You don’t have to draw everything (even in picture books)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Good Ship Illustration – "You don’t have to draw everything (even in picture books)"

Release Date: July 4, 2025
Hosts: Helen Stephens, Katie Chappell, Tania Willis

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Introduction

In this episode of The Good Ship Illustration, hosts Helen Stephens, Katie Chappell, and Tania Willis delve into a common challenge illustrators face: managing backgrounds in their artwork, particularly within picture books. The discussion centers around overcoming the intimidation of creating detailed backgrounds and exploring strategies to make them more approachable and effective.

Overcoming Challenges with Backgrounds

The episode kicks off with a listener question from Emily:

Emily (00:26): "I'm finding background scary. Do you have any handy tips for where to begin? I love my pencil and ink sketches, but as soon as I think about the background in colour, I feel like I freeze up and worry. How do I make them feel more achievable and doable?"

Tania responds by recalling a conversation with illustrator Chris Horton, who initially struggled with color in his work:

Tania (00:41): "Chris Horton really had a thing about coloury. He said he wasn't intuitive about it and he couldn't do it, which is crazy. When you look at his work now, his color is so incredible."

They discuss how Chris overcame his fear by experimenting with Photoshop, leading to a breakthrough where he realized that backgrounds don't have to be realistic:

Tania (01:17): "He realized backgrounds don't have to be realistic. They could be any color. Just because it's a green grass background, he can think like a designer and do a magenta pink background."

Katie emphasizes the importance of simplifying backgrounds to ensure the main character remains the focal point:

Katie (02:14): "It doesn't have to be tackled with the same attention to color or detail or rendering that you've used with the character that you've created. Less is more. Basically."

Techniques for Simplifying Backgrounds

The hosts explore various methods to create effective yet simple backgrounds:

1. Tonal Similarity: Tania explains how maintaining a tonal uniformity in the background helps the character stand out:

   Tania (02:39): "The whole background might be tonally very similar... something about either tonally the color of the background or the way I hold my pen in my hand is different."

2. Varying Line Weights: Katie adds that using thinner lines and lower contrast in backgrounds can create a sense of depth, making elements recede naturally:

   Katie (03:28): "You want things to recede behind the character. So it's either low contrast... or the line is much thinner than the line you use on your character."

3. Digital vs. Analog Approaches: They discuss the challenges of working digitally, such as the temptation to over-zoom, and suggest semi-collage techniques to maintain balance:

   Katie (07:13): "If you can sort of semi collage those things in like a trial... separate layers... or if you work in analog, maybe collage them a bit with bits of paper."

Inspirational Examples and Approaches

The conversation shifts to inspirational figures and mentees who have successfully managed backgrounds:

• John Burningham’s Style: Tania highlights Burningham's ability to blend painterly backgrounds with cut-out characters, creating a dynamic and emotionally resonant illustration:

  Katie (08:38): "He can plonk your characters on and have a look. That could be the final artwork."

• Mentee Rachel Bayless: Rachel’s detailed work serves as an example of balancing intricate backgrounds without overwhelming the main character:

  Tania (08:36): "She had all her work was wonderful... It was so full of emotion and it had a printed element and a little collage and painterly element."

The hosts praise Rachel’s ability to convey emotion and story through her illustrations, emphasizing that technical perfection is less important than storytelling.

Embracing Failure and Creativity

A significant part of the discussion revolves around embracing failure as a natural part of the creative process. Inspired by the Blind Boy podcast, they advocate for experimenting without the fear of failing:

Tania (10:28): "He says as soon as he's had a ridiculous idea that is definitely a fail, then he's completely free to play around in that space. And then he's off and he's writing and all he's doing is messing about because the purpose is to fail."

Katie (11:43): "It's all about action, isn't it? Do something rather than do nothing. It's so easy to hope for perfection from yourself that you become paralyzed."

This mindset encourages illustrators to take risks, make mistakes, and view them as opportunities for growth and innovation.

Community and Art Clubs

The hosts reminisce about their experiences with art clubs, highlighting the benefits of communal creation and the pressure-free environment it provides:

Katie (12:15): "We had art club all the time... People created so much good stuff. Each session you'd have one drawing that you were actually proud of."

They promote the upcoming launch of new art clubs coinciding with their picture book course, encouraging listeners to join their email list for updates:

Tania (13:35): "We're going to launch the picture book course soon. And we're gonna have two art clubs around that time."

Conclusion

The episode concludes with a light-hearted exchange among the hosts, reinforcing the supportive and community-driven ethos of The Good Ship Illustration. They encourage illustrators to simplify their backgrounds, embrace imperfections, and engage with the creative community to enhance their artistic journeys.

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Notable Quotes:

• Katie (02:14): "Less is more. Basically."
• Tania (07:13): "It could even be the approach for the final artwork."
• Katie (11:43): "It's all about action, isn't it? Do something rather than do nothing."

Join the Conversation:

For more insights and to join the upcoming art clubs, visit thegoodshipillustration.com and subscribe to their email list. Stay updated through their Instagram for the latest announcements.

Transcript

[Emily]

This question is from Emily. She says, I'm finding background scary. Do you have any handy tips for where to begin? I love my pencil and ink sketches, but as soon as I think about the background in colour, I feel like I freeze up and worry. How do I make them feel more achievable and doable?

[Tanya]

Is this a picture book person? I think so. I just guessed they could be any. My mind jumped straight to our chat with Chris Horton the other day where he was struggling with colour. He really had a thing about coloury. He said he wasn't intuitive about it and he couldn't do it, which is crazy. When you look at his work now, his color is so incredible. And I remember him saying that he scanned in a black and white drawing, put on Photoshop, dropped in a color in the background, and then what did he do in Photoshop? He upped. What? You talk about this, Tanya, and I can never remember the term. Something called threshold. Yeah. Would that be the right word?

[Katie]

Could be. I really don't know.

[Tanya]

He did some magician, he did some magic in Photoshop, of which I. I'm not sure what he did. And then really loved what came out when he had black and white drawing with this color thing he did on Photoshop. And then he realized backgrounds don't have to be realistic. They could be any color. Just because it's a green grass background, he can think like a designer and do a magenta pink background. And that was a massive breakthrough for him. So maybe this illustrator is thinking what backgrounds should be rather than what they could be. If you let go of preconceived ideas about Picture Book. If this is a picture book person, picture books have got to have lovely detailed backgrounds with loads of stuff going on. Maybe you're not that kind of illustrator and you're more of a miffy illustrator like Lucy Cousins. And you've got a mouse with a plain primary color background, maybe a horizon line and a plant and a butterfly in the sky.

[Katie]

Just linear. It doesn't have to be tackled with the same attention to color or detail or rendering that you've used with the character that you've created. We're presuming it's a character. It usually is with Picture Book, isn't it? The more you put in the background, the more you'll lose the character. So you've got to try and keep the space and the structure in the image, haven't you? So less is more. Basically.

[Tanya]

Sometimes I'll have done a detailed color background, like there's something in the story that means the background needs to have a lot of stuff going on in it. But then what I do is I think of the background as a whole. So the whole background might be tonally very similar. So the character might have like a bright red dress on and yellow tights or something so they pop forward. But the whole background might be like beige or gray or lilac with little tiny bits of color in. I might have the red from the dress watered down a lot and use some pink in the background. But something about either tonally the color of the background or the way I hold my pen in my hand is different. So the character, I might hold the pen quite firmly and it might be a stronger line. And then the background, I hold the pen so it wobbles about a bit as I draw the background.

[Katie]

Or it's a thinner line, isn't it?

[Tanya]

Yeah.

[Katie]

You want things to recede behind the character. So it's either low contrast, like the grayish you talked about, or the line is much thinner than the line you use on your character. So it looks like optically everything's going towards the back and it's cooler colors that recede or just less detail. The same way we look across a landscape and you can't see much detail as it recedes through the hedges and the fields and the trees until it's just simple silhouettes. So even silhouettes of things.

[Tanya]

I'm thinking about Katie. We sometimes talk about how if this person works digitally, backgrounds can become difficult because you've got that evil zoom in tool.

[Katie]

Yes.

[Tanya]

I have to really resist if I'm working digitally going anywhere near that zoom in.

[Emily]

It's so hard because they're so tempted. Like, just zoom in.

[Tanya]

I'll draw a bird very carefully on the tree. And then you pull out and your eye is just drawn straight to that.

[Emily]

Look at that tiny, fiddly bird. Read the background.

[Tanya]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Begging to be looked at. It's so hard. I think as well, when you look at picture books or other people's work and it has got really detailed full backgrounds and you might think, oh, I've got to do that. That's what a background is. But it's sometimes just like a hint, isn't it? Like something to anchor them, give a bit of context where they are.

[Tanya]

I'd get into a bookshop and pull out loads and loads of books and just have a look at how other people tackle backgrounds. Because I think often in picture books, I don't know why this is, but a lot of people think backgrounds have got to be Detailed.

[Katie]

Oh, that's the worst thing you can do, isn't it? You've just got to figure out what do you actually need? Is it a door that someone's about to come through or a landscape or a staircase or whatever. And only focus on the essentials. Unless, of course, you're a hyper maximalist and your work is all about details. A bit like Katie Bell. Yeah.

[Tanya]

Our mentee from the one on one mentoring session thing.

[Katie]

Yeah, that's it. We had four men.

[Tanya]

Oh, yeah. She was like a Jigsaw illustrator. Her work was so detailed. Yeah. Like Where's Wally? Where's Waldo? With all the crazy detail in the background. Yeah. That was amazing that you could tell.

[Emily]

How much she enjoys doing that level of detail.

[Tanya]

She loved it. She loved it.

[Katie]

And maybe that's, you know, if your book is about creating big immersive spaces for kids to get lost in and point out lots of different things, then you're kind of flattening the space down and making everything come to the foreground. That's one way of working. But if you're trying to just hint at backgrounds, you don't need all that information. Oh, I've just lost my train of thought. There's something else I can say about backgrounds without repeating myself. And it's totally gone. I'll just shout it out randomly in a minute and interrupt you.

[Tanya]

Tanya is half lying on the sofa under a weighted blanket, so we need to be kind to her.

[Katie]

Katie's bought her weighted blanket round for me because I can't sleep at night. And I thought, well, I'll just give it a little go now. But clearly my brain power's fading. I'm about to fall asleep any minute now.

[Emily]

It's a parasympathetic nervous system feeling soothed, squashed, like you're in the womb again.

[Tanya]

We just talk amongst ourselves while Tanya.

[Katie]

Oh, I know what it was. It was the technical workflow thing. So if you work a little bit digitally or you've just got some. You only need basic digital skills for this without risking your lovely character on that page and drawing things behind it and it going wrong and then you're ruining the whole illustration. If you can sort of semi collage those things in like a trial. A lot of people do that, don't they? So that it's a low risk approach to a large scenario that you can have all the different elements on separate layers, or if you work in analog, maybe collage them a bit with bits of paper and place them in and out until you've Got the right balance of elements in the image so your character and your central action isn't overwhelmed. But you don't have to do it in a oner.

[Tanya]

That makes me think of. I mean, that could even be the approach for the final artwork. If you think of John Burningham, where he'll draw or print a really painterly amazing landscape or a sky or something, or a wilderness or. I'm thinking of his book, Harvey Slumpfenburger's Christmas, one of my favorite books. Because he makes you say the word Harvey Slumpfenberger so many times, he can barely speak. Anyway, so Father Christmas is on this mission to deliver a present to a little boy. Because he gets back after his huge Christmas Eve trip, delivering out to all the presents, and he finds he's got one left in his bag, so he has to go back out and he has to do this huge journey. And it keeps saying, Harvey Slumpfenberger had to go up the Roly Poly Mountain. I can't remember, but you say the word Harvey Slumpenberger a million times. And all the backgrounds are. They look like. Don't know, painted in two minutes with a big fat brush and some. A bit of two different colored inks with a bit of paint in it. Some of them look a bit printy. And then the character of Father Christmas looks like it's drawn on a separate piece of paper and cut out. And every spread Santa is cut out of a piece of paper and stuck on these incredible backgrounds. So good. Then when we did the one on one mentoring session the other day, somebody was cutting out. She had all her work was wonderful.

[Katie]

Rachel, Rachel Bayless, Bailiff.

[Tanya]

Gorgeous work. Reminded me a little bit of John Burningham in that it was so full of emotion and it had a printed element and a little collage and painterly element. And this is what I was saying to her. Please go away and paint some really big painterly backgrounds and plonk your characters on and have a look. That could be the final artwork.

[Katie]

I love the DIY sound of that. Just that sort of speed of saying, I've got a background here. I'll cut the character out roughly and put him on, and that is finished. I mean, the joy in seeing quick, handmade things now rather than overwrought, over rendered, complex perfection.

[Tanya]

That's the thing with John Burningham as well. He's all about the feeling and the emotion and what that bit of the story, what you need to feel, what that bit of writing is doing. And I always think he looks like he's just focusing on what is this? What does this picture need to do? And even if the drawing is weird and the hand's too big and the knees are too knobbly or whatever's going on, he. He. As long as it's telling the story. He. He is. Yes, that's it. He's so brave in just leaving things, just leaving things slightly wrong because they're doing exactly what the story needs, whatever needs to be told on that page.

[Emily]

He's not got the curse of final artwork.

[Tanya]

He has not.

[Katie]

Yeah, that kind of cavalier confidence and some sometimes previously. We were talking a couple of podcasts ago about what if you don't like the style that you think you have discovered and that you're boring, your work bores you. Sometimes it's as simple as seeing something brave, almost risky, spontaneous and handmade and just saying, yeah, that's it. Print 20,000 of those. That is the finished work. And when you see something like that just thrown. Thrown together, it's like, wow, that works.

[Tanya]

Thrilling. Yesterday, I listened to the newest Blind Boy podcast, and it's called something like A Message for Artists. It's that episode, if anybody wants to go and find it. But in there, he's basically saying, as an artist, what you should strive to do, he's not even saying, just accept this as part of the process is fail. So don't just accept failure as part of the process, but on your venture to make something decide. He said he sits down at his desk to write his new story and he. He says he'll think, well, I should write a story about this. What would happen? And he gets in his head about it. So then he thinks, I am definitely going to fail, so what I'm going to do. And he gives a great example, and it's something like, oh, what does he say? Oh, something like pull the other man's trousers down or something ridiculous. And he says as soon as he's had a ridiculous idea that is definitely a fail, then he's completely free to play around in that space. And then he's off and he's writing and all he's doing is messing about because the purpose is to fail. And then you accidentally don't fail. I really like how he's not saying accept failure. He's saying, try it, try and fail. Because then you're doing brilliant. Yeah. Then you're doing something and you can edit it and fix it later.

[Katie]

It's all about action, isn't it? Do something rather than do nothing. And it's so easy to hope for perfection from yourself that you become paralyzed. You don't do anything and you avoid doing the work. But I think that continual making and doing and not assigning a huge amount of value to the things I'm saying all this. I don't know whether I can really do it myself because I haven't been making enough recently. But yeah. Just playing and saying nothing is for the. Is to be used as a final piece. Yeah. Building in the failure really makes sense. It's like self Love it.

[Tanya]

You said you're not sure you do it yourself. I'm not sure I always do it myself either. I think we're lucky when those times arrive when that happens. Aren't we? It's not something you can just arrive at and do all the time. It's like Art club. I feel like that happened at Art Club all the time. Because we were against the clock sort.

[Emily]

Of manufactured Art Club to do that. Didn't I was like you can I make loads of bad work? Let's go.

[Tanya]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And everybody was ready for it.

[Tanya]

And then made the best drawings. Yeah.

[Katie]

Always still want to make the big art Good Ship Art Club illustration exhibition and get everyone to send in their favorite pieces of work they did from that. Because I think that lift of pressure just People created so much good stuff. Each session you'd have one drawing that you were actually proud of.

[Tanya]

Yeah.

[Katie]

And surprised you.

[Tanya]

Yeah.

[Emily]

I had a big pile for the recycle bin.

[Katie]

Yeah.

[Tanya]

I hope you didn't put them all in recycling. You did some amazing drawings. Especially when you drew yourself looking like a lemon head.

[Emily]

That one survived. I love that.

[Katie]

And Helen's legendary scary granny child.

[Tanya]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Old Lady Baby.

[Tanya]

My Old Lady Baby self portraits. It's so weird. Old lady baby turns up all the time. I even turned up in real life when we're at Bologna and somebody took a photo of us. Yeah.

[Emily]

In this photo. Helena bodied Old Lady Baby.

[Tanya]

Lady Baby. Do you remember the photo? Tanya?

[Katie]

I think I do remember you seeing that. There was a really scary picture.

[Tanya]

My hands are doing something.

[Emily]

Like you'd become monitor or something. You've been given.

[Tanya]

Some power's gone to my head and I don't know what to do. Art Club.

[Katie]

We need another art club. Is there one soon?

[Tanya]

Yeah. Yes. Because we're going to launch the picture book course soon. And we're gonna have two art clubs around that time. And I've forgotten the dates.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Tanya]

Me too.

[Emily]

If you. If you're on our emails. Which you should be. If you go on our freebies on. Just go on the goodship.com Good.

[Tanya]

Sorry.

[Emily]

Thegoodshipillustration.com and scroll to the very bottom of that first homepage. You can join the emails there. But we'll announce it. And we'll be on Instagram talking about it as well.

[Tanya]

It's in the next few weeks. Yeah.

[Emily]

End of June.

[Tanya]

Yeah. So we'll have a couple of art clubs.

[Katie]

The time is ripe for art club, isn't it? Let's make some scribbles.

[Emily]

Okay.

[Katie]

So see you next week.

[Tanya]

Bye.

[Katie]

It.