Hi, we're the good ship illustration. And we run online courses to help illustrators and image makers navigate a creative career. We are Tania, Katie and Helen, we have about 70 years experience between us, each of us working in a different area of illustration. Welcome to message in a bottle of our new podcast answering your questions, you can send your messages to Goodshipillo@gmail.com. And title it 'message in a bottle'. So we know what it's about this episode, we've been said some juicy questions. This one is from Casey. So Casey says. My question current concern as an illustrator is that I don't think I have a style. I like using various media like ink and watercolor pencil watercolor pencil drawing charcoal, gosh, gouache they're not. And I'm not ready to settle on a particular way of drawing because of this lack of style feeling. I feel like I'm not unique enough as an illustrator, and I don't feel confident to approach clients, because even I don't know what style need you as me. I don't think this has been touched on in any of your other podcasts. Sorry for her. Thank you. I know that we have covered this up. And we've talked about confidence and things, but not specifically feeling like you're not unique enough. Yeah, I think we've talked about it in live calls in the course lot people are concerned with style on the but I think it's also important, first of all, to say we kind of go icky when the word style is mentioned, because we were allowed to talk about it. And it's such a weird word as though it's a consumer item that you can purchase and bolt on. And I do remember in early days, I was told by older illustrators, you've got to have a stake in something, that's you, and that could be the medium. Remember, this illustrated told me I personally dip a toothbrush and paint. I pull a cocktail stick across it, and it splatters and that's my thing. That's my style. I was on a fine art course at the time. Wow. Is that all you that you get a style? Thereafter, anyone who mentioned style in the educational context that stops there? What pen is that you're using? As if that pen will make it? Is that the thing? Yeah, it's the toothbrush and a cocktail stick. I think the thing that makes somebody unique is like it's so pleasing when somebody is just 100% themself. And when you're 100% yourself, you're not adopting another style or another personality, you know, when somebody just has absolutely no self consciousness, and then you can't stop listening to them. I think that's where it like individuality lies. And I think we went to ask him about that tangent with Tanya, because in the 90s such a cynical time, wasn't it? Yeah. And get passionate about something without undermining it a bit as well. So if you love something, you have to pretend you hated it. And that you liked it. Ironically, there was so much irony. Yeah, it was so awful. I'm really angry about it now. I think you're right. Actually, a Katy just worked out. We're all different generation. So I think I just shut the boomer door behind me. And I've got one foot in Gen X. You know, if I'm Jenna, your customer, if you're on the cusp of to the official phrase, did they shut? Did they explain all the characteristics? It's like the zodiac? What does the customer so a customer is very good at mediating. And like straddling the two generations. I feel like a peacemaker of the boomers and the Gen X's. Yeah. I'm a Gen X, but very angry at Gen X. Do not like it was a really interesting thing at that conference. They said to communicate well with the Gen X. So you've got to do pitching a project, you have to see all the reasons that will fail. Because they're so used to like skeptical. Yeah, approach. Everything was so cynical. Yeah. Then once the like year will fail. You're right. It's gonna be terrible. You could make it work. We're interested in what are you? Are you a millennial? Oh, my God, so young. And I think the thing about millennials was, I'm not even sure. Like, I can't remember. I think it was too excited about the Gen X and the boomer information that millennials are like, yeah, flip phones, but they basically said, how have you communicated as a teenager impacts how you communicate the rest of your life. So our style could effectively be part external, from the culture that we grew up in. And then our personal ability to be open or vulnerable? Or whether we're really uptight, we need to pretend we're very cool. That's interesting, isn't it? All those layers? That's what makes you an individual, isn't it? That's what makes your work individual. It's all those layers of like, what is the real you you can't separate it from how you grew up, you can influence the environment, because it's all these even education, what your parents were like, what generation they were from, yeah, what they brought to the table, or freak flag. Of course, I hate to make it sound like a selling thing. But that's, you know, that's what we're trying to do is help people find out who they were and what influences impact acted on their lives what thing? They really thinks they really liked that? Did they grew up in a home full of books or pictures? Or is there nothing visual? Where did you get your stimulation from? When I remember teaching in Hong Kong, the students that I knew went back home to tiny, tiny bedrooms in small flats that were stacked to the ceiling with every single family, there was no storage. And I didn't mean they were poor or anything. That's just how houses were. So how do they sit in a tiny bedroom and come up with these amazing illustrations, and this incredible imagination, when they're surrounded by the mundanity of life, they're not walking around a huge hospital or paintings or anything, they have to do it. So on one hand, even if you've got you grew up in a house without any cultural kind of aspects to it, or you didn't, you weren't exposed a lot to it, it doesn't matter still your imagination and what you drew from the world around you the books, you read the things you think the TV programs, or the books you didn't have, and the art you didn't have? Yeah. And so what are you interested in? Did you love cereal packets? Did you love comics? Like, my house was full of books, there were books, but there weren't, you know, when you always hear on Desert Island Discs? You know, it sounds like such a middle class question, isn't it? What books? Would you take your desert island? You know, there's so many houses without any books? Why is that? Like the ultimate question to show your intellect? Maybe you were just really into like the toy you got in your cereal. And if that's your influence, that's your influence, isn't it? That's the else section in we have, we have to fly your freak flag. And it's interesting because he talks about his imagination purely from pop culture. So popular culture that he grew up around, that was around him, and how that came out in tango. And he made things out of cardboard and had an brilliant imagination when he was a kid. And basically, his job now is exactly the stuff he did when he was a child. So he sells all sorts of ephemera made out of paper. And it kind of had like, funny and silly ideas and rebellious ideas, mostly all printed on paper in some way. And that's exactly what he did as a child is just never, he's never gone through that phase where you reject it, you think now I have to be a serious the proper job. Yeah. And interestingly, he's allowed most, it's easy to say from a certain generation were women had that freedom, if they were married to a breadwinner, they could explore those things. But as a guy had all these pressures to bail at some point, I'm going to be a father and have to bring money. But he still remained in his child mode and explored those things and made a living out of it. There's this act two aspects of finding your uniqueness, I think, and one is all of the things that have been an influence on your life. So those are all going to be the subjects of your work. All this stuff has influenced how you think what your eyes enjoy, what makes you you. And then the other aspect of what makes your work unique is the materials that you'd like to use, you might like to always use, I don't know, chalk on black paper, or, or I'm just remembering some drawings I saw by a Japanese illustrator. Once were they the only thing they had at hand was some sort of white shiny card with really thick paint brushes with ink. And the shininess of the card sort of resisted the ink. And he drew these amazing big grasshoppers on this slightly resistant card. And the textures and everything were amazing. It's all he had. And that made his work incredibly unique because he didn't have access to an amazing stocked art shop. So yeah, it's kind of what you grew up with all the weird and strange stuff you grew up with. And then the materials you choose that don't even need to be from the art show. And that's the thing, you would know what feels good to you until you try. Yeah, so that's what we're saying. Like the one of the easiest and hardest things is just a start. And then once you start you're going to figure it out as you go. And I think we can get really tied up and thinking you've got to nail down what your style is going to be. Yeah, before you started doing anything. Did you know when you did your first commission? Absolutely not. I'm still working it out now. Yeah, I was just like, Oh, you're gonna pay me to draw picture? What do y'all do anything? The best way to learn is on the job. And a percent. Yeah, I think the other thing, just going back to style as well is existing out of time. Don't think too much about them now and who you are right now. Because we're surrounded by trends, you know, immersed in global illustration, just by virtue of being online and looking at Instagram. So you start to look at yourself in relation to what's happening now and think that made me think things like I'm a bit like that, but it also been like that. You always need to remove yourself now and go back to your real core. And sometimes hide away from social media when you're trying to establish your style because it gets into your head. Yeah, I don't need those things messing up your true voice. We talk about going into a cocoon doing you know, it's looking at your own stuff. You know, I think I completely became an illustrator because we used to go on caravan holiday is in the north of England, in the snow quite often. And so we'd be in the caravan with the little bar here to run with that specific smell you get from a bar here, and then we'd have all felt pens on the table COVID And sheets sit for hours lost in our own world with the rain on the top of the caravan. The smell of the strip matches when I try and recreate that every single day like is there a candle smells like stripping off our fires this morning I want a candle that smells like the accountants office because I pop the litter in and this morning when I opened the door and it was coffee and organization I just smelled so reassuring candle caravan one buff i Oh yeah. I want to add health food shop 70s at health food shops a certain smell that helpfully was so wholesome. I feel like all my sins are washed away you know, wellness. One of my friends houses when I was little smarter reasons. And that was Donnie Gilbert her house. I heard a tip I quit candle tip to make everything smell lovely. You get a bowl of coffee beans, and you put a tea light in a vanilla flavored tea like warms up the coffee beans, and then your whole hospitals have been over coffee for a bit awful. Stuff time he just like if you really want to get started. I mean, you could hang on for ages. It's like pretending you when you got your beach body, you know, nonsense Beachbody radio. So now I wait. And my work is great. And if you do that's a danger will never, it'll never happen you didn't have an interest in pointing to and he said it probably isn't the time to approach clients. Yeah, I think if you're really unsure, and the styles are too different, push yourself a bit harder to try and merge them or find out who you are, if you really want to approach clients wait until then I'd say because if you go is too much confusing stuff, you'll get a rejection. And that might knock your confidence, just push a little bit further and see if you get to some kind of point of consolidation, where you look reasonably consistent. Even if the materials are different, this doesn't really matter. I think even if you get even if you get a body of work together that is consistent for now save 12 images that you like and are consistent, you can get foot in the door, because people know what they're gonna get, you haven't got a random selection of artwork that's all over the place. And you're difficult to commission because they don't know which one they're gonna get. If at first you managed so 12 images that hang together that you're happy with, you'll start to get work. And as you start to get work, you'll work out who you are. So it's like a What is it, that what you'll get is to be you've got to have that confidence. I remember being quite fresh, and it was easy to persuade me to do almost anything because it's the first job and you crave direction, and sometimes that direction companion. So you need to have a certain awareness of who you are and what you do and what you don't do. Some people do that through contents of their thematic, they only draw wildlife or they only do maps. So your style could also be about your themes and your content. It doesn't have to be how you look. So this internal and external as well as color or medium. A bit of various mix of those can help you sort of coalesce into a stronger identity. And people sometimes trip up and I'm in the in the Finder creative voice course we get a lot of people who are like, I've got three sounds and they're completely different. It doesn't and then we see them. We're like, no, that's all your work. Like, I think because you're so close to it, you feel like it all looks completely different. But it all comes through your hands, your eyes. And that thing when you saying I'm not unique enough, just existing is unique is unique. Your specific, maybe show someone who you really trust he has a vision or some sense of visual awareness. does this all look like it was done by the same person? Do they get a sense of an individual out of this before? You got Don't ask too many people that because they all say different things and then you just end up brain fried? Yeah. And maybe don't ask your partner in case you have a massive run out. We were just talking about this this morning. We had we had a cup of tea with some friends on the road. So me and my partner Jerry, were both illustrators and our friends are both artists. And we were talking about the route with your artist partners when you asked to give you advice. Can you give me advice? Almost if he was around, yeah, because they started reminiscing about a discussion they'd had and it did get a bit heated. Otherwise, we need like therapists portfolio surgery, isn't it somebody removed emotionally from your labor that could look at you one day I would love to do that when there's time. I'd really like to do portfolio review There's no time now but I'm doing a future plan just to shuffle them or a shape or butter pattern to show. Yeah. I think I think we've covered that. Yeah. Let's let's talk about Kansas. Thank you for listening. And yeah, of course that will be mentioned is find your creative voice fly your freak flag. The doors are currently open, but there will be again soon, you could look on our website and join the waiting list and sign up to my newsletter. And there's a color what color workshop and lots of work. They can help you start finding your creative voice before we even get started on this art clip on YouTube as well, you can subscribe to our YouTube site and do lots of art clubs whenever you feel like playing and having some fun. So we'll see you there. Bye