure. Just the fact I got it out and made my pen do something on the page was a win. That was it. End of. Nothing more than that. And eventually it just came back. But I had to just trust that it would eventually. And the worse I felt about it, the less likely it was I would pick my sketchbook up.
- [04:40]
Tanya
Sarah has a really nice tip here. To the current person, I'd suggest allowing boredom to flow. Have a day away from the ph, going outside without any stimuli, letting the brain wander and notice things. I often think about that because our brains have been subject to a couple of decades of completely unnatural stimulus. And also being in a freelancer's career, searching for answers all the time and finding out who you're supposed to be, who you're supposed to emulate, how your Work is meant to feel how hard you're meant to work. We're just so raw from looking constantly like, am I enough? Am I good enough? Am I doing the right things? That boredom probably hasn't had a look in for years. And that pure boredom, I think, is a great idea. It's such a novel and bizarre notion in these times.
- [05:30]
Katie
I like the idea of it. Like, aiming for boredom is good because sometimes when you think I'm going to have a creative day or an artist date, you're like, I must find the best exhibition and take my best art supplies. But if I had the goal of being bored, it's like, oh, I could do that easy.
- [05:47]
Helen
I think if something like, lights your imagination, and even if it isn't drawing exactly, it's just something catches your imagination, just follow it. I think we all get so tied up with so many jobs, we stop following our instinct into little, little avenues, little, like, areas of interest. We stop following them because we feel like we're busy all the time. So I think if anything, like, you hear about, I don't know, go to. Go to a museum and just see what's there without having a plan. And if there's one painting you love, really go for that, think about why you like it and really follow it. I think we're so busy, we don't allow ourselves that play time anymore and just adventure for the sake of it.
- [06:35]
Tanya
Yeah. Someone asked me today, I was supposed to be going on a podcast and they said, what is it that you are interested in or you're obsessed about at the moment? And it was such a good question. I couldn't actually reply to the invitation for about a month while I thought really hard about. And then I realized thinking hard wouldn't answer it. It was going back to noticing again, just trying to notice what kind of revs you up. Trying to avoid Pinterest for that. But there is a certain amount of, you know, Pinteresting that does drag you off to a corner where you're like, oh, God, I really like these. There's nothing like my work. What is it? And if it's like mark making or color, then just spend. If you've got the privilege of time, spend some time just playing with that specific thing. I don't mean copying the person or anything like that. Maybe you're just obsessed about color palettes or mark making or drawing. Anything that takes you back to the play zone, which is what we always talk about. And I was trying to think of answers for this question just earlier and My friend Marion Ducharz who you've seen on the course earlier at the beginning she did a book called Make Everyday Creative Art that Anyone can do and it's really nice. It's such a playful book. It kind of links with our art club, which is another place to get your play from. You know, go onto YouTube and do a couple of art clubs because they always get you back in the mood. Color Workshop Mike, because that's playing low stakes. Yes, yes. Just trying to access the play again, isn't it? Sarah says to add, watching David Hockney speaking about looking in the world makes me very inspired to put my phone down.
- [08:10]
Helen
There's another question from Pitt who says it's a quite a long question. It's a good one. I would love your thoughts on the problem of not knowing what to make or how to start and the feeling that my internal identity and artistic drives don't seem to be coming naturally like it seems for most others. I've just finished the Freak Flag course. Thank you. I will write some notes on how helpful inspiring it was today. I wanted to ask for help around something that has come up for me. I feel as though I see other artists working in their sketchbooks and and doing final artwork and when I sit down at my desk I'm at a loss as to what to make or experiment with and how. Even after all the amazing material in the course, I know I want to make work, but I feel like my internal creative identity and drives aren't surfacing. I'm ping ponging drastically between styles, materials and outside of that my sketchbook work is mainly pretty faithful observational drawing and I don't see a distinctive voice developing in that work that could translate to my visual language for making picture books, which is ultimately what I want to do. For some context, I have audhd. I am an autistic ADHD woman who has been seriously ill and mainly housebound for eight years or so. I do wonder if my neurodivergence plays a role in this. That is too many possible directions tasks to initiate lifetime of adapting to external expectations, forgetting internal signals, perfectionism, etc. Thank you Pip. Oh, this sounds painful.
- [09:45]
Tanya
Yeah, it sounds really tough. As well as being stuck in the same place if you're housebound. I think that stagnation of being in the same environment for so long, I hate that it drives me nuts. If I'm not home for too long, I have to get out and then having all your brain doing all the heavy lifting, which is basically like a massive ping Pong game with a load of people playing with no rules, but all in the same place. I think that just gets really tiring. So, God, I feel for you. That's really tough.
- [10:17]
Helen
I also wonder at that line that she says quite early on in it where she says, don't seem to be coming naturally like it seems for most others. And it can look from a distance as if everybody else is finding it easy. Especially if you're on social media. I would question that because I think for a lot of people, all of us at different points in our careers, it's not easy.
- [10:44]
Tanya
You know, there's sometimes that notion that there's a load of e flowing inspiration plus also a very directed direction that takes you where you need to go and you think that's how everyone's feeling. And I really don't think they do. I often think about fine artists who have got to work with their own ideas and be motivated to work. Even though there's not even the core target of making money or fulfilling a brief. That kind of motivation must be really, really difficult. Personally, that's why I like illustration, because I don't have to worry about the content. I'm working with a third party authored content and so sometimes that's a relief. And if you're thinking about children's books, unless you are push, you're pushing yourself towards author illustrator status, is it possible you can just take a title, even something you don't feel genuinely connected to? Because there's a challenge in that to make it connect to you. So you take pre existing story and work with that. That's just taken 50% of the content away from you. So now you're just thinking about the visuals that could be one way of working and then find other limitations, whether it's color palette mark making. I mean, I found in some projects where I've started to work in a certain way, if I forget to list my digital brushes and list my palette and suddenly the door opens to everything again, I'm really confused. I'm like, just put the brushes down you used. Remember what they are. A pencil, a liner, a pencil and a brush and a texture. Four colors. Don't move outside of any of that because you're just getting a pickle again. So limitations I think can be really helpful even if they don't feel like the ones you might choose. Just choose anything and limit yourself.
- [12:27]
Katie
Yeah, that structure would be so helpful. And there's also the thing of it might not feel good. I think a lot of the time we're Fed this. It's gonna be so fun and I know it'll be right because I'll be having such a good time. Like sometimes it is a complete slog and you've got something to drag yourself back to the desk and be like, right, I'm gonna do the thing. And it takes a while to get into it. But yeah, like Helen said, you can look, especially on Instagram and social media, like other people are just sitting down and the work is flowing out and they know exactly what their style is and things. But yeah, picking something that already exists, like a nursery rhyme or a story. And then you'll have the structure your autistic brain will love. And then, you know, you can use ADHD powers of like having a million exciting ideas all at once, but funneling them into that one story and go crazy with it. Because I think limitations, like Tanya said, will help so much. And yeah, and also knowing that if it feels rubbish and you kicking yourself a little bit, that's fine because it
- [13:25]
Tanya
kind of echoes the situation of an illustration brief as well. You have, you know, the intensity of a deadline, maybe three days, some content you actually have no connection with at all. Could be hedge fund managers, it could be, you know, something from a tech magazine or science that you don't understand. But you've got to pull something conceptually out of that. So even say, for example, moving away from children's books for a little while, which is such a big overarching kind of project, and getting some magazines and take an article out of them and just say, this is a choice. I can't go either way on this, you know, whether it's from New Scientist or a business magazine. And use the page as well as a kind of context for your work to sit against. Because quite often when we're working on illustration and they could sort of flow out, your illustration could flow out in all directions. But the moment you scan it and drop it into a page of pre existing design, it's suddenly like adding spice to food or like, wow, you see it in a whole new light. So if you had a page layout to drop it into as well to work with, maybe that page has certain colors in the typography or a certain space and you can come across all sorts of interesting moments. Like you make a big complex image, but it's only going to print like a quarter page image reduced down. It could be too busy and you realize it's lost everything because you made it too busy for that real artwork reproduction size. Or do something brave, like if you have a full page. What if your illustration is just a really quick drawing in one color? How does that look next to typography? Because you are part of a designer's vision, whether it's picture book or whether it's magazine. And your illustration doesn't exist in isolation. It's going to exist on a page playing as part of an orchestra. So if you see it in context, you can suddenly have so many different ideas about your own work
- [15:21]
Katie
as well. What might help is, you know, when you have a competition to enter, you've also got the deadline. Because I know for me, if a deadline isn't real and I've made it up for myself, I'm like, I know it's not real, so I ignore myself and then just ignore it and hear it whistling past. But if it's a competition and somebody else is setting the deadline and it is real, then I'm much more likely to do it saying that I've never, I don't think I've actually ever entered a competition. But if I was stuck and I needed a deadline, I think I would much prefer if it was real life one.
- [15:52]
Helen
I agree. I think when I'm trying to learn anything, if I'm. If I'm now trying to, I don't know, learn how to make a book on procreate or something, I need the book. I need to have the book commission in order to learn it. I can't learn it in theory. I'll just fiddle forever. So that having a deadline is really useful. I wonder, because she wants to get into picture books. Pip. Yeah, Pip. Whether you just made a very, very simple baby book. So you just choose, I don't know, five words. You could decide. I'm going to make a series of four books. Each book has five words, Each word has a double page spread. I can only work in three colors and I want to do all of these books a week each. Like Katie and Tanya said, like really set the parameters, palette and everything. I think your style just evolved from being forced to do a project. I think if you haven't got a project to do and you don't have a time frame to do it, you can just keep pondering it forever. There's nothing like a deadline for kind of forcing it out.
- [17:02]
Tanya
Yeah. And an artwork size and everything. There are also the briefs at the end of this course, when you get to the last part, we put a set of sort of quite open ended briefs that hopefully you can adapt to your own tastes or enthusiasms and use whatever you've developed on the course to the briefs. And Philip mentions the Brian Eno's Oblique Strategy cards. I've got mine here. We could pull one out just to see how oblique he really is.
- [17:33]
Katie
You have to. I want to see them.
- [17:35]
Tanya
Okay, people, pick a card. Any card. I'm picking on that one, it says, abandon normal instruments.
- [17:47]
Katie
Oh.
- [17:47]
Tanya
So get rid of your pencils and your paintbrush. Maybe even paper or.
- [17:52]
Helen
Yeah, that's good.
- [17:54]
Tanya
And the one on the other side said, be less critical more often. Oh, Mr. Zen, you know. Right. I'm going to keep these out. These are going to help me as well. We could do.
- [18:07]
Katie
Catherine says. Tanya, what are these? Prompt cards, please. Yeah, repeat. What are they called again?
- [18:11]
Tanya
They're called Brian Eno's Oblique Strategy cards. And they are a pack of very uber simple cards. Just black backs, white fronts, and inside are just some very short statements. Okay. Oh, slow preparation, fast execution.
- [18:30]
Katie
Nice.
- [18:31]
Tanya
So they're creative strategies to try and push you off your normal direction and get out of your own way and try something new.
- [18:39]
Helen
I like what Holly says there in the comments that her local museum started doing guided slow art sessions where you just sit with one artwork for a really long time, like an hour. I often, if I go into a gallery, feel really overwhelmed, get completely bamboozled, and just want to go to the cafe or the gift shop. So over recent years, I've just started just visiting one or two pieces of artwork in the gallery. Just see one I like, stand and read all about it, sit down and have a look at it, maybe do a drawing of it and maybe find another. And the pressure is really low. And then I'm allowed the cafe and the gift shop and everything. But trying to have a look around a whole gallery, oh, it just does my head in. I won't like loads of stuff. I become so immune to it all. I just walk past everything.
- [19:29]
Katie
When you go to the National Portrait Gallery, you're seeing masterpieces.
- [19:32]
Helen
They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you decide I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna see two pieces, but I'm going to look at them really well. I'm really going to enjoy them and look at everything in them and think about them. Oh, it's such a relief to give yourself permission not to look intelligent and look at every single one.
- [19:51]
Tanya
Can you give me permission now?
- [19:53]
Helen
Just, yeah, try not. Yeah, try not to look intelligent. That would be a good.
- [19:59]
Katie
Abandon normal instruments. Yeah.
- [20:02]
Tanya
Value for money. Nonsense. Like, I paid £18 50 for this ticket. I'm gonna eat all the paintings, I'm not gonna miss a single one. I will consume the lot. And it's really poor quality looking. David Hockney would be horrified. So I think he'd really approve of your system, Helen.
- [20:17]
Helen
This old man came into the gallery where Frieda's working today. When I picked her up, when she got home from work, I picked her up. She said this man had come in and he'd kind of generally irritated them. He'd been a bit rude. And he looked at her and said, you're a teenager. I bet you spend all your life on your phone. And I thought she was gonna say to me, I told him to get lost and that I don't. But she just went, yeah, that's right. And I just thought, brilliant. Try and sound intelligent. Just let him think whatever he wants to think. She just went, yeah,
- [20:50]
Katie
brilliant.
- [20:50]
Helen
It's a great thing to do. I was like, yeah, well done.
- [20:53]
Tanya
That showed him a really nice comment here for Pip. She said, I've been housebound for several years myself. My experience is that online communities can be brilliant, and drawing together on Zoom, with friends or via Patreon is getting me through hard times. We inspire and challenge each other and have a nice chat, too. And though I absolutely love drawing from observation, I allow myself to draw from photos even found online. Yet that's a big issue. If you are housebound and you're in that same kind of environment, you don't have the privilege of going out to look at new things that might stimulate you. But like, Art Club has proved the most humble of. Objects grabbed from the shelves three minutes before Art Club starts are perfect because you don't have to do them justice. You can actually just riff on them with your materials and you could get one of the. You know, we could put some Oblique Strategies cards up and apply those to. That would be a great Art club. We should do Oblique Strategies Art Club.
- [21:46]
Helen
Yeah, let's do that. I'd love that.
- [21:48]
Tanya
And then maybe Brian Eno would become our friend and he'd join in too.
- [21:52]
Katie
Let's get him on the podcast. Don't think he's busy.
- [21:55]
Tanya
Not to be, but the community and online is great and there's so many. What are they? Pencils for tea. There's loads of pencils.
- [22:04]
Katie
Pencils on toast. Toast for breakfast. I don't know. Got a good name, but I was also thinking of Emma Carlisle's thing. Didn't she do. It's called Geo Crunching or something. That's not the right name, but when you go on the Google Maps. And you find somewhere and you draw it all together.
- [22:20]
Helen
So it's like, yeah, find a scene, all of you. Find it on Google Maps.
- [22:25]
Katie
And then crunch. Thank you, Linda. Not Geo. Crunching. I was close, very close.
- [22:30]
Tanya
I thought, was that Sarah Dyer? I think a few people.
- [22:33]
Katie
Yeah. Sarah Dyer. Emma Carlisle.
- [22:36]
Tanya
There was a nice easy question earlier from Philip again, who said, tell us about the Quentin Blake Center.
- [22:42]
Katie
It was good. Liked was good.
- [22:47]
Tanya
I wanted to be bigger, but it cut. You've got to start small, haven't you?
- [22:50]
Helen
We got free flapjack.
- [22:52]
Katie
Yeah. Yeah. We went to the cafe and we loaded up. We got, like, pots of tea and Coca Cola and flapjacks and got our card out and they were like, oh, it's all free today. And we were like, oh, I promise. We didn't realize
- [23:06]
Tanya
the Quentin Blake section is the best. You just want more of that. He's got lots of working drawings and. But there was a really good LGBTQ plus comic zine. Queer Zines was really good. And you needed. That was one of the others. We'd exhausted ourselves on Quentin and then we only had 10 minutes left and there were about 50 zines to read.
- [23:26]
Katie
Yeah. They were, like, shuffling us out and sweeping us to make us leave. And we're trying to read the comics at the same time.
- [23:33]
Helen
But I think Cloak exhibition was amazing. I always find him really inspiring. He's just fantastic, isn't he? Such a natural.
- [23:43]
Tanya
They said. What I've heard a lot since is that it really needs to be supported. They've raised the money and they got all the funders in there. It exists now, but it's not, like, concerned about, can it continue? It obviously will, but they're like, they really hope that it will get a stream of illustrators through the door and allow it to continue.
- [24:04]
Helen
We were. That's our fault. Because of all the flapjack.
- [24:07]
Katie
That's what it is. We're sinking them one flapjack at a time. We're sorry. We tried to pay and they wouldn't let us. The library was my favorite part. I want to. Next time we go, I just want you to leave me in the library all day.
- [24:20]
Tanya
Wow. Yeah. And that's free, isn't what's. Cafes and the library and the shop are free.
- [24:25]
Katie
Yeah.
- [24:26]
Tanya
So you could go and meet your friends there and hang out and make it your destination place. And then the exhibitions are ticketed and I can't remember how much something. Was it 19, 50 something.
- [24:39]
Katie
Teen, maybe.
- [24:40]
Helen
Yeah.
- [24:41]
Katie
I can't remember the exact number.
- [24:44]
Tanya
Someone said, have you been to the Roald Dahl Center. No, I'm. I'm from Northamptonshire, and it was a stop on the train that I used for years and years and years to London, and I never got off. I don't know why. It's appalling, but I'd love to have seen that place.
- [25:00]
Helen
I went to the Derwent Pencil Museum. Has anybody been there? Absolutely brilliant. Talking about stumbling across somewhere that you didn't really think about going and then finding it. One of the most inspiring things you've ever seen. That's what it was. It was amazing. My whole family were like, oh, pencil museum. I said, go on, let's go in.
- [25:22]
Katie
Let's go in.
- [25:23]
Helen
It was fantastic.
- [25:25]
Katie
My dad got a job there once doing something for their boiler, and he brought back, like, bags and bags of pencils because they were the seconds and the ones that needed. They had, like, too much lead in them. Oh, my goodness. I can still smell the smell of them.
- [25:39]
Tanya
I love the smell of pencils.
- [25:41]
Helen
Wow.
- [25:43]
Tanya
Before we went to the Quentin Blake Museum, we were standing on the street and there was a great big drum in a window with a woman's bum on it. And it had some kind. I can't remember what the message was, but we were drawn to it like moths to a flame. And then we realized it was Mr. Bingo's studio and he was in there, and we were peering up against the window, and he started waving to come in because he's only open on a Friday or something, and this was Tuesday, and suddenly we were there in the presence of Mr. Bingo, which was quite overwhelming. Luckily, Katie had followed him for ages and was ready with some purchases and some handy chat.
- [26:19]
Katie
He was friendly, wasn't he?
- [26:21]
Tanya
He was very friendly, but he was so witty that I just clammed up because I thought he was so full of wit and fun snark.
- [26:31]
Helen
Yeah, fun snark. That's the words. It was brilliant.
- [26:35]
Tanya
Then I said. All I could think to say was, oh, Miles Davis. In a silent way, because he was playing the music. And then suddenly we were spiraling into a jazz competitive chat, and we both looked at each other as if this is the kind of stuff that you make snarky pictures out of. I wish I'd never said it.
- [26:55]
Katie
I feel like there was a question earlier on. Well, Sarah's got one. It's another neurodivergent question. So my busy brain has a lot of ideas also. Working full time for years. Being unwell means a lot, has built up. A lot of ideas have built up, and now I have hundreds of Project ideas, which in itself can be paralyzing. I'm so aware of how much there is to draw everywhere in real life, online, how to handle drawing FOMO and how to know which ideas are worth pursuing and does it matter? Well, I feel like we kind of did that with the previous one, like giving yourself constraints, didn't we?
- [27:32]
Tanya
But you didn't mention your car park of ideas, Katie, which I think would be quite relevant here, wouldn't it?
- [27:38]
Katie
It sounds like there's more cars than car park, potentially.
- [27:42]
Tanya
Well then, if you had all the cars, how about you look at them all and you are only allowed they're burning down the car park right now. All the cars are about to go on fire. You have to grab the one that you really can't bear to park.
- [27:56]
Helen
I love that.
- [27:58]
Katie
Is it like when you flip a coin and they're like, which one? And then it's the one and you find out what one you're disappointed about not getting?
- [28:04]
Tanya
Yeah, exactly. I wish there was a kind of long term. So that's just a two party. You'd be there with a coin for ages going through them all. There must be some way, like I was reading that reading, someone doing another decluttering reel and they were saying, instead of what should you throw away is what. What must you keep? But in extremists, you know, you've got to get yourself really worked out. Have someone in the room grabbing the things and taking them away from you. And then the ones who are prepared to chase them down the street after are the ones you really care about.
- [28:35]
Helen
Maybe you do know the answer, but you're not aware of the answer. I think this is really interesting. Sometimes when I go to psychotherapy, I say I'm trying to make a decision and there's this option and this option and this option and I can't decide. And then in talking about it, she'll reflect back at me what I've said. And I might have said, I'll be really sad not to do that one. And she said, she'll say, you've said, I will be sad not to do that one. Which means that you have decided it, but it was so subconscious, you didn't realize until you've said it out loud. I wonder whether you should talk through your projects with somebody and just see whether as you talk about them, you work it out yourself in saying it out loud.
- [29:18]
Tanya
That's a really good one. That's like. There's two parallels with that. There's the one Katie said, which is part of this course where you say all the reasons why you can't be an illustrator and you say them out loud to hear how ridiculous you are. And I think the other one is when you put a portfolio together. And I know people don't get the opportunity to do this much now, but it was really a good test when you took your portfolio into a designer and you started flipping through and you can see, or you can hear yourself minimizing the things you have no. No confidence in. Or the ones you open the page and think, oh, God, why did I put that one in? And you start saying negating stuff about it. All the signs are there about your lack of confidence to do with certain things. So, yeah, like Helen said, talk it through with someone and maybe with some beginning images so that you can gauge your emotional commitment to it. Or not.
- [30:09]
Helen
Yeah. Sometimes I'll make a few different rough drawings for something, and I can't make my mind up. And I'll come in the kitchen with, like, five drawings, and Jerry will be in here, and I'll say, can I just show you these drawings? I can't make my mind up with which one? And then I'll show the first one. I'll go, not that one. And then the next one. I don't like the background on that one. And then the next one. And I'll be like, and then the next one. No, don't look at that one. There'll be something edits in my head for him. And then I immediately know, because I've shown him and I've basically told him. My answer stands there like, okay, he's asking me.
- [30:49]
Katie
You just need an audience.
- [30:50]
Helen
Ask him. I just needed an audience, and I needed to say it out loud to know what I thought.
- [30:55]
Tanya
I think that is the acid test. I don't know why we don't do this more often. Because the other one is, send three roughs to the client. They'll definitely get the one you dislike. So fake that situation and pull out the one that you least like, because you know they'll pick it. And that's you for the next two weeks, drawing a picture you hate.
- [31:14]
Helen
So Emma Simpson says that picture hooks have a new competition on now with Cats.
- [31:19]
Katie
Brilliant.
- [31:22]
Tanya
Eliza put a question in at the beginning. We should really answer because it's a nice, solid, straightforward one. I have a question about input from an agent. I just submitted a book dummy. I'm really proud of it. But my agent has some feedback I'm not sure I align with. How do you push back while still saying staying Open and collaborative. I want to stay true to my vision, but I also know edits are essential. That's a really good question.
- [31:44]
Katie
I feel like Helen is the queen of this.
- [31:48]
Helen
It's really hard, isn't it? Because if you've not made books before, you do need to rely on somebody else's expertise. But if at the same time it's pushing you way out of shape and it feels intuitively wrong, then you don't want to go that far. I think you have to trust your instinct also. Sleep on it. Sometimes I get feedback and instantly reject it. Like instantly. Instant fury sometimes. But I know that if I sleep on it, leave it a few days, something happens. It's like it's living in the background. I'm discussing it in my head, sort of somehow it's going on, something's happening subconsciously, and then when I look at it again, I might know the answer. Whether it feels right or feels wrong. It's hard. Do you like what the agent does? Do you like the books that they're making with other people? Do you trust their advice? Does everything else about the agent seem good? If you like the other books that other people are making with that agent, maybe it's just a way of getting a foot in the door. So if this is your first book, maybe just go with the advice and give it a try. And then if you feel a bit bent out of shape, at least you've got a foot in the door and now you can correct it.
- [33:08]
Tanya
It's kind of knowing your own boundaries as well, isn't it? It's like someone asking you to drive down to Cornwall, but they're asking you to go via Norwich. That's too far out the way. I can't go there. I want to go straight down the. All the motorways and get there. How far out of your boundary are you prepared to go? You know, around the houses. I think all of us know how flexible we are. And you do really need to know that obviously being rigid is no good. And just saying yes to every change leaves you lost. Like, all of us have been there and been out of shape. But if you say, I'm prepared to go via Leicester, and that's your lot, at least you're still going in the same direction.
- [33:53]
Katie
That's what I do, the Lister thing. And it's not picture books, it's live illustration. But I'll tell clients this is how many changes you're allowed, roughly, and this is what you're not allowed and what would be billed as extra. But Also, because it's live illustration, I feel like I'm not so emotional. I'm not. I'm not actually not at all emotionally attached to it and I don't really care because I'm never going to see it again. So sometimes they'll be like, we want this horrific thing added. And I'm like, okay. And I do it and then just to get them off my back. But I have the same. Like, sometimes I'll get feedback and it's instant fury and rage. And I can't do the feedback for a couple of days because I'm so angry. And then when I'm doing it, I'm like, oh, actually, this does make sense. Like, they just.
- [34:30]
Helen
Yeah, I've done that before as well. They've asked me for a change and I've thought, not, no, on my grave, I will not do that. And then a few days go by and I feel a bit less strong. I give it a go and I think, oh, yeah, they knew what they were talking about.
- [34:47]
Tanya
And sometimes you can pretend to do it as well. And it's amazing in your head, you think they're talking about this difference, but if you just do a little bit of that, maybe just under halfway, and they. It looks like it's done, then that's enough, you know, they'll go with it.
- [35:02]
Katie
Yeah. And did you say it was your agent as well, not the publisher? Because that's always a funny one as well, isn't it?
- [35:09]
Helen
It's become more and more common, apparent. Well, like, I hear more and more people say that their agents help them shape something before it goes to the publisher. And I hear good, I hear good and bad about it. Some people have good experience with it, some not so good. I was talking to somebody who really loves the Catch Poll. Agency, Children's Book Agency. The Catch pulls really work with the illustrators, but in a really creative, really great way. That seems to be a good experience. And then I hear other experiences where it's terrible. My agent would never give me creative advice. Don't ask her for it. She would never do it. I just think each agent is different and you have to know whether you like it or not. If you don't like this feedback, maybe they're not the right agent.
- [35:59]
Katie
Yeah, it's a bit like if you're working for an agency and it's their client. I used to hate it if the agency would ask for feedback, would give you feedback, and then you'd find out they haven't even shown the client yet and you're like you're just guessing what the client is going to think and they're going to have more feedback. And that's the worst thing ever.
- [36:18]
Helen
Yeah. And that is what agents are doing. They're trying to sell your book to the publisher. So without showing the publisher, they're changing you a bit in what in their mind will make you more sellable and acceptable. And yet you don't know. You don't like the publisher, don't know what they want till they see it, and sometimes take huge risks and do something completely new that you might have thought they would never want to do. So it's tricky.
- [36:43]
Tanya
It's kind of. It's also a case for getting stuff sorted out in the beginning. Whether it's. You get the agent or the publisher, ideally the publisher or client, to identify in your portfolio the work that they're that made them commission you for this. You know, it's design using the design process properly and making sure that you start with very loose roughs. And they're not asking you to work stuff up to any high level. Just do the bare basics and sign everything off at every stage so that you can't at color rough stage say, oh, I don't know, I don't think this is working. Could we take a step backwards? I always think it's like, you know, a sheep dip. You go through a series of gates and you shut each gate behind them so there's no returning back to the beginning and having a big rethink. But definitely, I think, looking and sharing some imagery of your own and maybe some external things to ensure that you're all in on the same page to start with.
- [37:44]
Helen
There's a good question here, completely off topic, but a good one from Amy who says niche question, so skip if you don't have time. But I love a 0.1 black fineliner pen for occasional line work on picture book spreads. Don't really get on with ink. Searching for a new 0.1 Navy or Brown fineliner and can't find any online. Have you any suggestions after the color workshops? I'm trying to avoid adding black. I. I was going to talk about something else, but I've just remembered that your daughter Tanya got me when we were in Italy. Got me, not got me to buy. She just told me she loved this pen in Muji, which is a brown very fine fineliner. Oh, it's gorgeous. I absolutely love it. And that was from Muji. I don't know if it's a point one, but it feels extremely thin. So it might be drawing with color
- [38:38]
Tanya
just shakes everything up, doesn't it? Like the sketchbook stuff you're doing at the moment, drawing with the tombows. Starting with a color. It already puts you in a different space, doesn't it? It really turns things around to drop the black. Well, I'm always going to say that, aren't I?
- [38:51]
Helen
It really does. Because with Salty I decided I didn't want to use black, so I decided to use colored ink and I'm using a really fine paintbrush to put the line on. But it gives you a nice range of colors and I can mix my own inks together to get a color I like as well. Yes, it does change things when you stop using black. I do like it.
- [39:13]
Katie
It gets you away from that trap of drawing stuff to color in as well, doesn't it?
- [39:18]
Tanya
Yeah, absolutely. Because the black, it's like working on an A format piece of paper or using Times Roman. It's like, oh, here we are, A4 paper and a black line and you're already. You kind of turn off because you know what the outcomes are going to be like. Whereas if you do something weird like start drawing with the brown liner, you're watching what's happening in front of you, you're really engaged and there's that kind of game of, well, what happens if I put this color background with it? Because you've no idea what's going to happen and then you're in that great, curious mindset, playful mindset.
- [39:50]
Katie
I've just noticed the time. This has been very pleasing chat.
- [39:53]
Helen
It's been really nice to have fewer questions in the email, has more chat
- [39:58]
Tanya
in the comments that it allows for in more in depth thought about things because there's no. Not so much pressure to get through lots of questions. So it's a real treat just to, you know, meander through what are the evergreen issues of. Oh, I'm stuck. How do I get out of this? How do I choose? Because they are. They burden us all those same things. Things, don't they. They're always the same questions.
- [40:22]
Katie
They never go away. Annoyingly, they come back in a different form. It's like a circle. It.
- [40:28]
Tanya
Yeah, exactly. Well, that was good. Hope it was useful.
- [40:33]
Katie
We'll see you all soon.
- [40:35]
Helen
Yeah, bye everybody. Bye,
- [40:45]
Tanya
Sam.