We’re good at failing (and you can be too) 🤣 the power of experiments

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "We’re Good at Failing (and You Can Be Too) 🤣 The Power of Experiments"

Podcast: The Good Ship Illustration
Hosts: Helen Stephens, Katie Chappell, Tania Willis
Date: November 14, 2025
Episode Theme: Embracing experiments and "failure" as a crucial part of a creative illustrator’s career.

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Overview

In this insightful and lighthearted episode, the hosts of The Good Ship Illustration—Helen, Katie, and Tania—dive into the power and permission of creative experimentation. Sharing stories of their own "failed" projects, tangent career paths, and unexpected wins, they unpack how letting go of perfection and embracing short-term experiments is not just possible but essential for illustrators. Through candid banter and practical advice, they encourage listeners to try new things, drop what isn’t working, and treat the creative career as a joyous (and sometimes messy) lab.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Joy (and Reality) of Trying Ideas

• Excitement About New Ideas (00:30):
  • All three love the rush of new creative ideas, but dread the pressure of long-term commitment.
    • Katie: “If you tell me that it’s an exciting idea, but then I must commit to it for an indefinite amount of time—kiss of death.” [00:38]
    • Group consensus: Experiments are far easier to embrace than life-altering commitments.

2. Learning from Failed or Dropped Experiments (00:56—02:24)

• Katie’s Experiment with Running an Agency:

  • Tried scaling her business, having a big team, and realized it was not for her—felt compelled to try, but happier scaling back.
    • Katie: “It was an experiment I just didn’t like doing. It was stressful.” [01:00]
  • Undoing an experiment isn’t a failure: “Canceling the experiment and taking it back to how it was when you were having a good time again is good because then you’ve learned the thing.” [01:30]

• Tania on Generational Perfectionism:

  • Always taught to get things perfect or not try at all; learning from the others that ‘soft launches’ and time-limited experiments are healthy.
    • Tania: “You’re not married to it and you can just change your mind.” [01:40]

3. Experimenting Beyond Art: Repurposing Work

• Tania’s New Venture (02:42):
  • Shifting from seeking new commissions to selling prints of her existing work (maps) in shops—taking charge, not waiting for others.
  • “...I’ve realized, no, I’ll be in charge. I don’t have to wait for someone else to do it.” [03:12]
• Advantage: Greater control over print quality, copyright, and income streams.

4. Career Detours, Collaborations & Human Design

• Reluctance and Personality (04:16):
  • Tania jokes she was "dragged" into Good Ship by Helen and Katie, reflecting on her Human Design type (Generator: responds best to invitations).
    • “I’m much better if I’m invited to do something.” [05:00]

5. Personal Fails, Automation Gone Wrong (05:23–08:19)

• Helen’s Attempt to Automate School Visits:

  • Tried to digitize school visits during lockdown—a logistical nightmare for schools’ payment systems.
    • Helen: “It did not work. It just did not work. Because what I didn’t consider is schools cannot pay for anything online… So every time I had a school interested, they would say, ‘Please can you send me an invoice and we’ll send you a check.’ And it completely ruined the whole idea because it just took so much work.” [05:54]

• Pivot to Giving Value for Free:

  • Ended up giving away content for free rather than dealing with mountains of admin. Positive creative feelings outweighed practical hassle.
    • “Decided it was way better just to give it away for free than have to invoice a school and wait for a check and then take the check to the bank.” [07:41]

6. Technology and Process Experiments

• Digital Art Phase (07:41–08:19):
  • Helen got obsessed with digital art (Procreate, Photoshop), producing books—but eventually returned to loving traditional media.
    • “I’m out the other side of that experiment now and I’m really, really into doing paper again.” [08:15]

7. The Value of Following Through (08:30–09:46)

• Persistence vs. Flakiness:
  • Tania admires Helen’s determination to thoroughly explore experiments before pivoting.
    • “You’re not a kind of… you don’t drop at the first sign of trouble… So unflaky. That’s—I'm scared to death about being flaky about things.” [08:30]

8. Community and Free/Paid Content Experimentation

• Substack & the “Pay What You Can” Model (08:53–10:23):
  • Inspired by the Blind Boy podcast, Helen shifted her Substack to a pay-if-you-can model, aiming for accessibility and community.
    • “Those that can’t afford it can still listen because those who can afford it, pay for it. And that makes a nice community.” [09:08]

9. Pre-Good Ship Experiments & The Power of Partnership

• Katie’s “Bullet Journal Gang” & “Productivity” Course (10:23–12:10):
  • Early online experiments provided valuable skills for later collaborative projects.
    • “But all those experiments—you learn so many things.” [10:52]
  • Realized working collaboratively is less exhausting and more sustainable than solo efforts.

10. Serendipity, Geography & Creative Chemistry

• The coincidence of all three hosts living in the same town, with complementary skills, is likened to forming “The Beatles of illustration.” [12:29–13:12]
  • “We had the starter, we had the main and the dessert together and it’s a dinner party.” [11:56]

11. Small Experiments That Stuck: “Art Club”

• Tried a one-off live "Art Club" on Friday nights during lockdown. It was so fun and popular they ended up running weekly events for years.
  • “We did it. We were so nervous… Realized something like 500 people had been watching. And then we said, should we do it again? And we’re still doing it.” [13:53–14:19]

12. Challenge: Do Your Own Experiment!

• Tania considers herself unexperimental, but the others disagree and challenge her (and listeners) to try something new for a set period—specifically, three months, even something as small as one post a month.
  • Katie: “If you give yourself three months and even if you only did one post per month for three months and just saw what happened.” [16:20]
  • Tania accepts, with Katie as accountability buddy [16:31–16:46].

13. Permission to Change Your Mind (17:10–17:17)

• The look and content of your creative output (website, newsletter, etc.) can be tweaked and updated anytime—nothing needs to be perfect at launch.

14. Resistance to Being Told (18:26–19:17)

• Hilarious group realization: If someone else tells them to do something, immediate resistance follows, even if they were about to do it anyway.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the power of trying:

  • Katie (on ending failed experiments): “Canceling the experiment and taking it back to how it was when you were having a good time again is good because then you’ve learned the thing.” [01:30]

• On experiments vs. perfection:

  • Tania: “Maybe because of my generation where everything had to be set up perfectly… But you just give it a go. Maybe give it three months, put a deadline on it. If it’s not working the way you want it to, then just rethink it and cancel it, start again in a different direction.” [01:40]

• On digital school visits and admin nightmares:

  • Helen: “It did not work. It just did not work. Because… the council will send the illustrator a check. Like they do it in such old fashioned ways… it completely ruined the whole idea.” [05:54]

• On collaborative magic:

  • C: “All of those things are quite spooky, actually. That they were already in place and each of us had a different input into what we needed to make a course. It was like we had the starter, we had the main and the dessert together and it’s a dinner party.” [11:58]

• On the spirit of experimentation:

  • Helen: “Experiments are important because sometimes they work better than you can even imagine.” [14:33]

• On commitment to an experiment:

  • Katie: “For an experiment, you kind of have to get married to it for a set amount of time… That’s not a real experiment otherwise.” [15:19]
  • Tania: “That’s being flaky. And that’s the scariest thing of all. This has to be a commit for a bit.” [15:31]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:30 – Excitement about new ideas versus commitment dread
• 01:00–01:30 – Katie’s “failed” agency experiment
• 01:40–02:24 – Tania on perfectionism and learning to experiment
• 03:12 – Tania’s new plan for selling existing work
• 05:23–07:41 – Helen’s failed automated school visits experiment
• 08:15 – Moving from digital to paper art
• 08:53–10:23 – Experimenting with pay models on Substack
• 10:23–12:10 – Pre-Good Ship experiments and realizing the value of collaboration
• 13:53–14:33 – Art Club: spontaneous experiment that became a tradition
• 16:20–16:46 – The three-month experiment challenge for Tania
• 17:10–17:17 – Permission to update your creative "brand" anytime
• 18:26–19:17 – Group laughing at their resistance to being told what to do

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Actionable Takeaways

• View your business, creative projects, and even social media as experiments with optional expiry dates—none are final.
• Try something new for a set short period (e.g., three months), then honestly review.
• Working in community or with accountability partners helps experiments last and feel less daunting.
• It's okay to change your mind, rebrand, or pause—no creative effort is wasted.
• Let fun (not just market logic) lead your experiments—and share your results!

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Community Invitation

The hosts close by encouraging listeners to share their own "mad experiments" and results, whether triumphant or quietly faded away.
“Let us know what your experiment is as well, because we’re all really nosy.” [19:40]

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Instagram Replay: @thegoodshipillustration
Missed Art Club or want to see previous experiments? Replays are available on their Instagram.

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Transcript

[A]

Sat about experiments, new ideas for fun.

[B]

Those are my favorite ideas. You know, I just love ideas that spring up. I get very excited at the very first bit of an idea. Do you?

[A]

Yeah. And if you tell me that it's an exciting idea, but then I must commit to it for an indefinite amount of time.

[B]

Kiss of death. Yeah, me too. Me too. So what ideas have you tried and then decided, nah, moved on.

[A]

Oh, having an agency, scaling and trying to be like, big. So, like, the classic business advice is, that's working. Scale it, do it more. So having a big team, lots of illustrators. It was an experiment that I just didn't like doing. It was stressful.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I was like, I'll give it a year, See, I'll get on. It's quite hard once you're in that, to be like, oh, no, I don't like this experiment. To then wind it back in and undo it because there's part of you that feels like, oh, I did actually fail there, or.

[B]

Or I need to do something to make it work.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. But ultimately canceling the experiment and taking it back to how it was when you were having a good time again is good because then you've learned the thing.

[C]

It was a revelation when you said, katie, you can try something out, like set your website up a certain way or plan to offer certain services and then realize it doesn't work and nothing's forever and you're not married to it and you can just change your mind. I think maybe because of my generation where everything had to be set up perfectly ready to go, no soft launches, everything had to be perfection or you're not allowed to do it. That includes take a decision and stay with it for life, even if it's the wrong thing. So when you were sort of saying no, you just give it a go. Maybe give it three months, put a deadline on it. If it's not working the way you want it to, then just rethink it and cancel it, start again in a different direction. I was like, yeah, see, I've never heard of such a thing before.

[A]

The opposite of, you've made your bed, now lie in it.

[B]

Right in bed.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's like three bears all over again.

[A]

Don't just lie in bed wide awake crying, get out, make a hot chocolate or something.

[B]

So true.

[C]

How many years career I've got left to implement this?

[A]

Radical thinking loads? At least 120.

[C]

So my new plan at the moment is. Well, actually one of the things I always wanted to do and it's beginning to work. Now, this isn't an experimentation, but I just thought I'd include this. Years back, when they started doing stock photography and talking about making money from your work. I really want to know how to do this. It seems no one can give me the answer, but apparently it's a thing. And now I'm just getting proofs done of some maps and I'm going to get them printed and sell them in shops. It's like, at last it's happening. And I was. I kept thinking, someone else has to do it for me, they have to buy the thing and tell me how they want to reuse it. But I've realized, no, I'll be in charge of reusing it. I don't have to wait for someone else to do it. So that's my new plan, which is a slight diversion. Instead of thinking all the time, you've got to keep making new work, you've got to be commissioned and permanently be creating. Slightly towards the end of the career, let's just sit back a bit and make money on what already exists.

[A]

You've made loads of work, why not make the most of it?

[C]

And if it's things like maps that people like, then the copyright belongs to me. If someone else doesn't want to use it, I'll use it. Because they'll be printed on better paper. They'll be printed better than if I just gave it to someone else and said, yeah, stick that on some shiny paper and put it in your gift shop. It wouldn't be very nice, would it?

[A]

No. You've got full control over all the things, haven't you?

[C]

Yeah. So that's. Maybe that's my micro experiment diversion from the career path. But as a. As a rule, no, I like to lie in my uncomfortable unwatched bed for 30 years.

[A]

An old Victorian man is going, good, yes, that's right.

[B]

We dragged you into a mad experiment of the Good ship, though, Tanya, you're up for that.

[C]

When we were talking at the beginning about, let's talk about experimentation and changing your mind, I said, no, I never do that. The only way I'm here is because you threw me back in the back of the car, locked the boot and said, right, we're off the Good ship. Illustration, here we come. So, yeah, as long as I'm invited, because that's the design.

[A]

What's that thing called yours is respond. So if you respond to things and if it's your body goes, yes, good idea. That's a yes.

[C]

What's the thing called design for human design. Human Design.

[A]

Yeah, you're a generator. So yours is all about like it's a yes or a no in your gut and you just respond to what's around you.

[C]

Yeah, there's definitely that. I just thought I was a self starter. I had to be invited. I'm much better if I'm invited to do something like would you get into the boot of this car and. And we're starting a new business plan called the Good Ship illustration. That, that suits me.

[B]

Thank goodness you did.

[C]

They drove ever so fast.

[A]

Helen, have you had any experiments that haven't.

[B]

I think this is just my nature. I think that haven't worked.

[A]

I want to hear about.

[B]

Oh yeah, school visits.

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

I mean school visits in real life work. But I'd forgotten about that during lockdown. I couldn't visit any schools in real life. So I thought oh I know what I'll do because we've been doing courses and selling them online. I thought well I'll make a school visit in the. Using the same software so that the school visit is made and there it is to buy and the schools can just go in and buy it and.

[C]

And it's cheaper than you guys.

[B]

It's cheaper than me going in person. It saves me traveling. They get a tour of my studio. They've got loads of stuff they can print out. I'll even send them something for real in the post, a big drawing for their classroom. Send it in the post. It did not work. It just did not work. Because what I didn't consider is schools cannot pay for anything online because the way that all of the admin in school works is that the council will send the illustrator a check. Like they do it in such old fashioned ways so that all of the software that I had set up where they could just look on my website, say yes, I want to buy it. The teacher themselves could not choose to buy it and they couldn't use their own credit card because the school wouldn't reimburse them. So every time I had a school interested they would say please can you send me an invoice and we'll send you a check. And it completely ruined the whole idea because it just took so much work.

[A]

Admin as well.

[B]

Oh, it was so annoying. Yeah, really annoying.

[C]

Isn't that weird? The thing you would least expect about the transaction being difficult was the financial purchase.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I was thinking, are you going to say like putting it on a screen wasn't compelling enough to keep the kids quiet to listen?

[B]

Oh well, I think that's okay because I have it free on my website and schools download it all the time. And for World Book Day often I'm asked to do a zoom visit. I just wanted to automate it. I just wanted it automating so that it could be going on easily without me having much input. But I will. I still do zoom school visits and in real life school visits sometimes. But automating it and making a checkout for schools just to do it without me having much input. No, didn't work.

[C]

That's fascinating. And you did so many nice illustrations. Some of my favorite illustrations of yours.

[B]

Were for the school visits. They're still on my website. Anybody can go and download it for free. I decided it was way better just to give it away for free than have to invoice a school and wait for a check and then take the check to the bank. It was so nice. The other thing that I've really got into and went mad for it for a couple of years was making all of my artwork digital. And I made three or four books digital, some using a combination of handmade and Photoshop, one of them completely on Procreate. I'm out the other side of that experiment now and I'm really, really into doing paper again.

[A]

It's so funny isn't to see the different things get obsessed with. And then.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's what happens with me. I get obsessed with an idea and I really want to do it and sometimes they work really well and sometimes they're just like, Helen, that was a rubbish idea. Drop it now.

[C]

But you see it through. I think it's. You're not a kind of. You don't drop the first sign of trouble. You actually see it right through. Make something of it, complete a project and then say, I'm going in a different direction. So unflaky. That's. I'm scared to death about being flaky about things. So I have to feel really sure it's going to work because I can't bear to drop it halfway through. You're a follow through. Very, very loud.

[B]

I don't know. I think I've just got one of those brains that likes new ideas all the time. I just really like a new idea. I get very excited about it. Like recently on so on Substack for Age, I've had loads of newsletters I send out for free and then there are some behind a paywall. But I really, really love the Blind Boy podcast, as you know, because I talk about them all the time. And on his podcast he has A patreon. But he says, I want this to be a fair system. Those that can't afford it can still listen because those who can afford it, pay for it. And that makes a nice community. And then one day, just out of the blue, I thought, I am going to do that now. And I just went in on that day and just turned off. Well, no, you can still pay. People who want to pay can pay, but those who can't afford to pay don't have to pay. If it doesn't work and I end up not being paid to write the newsletters anymore, I'll have to rethink it. But I really hope it works because.

[A]

Even before, before my substack was even a job spot and there was nothing was behind a paywall, people paid, which I had. I was like, why are you paying me? I like wrote to these people. I was like, you're paying me why? And they're like, I'll just like you. I was like, that makes me feel weird. It needs to be an exchange of something.

[B]

The numbers have stayed about the same. I really like the idea that because at the beginning of your career and for lots of illustrators who are carers or parents and or you know, they've got other stuff going on in their life, they're not making very much money. So it feels like a fair and nice way of doing it that might make a really nice community. So I'm giving it a go.

[A]

Yeah, I was thinking that about experiments like pre Good Ship had more time for little experiments like Bullet Journal Gang was one. But then yeah, when Good Ship started it was like where do autumn energy to go and what is the most fun and easy and has the nicest reward. Like not just financially but like satisfyingly. And productivity was a random experiment as well. And it was fun but just didn't have like the. I just fizzled out, I think.

[C]

What was productivity?

[A]

It was like a 30 day thing where I shared different productivity tips and ways to get stuff done and people said nice things about it. But it was just. I don't know in hindsight now but I got was like ADHD coping strategies. Yeah, before I knew I had adhd. But like at the time it was just fun. But on all those experiments you learn so many things. And especially with Bullet Journal Gang because it was an online course before we had Good Ship it taught me so much about even just like how to set up.

[B]

It was so valuable for us for Good Ship that you'd done that.

[C]

I was sitting in a cafe and he Said, this is what I want to do. Do you want to be part of it? I was like, yeah, that's a brilliant idea. But how? I went away on holiday and came back and Helen said, I've just been speaking to Katie. She's got the how magic and the fact that we all live in the same town and already knew each other. All of those things are quite spooky, actually. That they were already in place and each of us had a different input into what we needed to make a course. It was like we had the starter, we had the main and the dessert together and it's a dinner party.

[A]

And actually that was the big thing I learned from doing both Bullet Journal Gang and Pocket Productivity is I can't do it by myself. And that it's really, oh, I can, but it's exhausting and not sustainable. But working with you two.

[B]

And I couldn't do it by myself because I'd had the idea that I wanted to run an online course and I built up my Instagram following with a mind to let's make a really nice community then launch course. But I just never did it by myself. It was only when you two said, yes, yeah, I'll do it that it start that I could start kind of.

[C]

That we're all in the same in the same town is miraculous because we manage most of our interactions throughout the WhatsApp group, which is mostly red hot from 9am to 5pm but then we can still get together and have conversations and we know that when we're in person we get loads more down and we have loads more ideas and we spark off each other and we can do the podcast in person. I mean, how mad is that that we actually live in the same place and had all the ingredients to make something. I'm sure we're like the Beatles. She's gone crazy.

[A]

Actually, the Beatles have got good hair. And Helen was cutting your hair earlier, wasn't she?

[C]

I meant to say, yeah, we've now built in some hairdressing into the community.

[B]

I take my hairdressing razor with me everywhere in case I'm not enjoying somebody's hair.

[A]

If you come to Bologna, maybe Helen could do.

[B]

Yeah, oh yeah, definitely. I'll bring it for a day for.

[C]

Razor cuts because we couldn't find anyone to razor cut hair and it my head, my hair was looking like some silver helmet and Hal. So before we did started the podcast today, Helen's made it really beautiful.

[B]

Your Graham walked in and went, what's going on? Because Tanya, you were just talking to your husband, weren't you? And he walked into the room and he's chatting to you. And I just got hold of your hair and ran a razor through it. He's like, what's happening?

[C]

We were going to continue it into the pot. So it's like a hairdressing podcast that. That could happen next month.

[B]

Actually, I was thinking about mad experiments we've done in Good Ship as well. And about art club. Do you remember we had this chat where we said, shall we go live one Friday night? Shall we just go live? And it was going to be a one off thing. And we did it. We were so nervous, we just giggled our way through the whole thing. But when we got to the end of it, we realized something like 500 people had been watching. And then we said, should we do it again? And we're still doing it.

[C]

You're now an institution.

[A]

It was like every Friday for the year 2020. I'm sure it was every single Friday.

[B]

I think it was longer than one year. I think it was a couple of years every single Friday.

[A]

I don't do anything Friday night, so I might as well.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Especially Covid Friday nights.

[B]

Yeah. And it was just an experiment for one night, but it worked. Experiments are important because sometimes they work better than you can even imagine.

[C]

Maybe we should make that a challenge. I mean, there's all these different drawing challenges. How about one big fat challenge? Do something experimental this month. I think I'm a terribly dull and unexperimental person.

[B]

So if I could say that is not true. That is a lie. That is not true.

[A]

Fibulate.

[C]

Did I go in a straight line? I don't zigzag enough. I need to do more zigzagging. I was a little bit sick in the. I didn't realize she was zigzagging.

[B]

I wonder if, if anybody having listened to this, does a mad experiment. If you could let us know what it is and how it goes.

[A]

Yeah. I think what makes a good experiment is when you. For an experiment, you kind of have to get married to it for a set amount of time. Otherwise, because if you're a bit wishy washy, you they're like, I'll try that. They're like, oh, no, I won't. That's not a real experiment.

[C]

That's being flaky. And that's the scariest thing of all. This has to be a commit for a bit.

[A]

You have to put your white lab coat on, get the test tubes out, and even make a spreadsheet. If you or like write something down, what you're trying. And then at the end, did it work or not?

[C]

I've got a scratch record in the sound of my. It's in my head and I got. So I can't talk about what it is because I'm so bored of hearing it anyway.

[A]

Can we guess?

[C]

Yeah, you can guess. What does it begin with?

[B]

Whiskey?

[C]

No.

[B]

No. Oh, no.

[C]

Two things that I've thought right. I thought all the way through. The whole plan exists, part of the work is undertaken, but I haven't completed or haven't even begun.

[A]

Do you want an experiment from us or do you want to make it up yourself?

[C]

Have you got a fresh experiment for me?

[A]

I'm just gonna make one up for you right now. Cool.

[B]

Go for it.

[A]

Okay. If you give yourself three months.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And even if you only did one post per month for three months and just saw what happened.

[C]

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. And if you will be my accountability buddy with that exact quantity, I don't have to do any more than that.

[A]

How violent can I be with keeping.

[C]

You accountable as much as you like.

[A]

Message you daily. Why haven't you posted yet?

[C]

You won't have time to do that.

[B]

I know it, don't forget.

[A]

But.

[C]

Okay, challenge accepted.

[B]

I think it's also useful to know that even the way that your sub stack looks can be an experiment. I think I've changed my logo thing twice, I think since I've had it on. So I think a lot of people get really hung up on the look of their substack or their website or their business.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

And you can change that. You can make it nicer. You like it now and then if in a few months time you don't like it, you can change that.

[C]

Yeah, you can upstyle it, can't you?

[A]

And even if you don't get around to personalizing it at all, still counts if you do three posts.

[C]

Okay, that's it. I've got. I think I've got my bit ready, my personalization ready. I'm just going to launch in and not introduce myself and say I've always been here. Sorry, this is what was on my mind. And I begin here. There'll be no hello. This is my aim. This is what this is going to be about. All intros are off. I'll just start like it's been running forever.

[A]

Yeah, it goes straight to the action.

[C]

Helen walked through the door today and I said to her, look, I've got one Wally dog, the other one is missing. What am I going to do? For anyone who doesn't know, those are the, like, little white Victorian King Charles spaniels that are hand painted, like Staffordshires, and I've only got the one. And Helen was like, well, this is a really good opportunity to make a cardboard one or a paper.

[B]

I love the idea of making a mirrored one. That's wonky. Your version of the other Wally dog. It'd be so good.

[C]

Isn't that a lovely idea? I wouldn't. I've never thought that that was a great example of how your brain works. It looks for opportunities. Do something bonkers.

[B]

And that's.

[C]

I think that's your kind of your creative setting, is you're open to it all already rather than thinking, how little can I get away with? Which might be my slight settings.

[A]

Do you have that thing where if somebody tells you to do something, immediately seems like a terrible idea?

[B]

Yeah. Even if somebody tells me to watch something on the telly, like, nope.

[A]

If I'm going to on my way to do something, say, for instance, fold some Washington Cameron's like, oh, that washing needs folded.

[B]

They're like, well, me too. Do it.

[A]

And now I can't because you've told me to.

[B]

Yeah, me too, because you felt told. Yeah.

[A]

If you tell me, whatever you do, don't fold that.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I can do it now that you're not letting me. And it's annoying because I can see myself being silly.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

About it, but. Yes.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, me too. Yeah.

[C]

It's like when Barbie came out and I thought, that's the last thing I want to do. And then I went to see it and I really liked it. And then we told. Everyone liked it, then we hated it.

[B]

I hated it. I can't tell you how much I hate hated that film.

[C]

Oh, we were like, yeah, double bluff, triple bluff at the end. You like it. No, on every level. Helen hated it.

[B]

I felt manipulated it by the film from beginning to end. And on the bits where it made me laugh, I was like slapping my own face. Why are you manipulating me to laugh now?

[C]

If you need to approach Helen with anything, you've got the strategy. Don't tell her. Maybe invite her. So, experiment week, if you fancy it.

[A]

Yeah. Let us know what your experiment is as well, because we're all really nosy.

[B]

We are. I want to know. I want to know.

[C]

Absolutely.

[B]

And then later down the line, whether it worked. Whether the mad experiment turned out to be the best thing you've ever done or you had to quietly stop.

[C]

Well, yours was illustrating a wedding Or a TED Talk. And you didn't mean to.

[A]

Yeah, I was like, oh, that drawing on the spot. Sounds fun. Try that out. And then it's just like a snowball. I couldn't stop. And I was like, okay, this is fun. And I like doing it. People want me to do it. I might as well make this my entire life.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

That's amazing, isn't it? Has anyone's career or approach come about by accident or happy coincidence or conscious experiment?

[A]

Tell us about it.

[C]

Yeah, send it through.

[A]

Cool. Okay.

[B]

See you next week.

[A]

Yeah, see you next week. Yes. I was going to say this is the end of stickers, but it's next week, the 20th.

[B]

The end of free stickers for people who join the picture book.

[A]

Yeah, it's the 21st of November. I think you can get stickers till then.

[B]

Yeah. Art club is Also on the 21st of the day that it's the last day of the stickers offer for the picture book course is Art club is.

[C]

Do you know what that art club is?

[B]

Or is Art club on the seventh is we're making boxes into a little room and then putting a little character in there as a. As a. An experiment for how to do backgrounds in a picture book.

[A]

And if you're listening to this afterwards, which you might be, it's on our Instagram, so you can go and watch it. The replay will be there. It's hegoodchipilustration on Instagram.

[B]

Bye.

[A]

Bye. It.