The Confidence to Fly Your Freak Flag: A guide for illustrators and creatives

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Confidence to Fly Your Freak Flag: A Guide for Illustrators and Creatives

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Good Ship Illustration
• Host/Author: The Good Ship Illustration (Helen Stephens, Katie Chappell, Tania Willis)
• Episode: The Confidence to Fly Your Freak Flag: A Guide for Illustrators and Creatives
• Release Date: December 13, 2024
• Description: Offering no-nonsense advice for illustrators and image-makers navigating a creative career, focusing on finding your creative voice, standing out, building career longevity, and being authentic.

---

Introduction

In the December 13, 2024 episode of The Good Ship Illustration, hosts Helen Stephens, Katie Chappell, and Tania Willis delve into the essential topic of confidence for illustrators and creatives. Titled "The Confidence to Fly Your Freak Flag," the episode aims to equip listeners with strategies to bolster their creative confidence, enabling them to share their unique voices unapologetically.

Opening Announcements (00:20 - 02:07)

Helen welcomes listeners to a special episode initially intended for VIP students of their "Find Your Creative Voice, Fly Your Freak Flag" course. Katie announces the early release as a Christmas gift and celebrates the course's opening, highlighting its perpetual availability—"it's open all the time, so there's no more doors open. Everybody gets on board the ship" (Helen, [00:43]).

Tania adds that the course instantly delivers content upon signup, allowing creatives to embark on their learning journey seamlessly (Tania, [00:50]). The hosts also introduce incentives for course participants, including free badges and the opportunity to win one-on-one mentoring sessions with the trio (Helen, [01:00]).

Exploring Confidence in Creativity (02:07 - 03:33)

David transitions the discussion to the core theme: confidence. He poses a fundamental question: "What is the point in doing all this amazing work to excavate your quirks and fly your freak flag if you don't feel confident to share it?" (David, [05:14]). Emily expands on this by outlining various confidence challenges:

• Early Career Confidence: Navigating the initial stages of a creative career.
• Working with Clients: Maintaining self-assurance in professional interactions.
• Confidence in the Work Itself: Trusting one's creative output.
• Expressing Uniqueness: Embracing vulnerability and authenticity (Emily, [02:26]).

Personal Experiences and Challenges (03:33 - 09:31)

Tania shares her journey post-art school, highlighting her initial confidence in her work but struggles with interpersonal relationships in publishing. She candidly discusses seeking psychotherapy to overcome these challenges, advising others to consider therapy if similar issues arise (Tania, [04:34]).

Emily empathizes, noting the intimidation of working with unknown art directors and the precarious nature of early professional relationships (Emily, [05:14]). Tanya reflects on how her approach has evolved to prioritize compatible collaborations, emphasizing the importance of mutual understanding before committing to contracts (Tanya, [06:27]).

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome and Negative Self-Talk (09:31 - 11:29)

David and Emily discuss strategies to combat imposter syndrome, such as seeking feedback on specific portfolio pieces to gain clarity and reduce anxiety about meeting client expectations. Emily shares her method of asking clients, "Can you show me which image or which images you like in my portfolio so I know what you're looking for?" (Emily, [07:56]).

David underscores the importance of recognizing that clients chose to work with you because they value your work, fostering a sense of security and enthusiasm (David, [08:01]).

Building Meaningful Client Relationships (11:29 - 17:13)

The conversation shifts to the significance of building strong, lasting relationships with clients and publishers. Tanya contrasts her early days of hastily signing contracts with her current practice of thoroughly vetting collaborators to ensure aligned aesthetics and project ethos (Tanya, [06:27]).

Emily and Tanya discuss the value of being selective and the misconception that one must please everyone. Tanya cites Louise Lockhart's analogy of an indie band being more cherished by a select audience than a mass-market band aiming to satisfy all (Tanya, [11:46]).

Navigating Social Media and Comparisons (17:13 - 23:43)

Emily highlights the challenges posed by the prevalence of social media, such as Instagram, in fostering comparisonitis and imposter syndrome. She suggests implementing a "creative quarantine" to focus on personal growth without the constant barrage of others' achievements (Emily, [18:37]).

Tanya shares her minimal engagement with Instagram to avoid feeling overwhelmed and appreciates the human touch in artwork that resonates more deeply than overly polished pieces (Tanya, [13:00]).

David adds that diverse platforms beyond social media should be leveraged to showcase work, ensuring broader visibility and networking opportunities (David, [17:58]).

Practical Tips for Boosting Confidence (23:43 - 26:38)

The hosts offer actionable strategies to enhance creative confidence:

1. Pomodoro Technique: Implementing timed work sessions with breaks to maintain focus and reduce burnout (David, [25:35]).

2. Multiple Versions: Creating several iterations of a piece to alleviate pressure for perfection and encourage experimentation (Emily, [22:04]).

3. Gamification of Rejection: Viewing rejections as a numbers game and celebrating each "no" to build resilience and increase the likelihood of acceptance (David, [15:27]).

4. Physical Well-being: Maintaining physical activity to influence mental health positively and prevent negative thought patterns from resurfacing (Tanya, [08:20]).

Embracing Authenticity and Vulnerability (26:38 - 28:54)

The discussion emphasizes the importance of authenticity in creative work. Tanya references Kandinsky's metaphor of tending to artworks like a garden, nurturing each piece until it naturally blossoms (Tanya, [21:46]). Emily relates this to maintaining a playful and experimental spirit, which fosters genuine and engaging illustrations (Emily, [13:09]).

David and Emily conclude by affirming that confidence grows with time and experience, encouraging creatives to persistently share their work despite initial fears and doubts (Emily, [28:52]).

Conclusion

The episode "The Confidence to Fly Your Freak Flag" offers a comprehensive exploration of the multifaceted nature of confidence in the creative industries. Through personal anecdotes, practical advice, and thoughtful discussions, Helen, Katie, and Tanya provide listeners with valuable insights to cultivate and sustain their creative confidence. Key takeaways include the importance of authentic self-expression, building meaningful professional relationships, managing social media influences, and implementing practical techniques to overcome self-doubt. As the hosts aptly convey, confidence is a journey that evolves with experience, time, and a steadfast commitment to one's unique creative voice.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Helen: "Everybody gets on board the ship and then we pull up the, what do you call it, the ramp." ([00:43])
• Tanya: "Don't be scared of going for some therapy." ([04:34])
• Emily: "Can you show me which image or which images you like in my portfolio so I know what you're looking for." ([07:56])
• Tanya: "It's much better to be like the indie band that a few people have discovered and love rather than a mass market band trying to please everybody." ([11:46])
• David: "If you've got this voice in your head and like, oh, don't bother. I wouldn't bother if I was you." ([10:38])

---

This summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from the podcast episode, providing a structured and detailed overview for those who haven't listened while highlighting the essential advice and experiences shared by the hosts and guests.

Transcript

[Helen]

Welcome. Welcome to the Good Ship podcast. We've got something special for you today.

[Katie]

Yes, we recorded this podcast podcast. It's a VIP top secret, students only podcast for people inside our course. Find your creative voice, fly your freak flag. But today we are giving it to you as an early Christmas present and basically to celebrate because the Freak Flag course is now open.

[Helen]

It's open all the time, so there's no more doors open. Everybody gets on board the ship and then we pull up the, what do you call it, the ramp.

[Tanya]

We put, we close the doors on the ship.

[Helen]

Doors on a ship, you get on whenever you like now. And as soon as you sign up, the course arrives in your inbox and you're off.

[Tanya]

So to celebrate that, we've got this.

[Helen]

Special podcast, haven't we?

[Katie]

Yeah, it's all about confidence, creative confidence, confidence to share your work. So really, we're hoping it'll be helpful wherever you are in your creative journey, whether you're just starting out or you've been going for a while and you're changing how you work a little bit. Anything for December and January, December 2024, January 2025. Everybody who claims aboard the Freak Flag course will get a free badge.

[Helen]

Also, the chance to win one on one mentoring with the three captains. Usually we ask people to send, I can't remember what the limit is on number of pieces of work, but maybe like six pieces of work and a little description of what you're asking, how you need some help. And then the three of us will get together and we'll choose three lucky winners and we'll do a one on one mentoring session. Well, it's actually three on one because there's three captains mentoring session and we will record those on a zoom call and stick them into the course so that everybody gets the benefit of those answers.

[Katie]

Oh, we're doing a planning party in January that you're invited to as well. It's on the 16th of January. Everybody can come. It's at half past one in the afternoon, UK time.

[David]

On with the podcast. We're going to talk about confidence because what is the point in doing all this amazing work to excavate your quirks and fly your freak flag if you don't feel confident to share it. So all three of us have got different experience over the years and everything. So we're going to be talking about lots of different types of confidence issues.

[Emily]

We've got early career confidence, working with clients confidence, and then having the confidence in the work itself and the confidence to express yourself and Fly your freak flag, then that's going to need you to be weird and vulnerable and honest and unique. And that does take a lot of confidence.

[Tanya]

And there's the confidence it takes to share your work without feeling embarrassed. It can feel cheesy or like boasting and showing off, which of course it's not. And there's the confidence in calling yourself an illustrator because the words you use are really important. We see so many illustrators on Instagram calling themselves baby illustrators or wannabe illustrator, aspiring illustrator. We're illustrators full stop. And yeah, the confidence to stop expressing your doubts here, there and everywhere, even with clients, it can really undermine your, like, their faith in you as an illustrator.

[Emily]

So we're going to try and go through these different types of confidence that help build a career and support you, but we're going to use some of our own personal experience in it as well.

[Tanya]

Yeah, I remember when I started out, I remember leaving art school and being confident in the actual work. Like, you know, this is pre Internet day, so I had no idea how many million other illustrators there were in the world. I wasn't looking at illustrators on Instagram all the time. So I felt really quite kind of confident about the work and that, you know, it was naivety in a way that all I would have to do is turn up with a folio and they'd be like, oh, we've been waiting for you. Which was really good. It meant I wasn't scared to show the work. But what I really struggled was with was the relationships with the publishers. So the relationships with the people I found really hard. So if you, if you illustrate picture books, you usually work in quite a tight knit little team of three or four people. And I found sort of negotiating my opinions about things quite difficult. But it wasn't just a problem in the work, it was kind of a problem in my life as well. You know, I went to school where. Well, it's the same for everybody. You're all at school where you're kind of told what to do and not show off. If you're brought in the northeast of England, you're taught not to show off. So, yeah, I ended up going for some psychotherapy and it was the best thing I ever did. I had quite an intense seven or eight years of psychotherapy to figure all this out. And I took some time out of publishing and then went back and yeah, that was absolutely brilliant. I would really recommend that for anybody who's struggling with kind of negotiating with people. If it crosses into Your life as well as your work. That's a, that's a sign that you could do with some help. So, yeah, don't be scared of going for some therapy.

[Emily]

I wish I'd had a bit of that. Seriously though, it's so easy to be scared of your, of your art director. Yeah. Because you often haven't built relationships with them. So you're each job, you're working with someone new and maybe you've only got a phone call conversation to try and sus out how, how much they like your work, how confident they feel about you doing the job properly. So it's quite a precarious relationship for a young illustrator to have. You really don't feel powerful at all, do you?

[Tanya]

Yeah. And also in those early days I didn't really know that that was going to be a problem. And so I would be called by a publisher, they'd call me in to see my folio and then they'd ask me to do a book and I would just sign the contract. Whereas now I'm so aware that those relationships have to work really well to make a beautiful picture book, that I would never just go and see somebody once and then sign a contract. I'd really want to know that we're going to work together and that we're all, we've all got a similar aesthetic or belief about the ethos of the book. So, yeah, I would never sign a contract without really getting to know the people I'm going to work with now. And that's confidence as well, isn't it? The confidence to say I need to know what you're all about first.

[Emily]

Especially for. I mean I've. I have done some books and that was a long term relationship with two other people. But for you to do that constantly in your business and it's one year, is it? Or is it less six months for a book? What do you think?

[Tanya]

Oh, yeah. A year. Probably a year.

[Emily]

You're investing a lot of your time into that relationship. At least with Editorial you're in and out, aren't you? Or scribing. It's quite quick.

[David]

There's definitely. It's like wham, bam, next client. Yeah. I mean sometimes they come back and everything, but there's no pressure to be in an ongoing good relationship. Like if they're, if they're horrible to work with you just say, I'll not work with you again. It's not a big deal. Yeah, so I suppose that's a big difference.

[Emily]

I remember one thing I found, I wonder to say this, because I'll forget it if I don't say it. Now, one thing that really helped, especially working with new clients and if you're slightly overwhelmed because they're a really good client and you're so loved up to get the job, then you get the imposter syndrome. It's like, I think they got the wrong Tanya Willis. So then you say to them, can you show me which image or which images you like in my portfolio so I know what you're looking for. That was a huge safety catch and it took a long while to work that out. Okay, they definitely do meet me and oh crikey, it's those two images they like. Okay, at least I know where I'm going because there is the pleasing involved, isn't it? There's that confidence about what do they want from me, am I going to be able to give it? But asking which images always helps.

[David]

That's so important as well to remember that they've seen your work and they want to work with you.

[Emily]

Yeah, they chose you. And since you know they're not going to kind of effuse over you, but they probably, when they chose you, thought, oh yeah, this is it, this is the stuff we want. Yeah, but no one's going to tell you that early on. But you do kind of need to feel that, or at least know it so that you can tackle a job with enthusiasm and confidence and a sense of security.

[Tanya]

It's horrible to get into that mindset of thinking, what do they want? What do they want out of this project? And it can stop you playing. And what you really need to do is forget that so that you can play and come up with your own ideas. And actually it turns out everybody wants you to do that. They don't want you to be thinking what they want. They want to know your opinions and fly your freak flag. So yeah, you need to put all of that to the back of your mind. The other thing that I've realized over the last couple of years as well is so after all of that psychotherapy, I've become like a big advocate for that. And every now and again if I hit a problem, I have another top up session. And it's amazing, it's really brilliant. But what I've realized is that your physical well being has a big influence on that as well. So if I have not had enough exercise in one day, I can go back to old patterns of thinking. And so I really need to make sure that I get up and I do some physical activity and then in the middle of the day I go for a walk and then in the evening I do something else. Because sitting at your desk all day can really take its toll on your kind of buildup of adrenaline and you know, gotta look after yourself. You do? Yeah.

[David]

Well, you're thinking about the psychotherapy thing. It reminded me of like keeping an eye on the stories that you're telling yourself. Because I know for me when I was like a teenager, like nobody gives you the tools when you're at school and things to question what you're telling yourself all the time. And sometimes just to like, like when you're telling yourself things, take them out of your brain and like write them down or talk about them with a friend or a therapist or whatever. And you can question them and be like, is this really true? Or am I mind reading and assuming what everyone else thinks, which is usually the case. Or am I being like catastrophizing thinking of the worst case scenario? Because it's exhausting to be telling yourself all day, like, I'm never gonna make it. This is like whatever make it means. But I'm like, I'm so terrible. I can't believe this is happening. But if it's just on in the background all the time and you haven't ever thought about your self talk, it can just go on for years and years and your mental health is affected and your whole life is affected and what you'll apply for and try out because you're not going to. It's natural to not want to try anything if you've got this voice in your head and like, oh, don't bother. I wouldn't bother if I was you. I think just, just play safe, don't do anything scary.

[Emily]

And it's also difficult when you apply that negative self talk to a career that has variable outcomes. So it's not like, did you complete that report properly or something that has very finite clear cut parameters. If it's like, hey, did you just perform and play and draw in a really interesting manner that I had hoped you would. We don't know what they hope from us most of the time so that it can actually encourage more doubt and confidence issues because you don't know when you've hit the mark or not.

[David]

Yeah. Especially when your work relies on people's opinions as well. Yeah. So like I suppose you, if you're doing an illustration for a client and they like your work and they commission you to do the work, they're probably going to like it. But if it's appealing to the masses. And you want every single person to like your work and you want to please everybody. That's never going to work out, is it?

[Emily]

That. That's the other thing about early career confidence, isn't it? Is that you're not there to please everyone. I. I remember thinking that, yeah, this wasn't a kind of niche activity, which in fact it is. And you can't please everyone. And the sooner that kind of sinks in, the easier it is to tackle the work and your confidence.

[Tanya]

I really like what Printer Peanut says about that Louise Lockhart in the video she has on our course. And she talks about it's much better to be like the indie band that a few people have discovered and love rather than a mass market band trying to please everybody.

[David]

Yeah.

[Tanya]

I think she's right.

[David]

You want to be like a well kept secret. Super valuable for the people you do work with and who like your work, but you're not trying to. Yeah. Be on Top of the Pops.

[Emily]

Music's always such a good parallel for the. Is it such a good metaphor for the things we talk about? Because you think about confidence. Confidence in music. I mean a really obvious thing would be Radiohead freak. How could you write that and sing it with the confidence required to just expose yourself like that? Expose your vulnerability and your creativity. You've got to be really brave to do that. And music has lots of good examples of that. Isn't it that you're not there for everybody as you said, like Princeton Peanut said. But you are there to connect with people. An illustration should connect with people. We love seeing people's weirdness and spontaneous marks and their kind of humanity. Don't necessarily want to see something super slick and polished and finished. It doesn't leave you with the same. The same buzz.

[Tanya]

I think we crave that. I know I do when I'm looking through Instagram. My eyes are craving some kind of human hand.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Tanya]

And human voice. You're just craving that. Yeah.

[Emily]

And it's too easy for us to write that off as failure. Like, oh, I just screwed up there. That's a really wonky drawing. So that is not the drawing I'm going to use. And then you polish something up to such a degree that it's devoid of all life. And you think, oh no, now it's a deadline and I've just got to have this hyper polished thing in, which is not what I intended to do. Another area where you've got to have that confidence.

[David]

That's like earlier when we're talking about the money thing. Wasn't it like, if, as I was saying in the early days when I'd, I think, like, I'd never been paid over a thousand pounds for a job, and then the first job that was over a thousand pounds, I was paralyzed with fear and like, oh, my God, the expectations are so high. How am I going to be able to pull this off? And I don't. I think it is just time and getting those jobs over and over again. But now I'm. It's not even in my mind when I'm doing the work. I'm not thinking about the money. It's like a separate. That's what you're saying, Helen, isn't like you separated the process completely.

[Tanya]

Yeah, yeah. You need to separate them. Because if you're thinking all of the time whether you're giving value for money, as in how long, how much agony you went through to make the work, it's going to show in the work.

[Emily]

Totally. I think Marion talks a lot about that. Well, not a lot about it, but, you know, when. When provoked and poked, I can get her to tell me that she was one of the first people to do this. Mariam deshawes, by the way, to do her hand type. Not many people were doing that 15, 20 years ago, and then she was massively copied and then it became normality. But a lot of big clients still go to her just to write a few lines of text because there's something in her hand lettering. I mean, I could. You can see it when you look through piles, fonts, hand fonts. You can see really cheesy stuff. Stuff that just doesn't have the right personality. She has exactly the right aesthetic personality to her hand script and they will pay her just to write eight letters. And I think when you can. When you can understand that and internalize it, think, okay, it's like a Picasso drawing.

[David]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Took your life to all your life to draw that quick drawing. And that mark is what. What they really want. Yeah.

[David]

And it's like you're not working in a shop for eight hours anymore. You don't have to do eight hours of standing up to earn eight hours of voyage. You can just do the thing. Exactly.

[Tanya]

Yeah.

[David]

I suppose this is a good tip for if you're trying to put your work out there, but you're terrified of people saying no or saying they don't like your work or just any kind of rejection. I've posted about it online a lot, but it's like making rejection again. So sort of seeking out a certain amount of Rejections. So how many no's can you get? How many rejection letters so that when people do reject you, you're like, yes, I can add it to my list and then you can even make a poster. I think we were talking about making a template. So you were to download that and then you can put shiny stars or house points on it. And yeah, it just. That gamification of rejection means that you're going to seek out more places to put yourself out there to get more rejection, which in turn, just by, like by the numbers game, you'll get more yeses because you've put yourself out more times.

[Emily]

Which is quite handy though, isn't it, if you do. We were talking earlier about find how to find a literary agent. So if the only way to go through that is to send your manuscripts and your illustrations out to 50 literary agents and you embark on that thinking, oh, this is such an overwhelming task. But if you turn it into Katie's rejection game and put your poster up in front of you, you'll be rubbing your hands in glee with every rejection that comes through. Yeah, and it makes that so much easier.

[Tanya]

Some of the rumors going around in publishing that I hear really often, but I've always completely ignored is that you're not allowed to send out your book idea to more than one publisher, or you're not allowed to apply to one more than one agent at a time to see if they represent you. Well, if you do that, you could send a, you could send samples to an agent and wait forever for a reply because they might Never reply. Or 6 months with a maybe. So, yeah, I would just send it everywhere. Send it everywhere.

[David]

Yeah. That kind of goes back to the examining your thoughts. So if you're thinking like, I'm not getting any work, you can, you can examine that and be like, does anybody know that you're doing the thing? Have you told anybody that you're illustrating? Have you like, put you, have you updated your website? Have you emailed people? Have you posted about it? And not just on social media as well. I think it's so easy to get stuck in the social media cycle and be like, oh, well, I posted on Instagram. It could be that the people your dream people to work with are not on Instagram. So spread out further, get your website out there, go on LinkedIn, even, I don't know, it's going to change all the time. So there's no point in me giving a specific exact place to put your work. But it's just a heads up that if People don't know you do the thing that you do and you're not telling them, then they can't find you.

[Tanya]

And I don't think there are really specific rules about this because I can remember some of the other things I used to hear about, and I still do from people who say to me, so what are the rules about approaching a publisher? Do I have to write a manuscript with a certain number of words? Do I have to illustrate the whole book before I get in touch with them? I just think it's best to not know any of the rules. I have no idea what those rules were. I never found out. I never want to find out. I think the thing that a publisher really wants is your individual voice. And however you show them, that is the right way. So, yeah, naivety is a superpower, isn't it?

[Emily]

Well, I think because we're three different ages, the Three Bears thing works really well in that I think I'm amazed by how many young illustrators are out there now, way more than during our graduation days. And as you said earlier, we couldn't see them anyway because we didn't have the Internet. So you kind of worked away at your voice in a sort of creative box somewhere. You knew your friends work and the kind of the group that grew around that from exhibitions and from magazines where you saw the work. So I think now it must be really hard to cope with the onslaught of compariitis that comes from Instagram. And we all act as though it's just a thing you have to deal with. But I think it's a recent thing, it's only 10 or 15 years old, so we can still find solutions to it. We don't just have to accept it because it, you know, compariitis brings you into imposter syndrome and all those kind of things. So a creative quarantine is a good idea when you're really working on something that is about developing your voice. If you're not in kind of job after job mode where you're just putting work out there, if you're in a sensitive phase of your creativity, it's a good idea to cut out exposure to all this work for a month or two. Just not to look at other stuff. I mean, I don't. Yeah, I don't use Instagram that often. I don't post on it very often. And I don't like to look too much because I just think after a big old scroll hole where I fail to separate these people into being individuals, they end up in a big Lump in my head and I think, look at all those hard work looking people, high achieving illustrators with all those beautiful aspects to their work and yeah, just obviously leaves you feeling a bit low. And that's what a lot of people say when we do live Q&As, isn't it? It's the same thing. I feel bad when I come off instant Instagram and a lot of established illustrators have been talking about social media burnout. It even makes them feel bad. And you think they've got resilience against it. So if this is a new phenomena, we can find kind of techniques to combat it. Don't feel you have to look at all this stuff and still come away feeling good. It does damage your confidence. So hide away for a bit, that that would really help. And then you can start making work that's kind of vulnerable and honest and spontaneous that shows kind of failures in it, as we said earlier, looking for humanity and that vulnerability can't stand the glare of constant exposure to other people's work. You kind of need to just focus on yourself. One of the ways that I used to find that helped with the play aspect that we always talk about is to have a few versions of the same piece of work on the go. So if you're in the middle of a job with a deadline and you find yourself, you're tightening up and you can hear all the negative self talk about what you think they expect, or about the changes or the rejections you fear from a client. If you keep the playful spirit alive by doing a few versions of the same one, it takes the pressure off it being all pushed into one image. You can take some risks on a couple of other versions and you might even find that you develop a series or a body of work from it.

[Tanya]

There's that brilliant thing about Kandinsky. He used to say that his work was like a garden. So he put all of his work around the walls, leaning against the walls, and every morning he'd get up and tend it like a garden. He'd turn one upside down. You do a little bit on this one, a little bit on that one, and you just tend them until one became the piece.

[Emily]

That's such a nice metaphor.

[David]

We take the pressure off, wouldn't it? Yeah. Rather than having one piece that has to be perfect, having them all spread.

[Tanya]

Out, I tend to do that. I'll put a rough on my light box, I'll put my piece of watercolor paper over the top. I do what might be a finished piece of artwork, but it might not. That goes on the floor. I do another one. That goes on the floor, do another one and then look at them and think, I think that one has the most life or most energy, whatever, and I'll pick that one. It takes the pressure off each one being the final piece because sometimes to.

[Emily]

Keep a voice that's quite light and fresh, it needs to be edited out. And if you're just working on one piece, you keep shoveling more and more into it in the hope it will become something in the end, it topples over under the weight of everything you've loaded in there. So, yeah, multiple versions is a good tip for keeping yourself playful and taking that pressure off yourself. And, yeah, the mental tricks of disassociating from the work. So when you're not just playing, if it's a commercial project and you feel very stressed when you're working on it, as I used to, I'd be, yeah, I was prone to obsessing over whether something was. Was working or not. Because you feel, this is a job, this isn't you playing anymore. One way is to slightly disassociate it from it and not invest too much. I know we're taught to believe we are our work, but that can be quite unhealthy as well, because if it goes wrong, then you feel like a failure. So putting some kind of mental space between the outcome of your work, it is not you, it is the work that you do is a good way to handle confidence in a commercial context.

[Tanya]

I think a good thing there as well is, and I've heard you talk about this as well, Katie, is that sometimes if you feel overwhelmed by a project, it's good just to say, I will work on this for an hour. And you kid yourself you've only got an hour and you just need to get some stuff down in paper on an hour. You get to the end of the hour and you think, I did it, I've done my hour. But then that leads on to new ideas. What happened? That was great. In this one, I'll do another hour. And just kid yourself that this project will take me a very short amount of time and then just keep coming back to it. I find that really helps because it can feel overwhelming to think, I've got to get a whole book idea down. This could be months of work. If I think, no, the idea will be on a piece of paper this morning and it will be. But it might not be right. But that's all right, because tomorrow morning I'll fix whatever didn't work.

[David]

Yeah, it always fits the time that you've got.

[Emily]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. And I think we used to do deadlines when I was younger and in Hong Kong we used to work with advertising agencies a lot and they would often call at something like two in the afternoon and say, we need an advert for a company. We're going to pay you a lot because it's a rush deadline, but we need it tomorrow at 11am and it would be an advert for a major company, but because the money was so good, we'd chase it. So you'd stay up all night. At about 5 in the morning, you really didn't know your own name anymore. The level of stress was so high only dogs could hear it. You're freaking out and you don't know whether the work is any good or not. I would suggest you don't take jobs like that.

[Tanya]

This is why art clubs are, is good, isn't it? It's like we have. You have to take all of the fun of art club with your timer and take this into your actual work. Put your timer on. I'm going to do as much as I can in an hour. All of my ideas are going to be on a piece of paper. When this hour is through, you, you do that. Katie, you've got, have you not got a name for that? Do you have a name for that.

[David]

With like a pomodoro?

[Tanya]

Yeah, yeah.

[David]

Technique. Yeah, this, that's the. So it's called the pomodoro technique after the tomato timers that you get in your kitchen and you sit over 25 minutes and you work for 25 and then you give yourself a five minute break. Even if you don't want one, you've got to stop working and go and look out the window or something, have a pee. And then you come back for another 25 minutes. And that's magic. Yeah, just like structure and forcing yourself. And then sometimes like after the third pomodoro, you hit floor state and you fuck the time. I'm just going to carry on.

[Tanya]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's like art club, isn't it? What usually, what is it?

[David]

35 minutes in, we both go quiet. Yeah, every time.

[Emily]

But I think it's that intensity thing, the time thing is a really good idea because often you work on a project right up until the end, it's still not working. The deadline's two hours away and you think, I'm going to redo this now in the last hour. And sometimes if you've, if you've had enough sleep, you can make a massive improvement much quicker, much more quickly than maybe the three days you spent on the project preceding that. So that time thing, this is all you've got. Just do it quick now.

[David]

So true. But even now, I got an inquiry on Friday and the deadline's tonight. And I know that after we finish recording this, I'll go to the studio and I'll get it finished. But I've had the whole weekend and I sort of pottered about and thought about it and touched it a little bit. But when the, when the pressure builds up and the time's gone, you're like, I'm just going to do it now. And that's when the best work happens. Because it'll be the stuff I do. Probably when I get back to the studio now will be 10 times better than the stuff that I've done over the weekend when I had like all day to do it. So it's, it's just weird psychology.

[Tanya]

I think sometimes that's the benefit when you have a part time job, isn't it? Because I remember when I had a part time job in the early days, going home from work, sitting at the dining room table, and I'd only have a couple of hours that evening and I'd just know, right, I need to get a piece for my folio this evening. I'm going to do it before the week's out. I'm going to have three pieces for my folio. It's actually much easier than having endless hours stretching ahead.

[David]

Yeah, it's less stressful.

[Emily]

And also, if you start to build up a way of working that's the kind of visual equivalent of a symphony with an entire orchestra, that way of working really isn't viable on editorial rates. And, you know, the lower rates if you've got a way of. This was something that dawned on me about 20 years after starting. Okay, so there's some people doing the same jobs and they will do a very quick drawing for this project and we're all on the same fee. It's only because they're smart enough to realize it doesn't have to be overwrought. It doesn't have to involve every single color and medium in your book. In fact, it just needs that simple freshness to work on a page. Sometimes these heavy kind of heavy illustrations that have got everything going on just. They don't work on a page. They're too. It's like printing a painting amidst a body of text. Something light and fresh that actually helps a layout is what's needed.

[David]

Yeah. We always say people can feel if you've had a fun time doing it.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Tanya]

Oh, yeah.

[Emily]

The energy. Exactly.

[David]

So I feel like we have said all the things about the confidence except the easy one.

[Emily]

Getting old.

[David]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Getting old.

[Emily]

Time, experience and age. It all gets better.

[David]

Yeah. Because you're getting older right now.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Tanya]

Don't have to do a thing. You just wait.

[Emily]

Just age and. Yeah. And putting it out there. Just keep putting the work up each time you do it. And you're really embarrassed and you're worried about what people think. Each posting makes it easier to do the next one. So experience some time.