Okay, so we've had a brilliant question. And I'm sure a lot of people will be in the same similar boat. So this one says I'm feeling really depressed. But having found a sweet spot when my little one was younger, where I was finding the time to be a mum and create and work through the courses, but now I feel like I don't have any time between his increasing needs and the need to make money, big accommodation, meals, etc. haven't helped. I know that this time is limited, and I should be making the most of it because he'll grow up so fast, but I feel so frustrated. The only thing that feels like it feeds my not a muscle is when I snatched the time to do an art club exercise on catch up. Also says I would love some advice, keeping the dream candle burning. While it feels so far away. And the dream candle. Shih Tzu is being a professional illustrator and getting beyond this stage, while it feels so far away.
Helen:Oh, oh, I mean, this must ring bells for so many people. I remember this so well. I mean, my girls 15 now so she has a better social life than I do. And she doesn't need me like that anymore. But I remember those early days been so hard. Yeah, I would say just don't set your expectations too high. Like even one tiny thing every day. I mean, even surviving the day is is incredible. So if you fit one tiny thing in everyday, like drawing with your child together on one piece of paper, and maybe even take a picture and put it on Instagram, so that you're talking to other illustrators with kids, because this is a conversation people love to have on Instagram. Still staying creative. While you have children. You keep your expectation small, tiny, tiny, creative thing every day. I actually wrote down a few things. Yeah, make a tiny sketch. But I remember even sketching with pie was impossible she would. Soon as I got my pencil out, she grabbed it out of my hand and start drawing on my book. It was really hard.
Katie:We have that do like grabbing the Apple Pencil and slobbering all over it and smash it on.
Helen:It's expensive. I used to really like going to the library and looking at all the picture books, because she was really happy with that. And I was really happy with that. That was a really good little task to do together quite regularly. But you know, Katie, you're in. You're in the thick of this. Now.
Katie:I'm living it. And yeah, and it doesn't help. But everyone does say like, oh, enjoy it, the grow up so fast. And the annoying part of that is that you know, it's true as well. And then enjoy every minute. Yeah, really, every minute. All of them like this one's not very enjoyable. But yeah, there's, I think, like Helen mentioned, just lowering the bar for yourself and make it so much more tolerable. Because it is a short chapter, isn't it? I'm sure I read somewhere, that it's something like 5% of their life is those three, first first three years with me, that's terrible maths, I'm sure it was something like that. I'm bad at numbers. But that put it into perspective. For me as a kid, maybe for three years. I don't mind working part time and feeling a bit frustrated and like, all the time, and also not feeling bad about getting childcare if you can't afford it. But then also, names of childcare may not not tear as well. I know Frankie from doing it for the kids. That's a brilliant online community for people with children who are freelancing, but she did childcare swap in the summer holidays. So it probably worked all the time. If you had friends with small children, like they did a swap. So like one afternoon, one person had both the toddlers there that afternoon somebody else had that who's older than toddlers. But this is an example. So let if even if you can't financially make formal childcare work, you can totally bond together with friends and doesn't matter if you do a family you can look, find people and stick together how we
Helen:used to do that our neighbors over the road had children similar age, and we used to just swap shifts in the summer holidays, throwing them over the road. So you get a few hours to yourself. And then the next day, there's a comeback. That was really useful. I was gonna mention Katie as well, like, have you found that when you do get time to work that you're way more focused, because I stopped watering the plants and doing the dishes and I realized that that time was so valuable that I would get in that work room and I would really really focus way more than three children.
Katie:Absolutely. I'm like a machine like a go in. And actually my studio is so messy now because tidying the studio is not a valuable task. So I'm just like a go in like a wall, a one clear path to the desk, sit down and get the work done. It also means a much less tolerant of like time wasting rubbish. So if I'm on client calls, and nothing's happening, I'm like well, Okay, moving on. Moving on. I've like I've only got nine hours a week. What are you doing? You're wasting my time. So I don't know if that's a blessing. I just seem really angry when I work with people now because I'm like, What is this? Do you know how little time I have and you're trying to blend things with when the baby the toddler is awake and not waiting till she's asleep to do things sort of like really boring stuff like housework before I was like waiting till she was sleeping and doing it but now I'm just like, a letter hold on to my leg while I'm doing the dishes and get Weetabix out of the cupboard and eat them dry sitting on the floor so that I can cook tea and like I don't know I think just letting it exist alongside the other bits of my life so that then when she is asleep I'm like great it's work time or art time. And
Helen:we I remember you talking about doing the dishes we used to have a dish washer. But what I realized was that if my hands were wet from washing up PPE I did not want me to touch her I touch her toes or anything she used to wet. So we got rid of the dishwasher.
Katie:The real reason,
Helen:the dishwasher partly because she just didn't want anything to do with me. Well, my hands were wet. And I would just have my best ideas just staring out of the window. And the dishwasher just became like a big stinky cupboard. It was oh, it was so horrible. So yeah, we just got rid of it. Because often I'm washing up and have great ideas staring out the window.
Tania:Yeah, you could have value those time and space. It's only so sleep time is premium time. And only for you and your creativity.
Katie:Yeah. Which is sad for Cameron, my husband, cuz sometimes I'm like, I can't talk now. I need to work and read things and just have my own time. I've been talking all day. Not having any time to myself. So goodbye. Which is maybe not fair on him, but it won't be forever.
Tania:Yeah. I can't think I mean, there may be illustrators out there who have managed to do large projects when their children are under five. It seems impossible. But maybe you did it. Helen.
Helen:i Yeah, I did make picturebooks. But I was really I was really lucky to have friends nearby with babies as well, you know that I met at the yoga groups before she was born. So we would swap shifts with the babies. We drop them off at each other's houses and get a few hours. I still made picture books while she was little. But I'm not saying it was easy. It was quite stressful.
Tania:Did it go slower? Like to take a lot longer to do? Yeah,
Helen:I definitely was slower than before. Yeah, I still made them. But it wasn't easy, snatching time. But like Katie was saying we're more focused in those in that a couple of hours where pi was at somebody's house. I was so focused.
Tania:Yeah, yeah. Even with primary school. I remember when I first met you, and I moved back to the UK. And I said, what hours do you work to get all this done? And he said, Well, we stop when they come back from school. School was really close. So it Pi was backed by quarter to four or something wasn't she
Helen:helped us three ish when she was little. Yeah, so the work day was from sort of half nine. But after I dropped her off and come back half, nine till sort of three, when I'd gone pick her up. It was impossible to work. After that. It was just too painful. It made us all unhappy. So all of my work time was squished in the middle of the day,
Katie:I think like trying to do both at the same time as when it gets horrible. Like when you're like, Oh, this is gonna be fine. She'll be asleep. They're never asleep when you want them to be asleep. If you're counting on a nap, don't learn from my mistakes. I started booking in client calls, thinking it was during naptime. And then she's like, what's that? You need me to be asleep? I don't think I don't think I feel very tired. That's what everybody
Helen:says. Our club is no we have art club. Seven o'clock in the evening UK time. And that's the time everybody's getting their kids to bed and the kids get wind of it. And that's it the week.
Tania:Yeah, but art club, that would be a good one. Even if you just have time to do art club. Yeah. Or we will say the little things you could achieve in small amounts of time. That would give yourself a win each day like making a couple of color palettes that only needs to be 10 minutes fiddling with your paint. Just give yourself 10 You could
Helen:probably do that with a toddler at the table as well. Just mixing colors together. They'd love that.
Tania:Oh, we were talking about the polar Metcalf thing won't me.
Helen:Oh yeah, that recent Instagram post by Paula Metcalf picture bookmaker, she's working she in school I just worked in live Russian she was in
Tania:it was in school and but it was a five or six year old and they collaborated on some artwork together. I mean, her artwork is amazing anyway, but these two pieces that she posted that she shared with a five year old oh my god, they're amazing.
Helen:This lovely project, wouldn't it if you get your pens out every day with your toddler and you draw together and you just put the results on Instagram?
Katie:Definitely. There's somebody doodly boob on Instagram or she draw things for children's coloring as well while she's or maybe it was somebody else. There's somebody on Instagram doing that's genius. Yeah, as soon as she's old enough to coloring
Tania:them to do half the work they can do do that if you try and
Katie:hit coloring. We I think the theme isn't it. It's just like accepting help and kind of lowering your expectations on yourself.
Helen:I must tell you about some probably bad parenting. I did. Oh good. Yes. Well, I've put locks on my studio DOMA studio had two doors two ways in. And obviously you think I'm gonna sneak off and do a bit of work now. And she'd be in straight in. So I had to put locks on the doors. It was really painful. I can remember it was fine. If I pretended to go out of the house and say I'm going to work leave the house. Soon as I could here or playing with Jerry. I'd sneak back in into the work room, lock the doors, and she'd be fine because she was with Joe and she thought I was out but if she heard the tiniest noise in there, she'd be at the door let me know she used to put letters under the like sneaky little letters and it was absolutely heartbreaking. And sometimes she used to cry if I was in their work and it was terrible. But she She used to get a revenge by when I came out of work. She'd go in and lock the doors and shout cry mummy cry
Unknown:Oh, yeah, painful, but you know, go pay the bills. You have
Tania:parental guilt everywhere isn't that you never feel like you're doing it right. So even if you did it perfectly, you wouldn't escape guilt free so you might as well get some work done exactly. Make use of the guilt that came anyway, she got payback.
Helen:I felt like that was a healthy end to the situation. I cried outside the door
Unknown:to cry if we covered everything, should we have another question? Yeah.
Tania:Okay, do you found some good questions? Didn't you for ones? Is that the the the gentleman from New York?
Katie:Oh, yeah, this one. So we'll not do names. Obviously, we'll just go straight in. So this one is very juicy. When the pro children's book illustrators slash writers want to come up with a new idea to execute? Are they researching what the trendy topics and styles are and try to produce where the market is heading? Or if they believe in the story? Did they just check their gut feelings and be with a publisher and dive in?
Helen:Well, speaking as a pro children's book publisher myself, No, I never go on Instagram and check the trends and topics. In fact, I avoid them. Because by the time they're doing the rounds on Instagram, you make your book takes you six months to make it publisher six months or a year to publish it. That trend has moved to harm. And, and there are so many people doing those trends aren't there? Yeah, it's just, I feel as if Well, this is what we talk about the good ship all the time. You're better to find your own obsessions and write about those. Because too many people are doing those trendy topics. You don't want to be another person on Instagram, doing that style that's doing the rounds. Because how are you going to stand out from the rest? How are you going to have a long term career with that trend? When that trend goes out of fashion? Where are you?
Katie:Yeah, it'd be sad. And we were wondering if it's maybe different for American markets.
Helen:I get the feeling it might be Yeah, I think in the UK, maybe. Maybe the world of picture books is
Katie:a bit more wonky and organic. I'm sorry,
Helen:I was gonna say quirky. But I don't want to be insulting to American publishers, because there's so many brilliant, quirky American books out there.
Katie:Yeah. There's always that feeling that America is a little bit more slick and Catholic and commercially minded.
Tania:It's also a big market, isn't it? So if there is a trend, like pirates, your favorite, which we should talk about after this and how you didn't want to do pirates, but eventually did, but you know, something like that, there would be so many titles, and so many different bookshops and market can probably cope with it. But the UK is really small. So if there's one notable book that breaks a trend or introduces it, that becomes a main book, and there's not space for too many of those before they don't like weak wannabes.
Helen:Yeah, it's so true. Yeah, I've talked about pirates. i You've I've always got a list. In my head. I've permanently had this list in my head of things I never want to illustrate. And they're basically things that I've never seen in real life like unicorns. Mermaids, pirates, dinosaurs was dinosaurs. Dragons. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, I was asked to illustrate a book with pirates in it. The story was so brilliant that there was no way I could say no. So I had to try and work out how to draw pirates. And they're so good. Oh, yeah. It's a really nice challenge. I'm so glad that I decided I would have a go. Because it turned out to be really nice. You know, breaking through one of those barriers, it felt
Tania:good. But they were your you made them your own pirates. And they didn't come about at a time when pirates were at their peak. Do you remember about 15 years ago, pirates and dinosaurs merged into a hybrid genre, and everyone had to do those? You don't see them about anymore? Like,
Katie:I just remember that our fees. Remember that? I was 12 Maybe everything had I was on it. It was when I was at college, left college, do an animation and I was like, I liked I was everything. I had an hour on it. But I was like, When will this bubble burst? was lost.
Unknown:That was
Tania:another one. Yeah. Avocados. Well, that's not children's book illustration. You say owls. It's another classic Helen once the owl trend has flown Helen does an owl book.
Katie:Yeah, you were too late. 12 years jovia though.
Tania:She'd cleared the arena of competition hours my very own along with pirates to follow.
Katie:Yeah, that's the thing isn't like in the freak flag course we're always talking about. Figure out what you want to do and do that first before you start checking in with anyone else that your life is that you've got. It's more than just what you like doing.
Helen:Yeah, your obsessions, the things you've always loved the things that you You're absolutely loved drawing and keep turning up in your sketchbooks. Those are the things you're going to make the best work about because you feel stuff about those things.
Katie:I love the stuff that I forgotten the name of the picture book course student who did by Paula blob. jody smith. Yeah. Look up bipolar blob being a trend and rhetoric about that nobody visually published now is published
Tania:now. And they've made little plushies of bipolar Bob. So it's, you know, serious backing. What does it think it's sweet cherry publishes? Maybe I've got that wrong. But yeah, her book came out about three months ago. I mean that there are a lot more books for children about mental health. But she's written this, you know, from her own perspective for her daughter is absolutely brilliant. Look up jody smith illustrator on Instagram. Yeah. But someone's got to make these trends, haven't they? And they usually reflect. They're successful, because they seem bizarre, but they reflect something everyone's thinking. So I got really annoyed when everyone bought beach huts. And prior to that they built tree houses. I was like, That's my stuff. I was waiting till I got older and had some money, and I was gonna build the tree house. And if I couldn't do that, I was gonna get rent a beach. And then everyone's got a flippin beach hut. You can so they've sold them all. And now they're like, 500,000, each down south. They're really expensive. But it does mean that all the things you think are your own private obsessions. If, if you just get them out there quick, share your cookies. You'll find the resonate with so many people. So you be the trend maker be at the beginning of it. Put your weirdest idea out there and therefore go. Wow, I think like that. I think
Helen:that's so true. Sometimes you're not seeing it all over Instagram, you think you've got this weird little idea yourself. And you think you feel like the only person doing it? And then you really suddenly over the next few months. There it is all over Instagram. You think, Oh, that's weird. How are we all doing that? And it's like a Zeitgeist thing. And I think artists are really good at picking that up. And I think if it comes from a true obsession of your own, that's a really good place to start. But by the time if you look on Instagram for it, you're too late. Yeah, too late.
Tania:And it doesn't resonate properly. You can see people are like, Yeah, I don't pick mushrooms. But I'll draw one. I can see it. They don't know the name of the mushroom. And they haven't been in a forest and picked one. It shows.
Helen:I'm like that was their walk to see hashtag. I look at the web to see hashtag and if somebody hasn't drawn it from life, I know. I absolutely. I'm looking at it, I think. Yeah,
Katie:the article of police are real. Mushroom Joy police are also you don't really believe in this mushroom.
Tania:So if you want to find out how to access your true quirks and weirdness, then maybe consider doing fly your freak flag. Because that's what that's all for is finding what your true voice is in the absence of? Well, if you haven't accessed it yet, and you don't have the confidence to know who you really are, or you want to find out how to understand your ideas a bit more. That's what we teach on that course. Yeah, no trend following.
Katie:Are we allowed to tell people the top secret thing about the freak flag course that is it? Tell me evergreen thing?
Tania:Oh, yes. Yeah, do it, then we're committed. We're committed. Yes.
Katie:We tell you in real life. It has. It's real. So yeah, our big plan, probably for the new year, once the birth of the business course, is to turn the freak flow course into a thing that you can just access instantly. You don't have to wait for a live round, it will just be there waiting for you on the good ship shop shelf. Yeah. Yeah, that'll be exciting.
Tania:And it won't, it won't lessen the experience. If Well, I'm not saying you have to do this. But if you join the Facebook group, where everyone's at different stages anyway, because we've got groups that had that did it last year or the year before. And they're all returning back to it at different times and taking it at their own pace after the first run. You know, you can do it at your own pace anyway. But those groups are always posting work from different stages in the course. So if you're in the Facebook group, and you feel like I'm just I just started this Monday, there's probably no one doing it this Monday with me shocked. Yeah, you'd be shocked. You're posting on Facebook. And there they are all the people going or you're doing that part two now.
Helen:And we're still do our live zooms where you can come in with your questions. So whatever stage you are at the course you can still come to us with your questions on the live zoom.
Katie:Yeah, and we're only doing it for the freak flag. So the the picture book course doors are open right now. If you want to join that live round, and we're going to keep doing that one and the business course will be live rounds as well for now, but yes, we just have to tell you that exciting. Thanks.
Tania:Great. Should we do another small question?
Katie:I didn't set the timer for the answer.
Unknown:I feels like 20 minutes. Yeah, that feels like 20 minutes.
Tania:Yeah, I think so. So we'll do we'll record the next one. But bye for now.
Unknown:Bye bye bye.