Just start. Okay.
Katie:So is it behaving?
Tania:Yes. All right. It's just my charger on the floor.
Katie:Okay, so welcome to this episode about picturebook special mini series of podcasts. Today. There's a few things worth mentioning before we get stuck into the questions. So the first one is that it's art club to meet it'd be lovely to see you there. Everybody's welcome.
Helen:If it's seven o'clock UK time free on Insta for everybody.
Katie:Yes. And then after art club, the doors will be closing to the picture book course. So if you do feel like joining in, now's the best time to hop in.
Helen:But don't don't email us afterwards ask him when the doors are closed? Because we always say this don't we? Were very lazy. It is not really laziness. Is it? The software's just really hard to sneak anybody in after the doors have closed? So if you want to get in, get in before doors close?
Katie:Yeah. And if you miss it, there will be another live round. But we don't know when yet. We're not that organized, but it will be next year. Okay, so with that all out of the way. Let's do the first question. So this one is all about finding stories to illustrate to this person isn't drawing their own? No, they're not writing their own stories, but they want to illustrate a story. So where can they find things? Oh, that's
Helen:a really good question. There are a couple of things I want to say here is if you definitely don't want to write and you know, you're just an illustrator, then you need to make a folio full of lovely images. And it's really handy to have something to hang those images on. So you could you know, take a story. fairytales are a good start, if you've got any suggestions, Tanya, poet, you could find poem, you could just write a little journey. So you don't, you don't need to be a good writer. Just think, Okay, I've drawn this character, I really like her. She's going to go on a journey today. And then you can fill your whole page with a picture of your character, maybe they meet somebody, they go somewhere together, none of this is written, it's all drawn. And in that little made up story, you're gonna have interactions between characters and funny things happening. So yeah, you don't need to be a writer. But as long as you can kind of imagine a story for your folio that would work really well.
Tania:You could also do nonfiction work. Yeah, that doesn't need a story. So you don't have to be a writer. If if you don't feel like an author, illustrator type character, you could just focus on your favorite things. Maybe they're whales, or you know, whales, as in the animal, or the place to eat. Or you could mushrooms Tanya Yeah, mushrooms. Or you could do the really simple your version of an ABC or your version of a numbers book, or have a kind of dictionary. If you look at the kind of very typical nonfiction books out there, just take one of those ideas and illustrate to that it may not be character led, but you can still have character led nonfiction books as well. You know, our character is guiding you through different aspects of learning about a subject.
Helen:You might not think of yourself as a writer. But you might actually that might be a secret talent you don't know about yet. Because when I first started in picture books, I went to art school, I only thought of myself as an illustrator. I never I just didn't even consider writing a book. And then I went to see a few publishers. And they all said, Yeah, we really like your illustration work. When we find your story. We'll give you a ring. But you know, I'm really impatient. And a few weeks went by and they hadn't found me a story. And so I just thought I'll have a go at writing one myself. It can't be that hard. That was a silly, you know, it is quite difficult. But I wrote my first one at the dining room table in one night, took it back in there published it. And then from then on, I was learning on the job I've just learned as I've gone the best way
Katie:to do it. Yeah, just because yeah, it happens. Like
Helen:I'm not saying that's the best book I ever wrote. I'm kind of glad it's out of print. But it was a foot in the door. And I learned on the job. And if you do our picture book course, we have loads of tasks in the picture book course, that will get you started on your own story if you want to do that. We've actually got a freebie on the website as well, haven't we? We've got the character workshop.
Katie:Yes. And that will be if you go in the freebies bit of our website, it's a top the big button in the top right hand of the gadget illustration.com. Yeah, freebies, and you'll see on there,
Tania:but there's also your childhood illustrated workshop, which is another great way to trigger stories just by kind of digging into your childhood.
Helen:Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it just scribbling memories from your childhood often brings back all of those emotions and feelings of what it was like to be a child. That's a really good starting point as well.
Tania:But then looking at the same subject of I'm an illustrator, but I don't want to write the story. You can equally say a lot of people think you've got to arrive as a team, to a publisher with a great story. So quite often these relationships are writer led in that a writer will say I've got a great story. Will you illustrate it for me and we'll go to the publishers,
Helen:but it doesn't work like no, I would steer clear of that. I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule. But the publishers really liked it. And they're very experienced to put in a writer and an illustrator together. And I think if you arrive as a team, you've got to be ready that the publisher might drop one of you, or they might be so worried about spoiling your relationship, that they're just reject the whole book. So I would be really wary of that. There's that thing, sometimes we've all had it where somebody's written a story, and they're not published. And they say, will you illustrate it, and then we'll take it to the publisher, I would seriously avoid that at all costs, avoid, you're going to be illustrating for free, the chances are, the publisher won't take it because they'd prefer to match a text with an illustrator, and they're so good at it. They want to be involved in that point. So yeah, I would avoid that.
Tania:And I think even if a writer is so keen, and they quite often they don't understand for a new story, book writer, how that how the system works, and they'll pay you but I don't see that really, an individual can offer enough money to really pay an illustrator to do what how many spreads? Yeah,
Helen:14 1516 spreads. The other thing is, they're probably if they've written it, and they have no experience of working with a publisher or an illustrator, they've probably got ideas in their head. And they're probably going to say to you, but I imagined it like this, and the enormous amount of changes and the terrible pain of working with somebody who has images in their head that they want you to create. It's just not worth
Tania:Yeah. And they're not visually LED. So you're sort of, yeah, it's not a good situation that
Katie:we add pressure, if they can pay you well, and it's from their personal savings. Oh, no, it's your personal money. It's just, it's not a nice feeling.
Helen:What if they say my favorite color is purple? Yeah.
Tania:And you know, quite often it's, people write about things they love that are dear to them. So they have very clear ideas about what they should look like, we had a student who, in order to supplement her, this isn't a good ship student at College, in order to supplement her final year's work, she took a commission from someone who wrote a story about their dog. But they started out directing her and it was all wrong. And so from an educational point of view, the images that were coming out, were compromised by the power dynamics of the relationship with the writer. And as a tutor, I couldn't then give her advice, when she was already receiving instruction from the writer, it was an absolute nightmare, because then her work wasn't good enough at the end.
Helen:Sorry, Tanya, I was just gonna say the publisher really good at keeping the author and the illustrator apart, which people are often surprised by that that the first time you meet your author is when you're promoting the book when it's out in the shops. And that's because the publisher, they really keep you both separate so that the author can't be doing that can't be given their own art direction, and just muddying the waters with their opinion, they really make it clear to the author, we've chosen an illustrator, we think they're going to do this, well, you have to let go a bit and leave it to them. Because you can't work like that, as an illustrator, you can't draw exactly what's in somebody else's head, it's got to come from your heart. So the publisher are really good at negotiating that they keep you well apart.
Tania:And your art directors, I mean, your art directors are Walker just amazing, aren't they, they know what makes a good spread, what makes a good book. And so whether you're an illustrator, working with an art director, or you're a writer, working with an editor, that's a dream situation, you've got someone at the top of their game, helping you make what you've got even better. So if you're approaching picture books, from the point of view as as a writer or as an illustrator, just go it alone if you need to. But if you embody both skills, or to the better, but don't feel you have to have written the story, it's okay if you just want to be an illustrator.
Helen:It's amazing how a lot of people like the way that I write, I wouldn't say that I'm a writer, I couldn't, I would find it hard to go away and write a story without ever having made anything visual first, a story almost always starts with something visual. And then as I write, I draw at the same time and the story evolves from drawing and seeing where the character leads me and then write in a bit and then coming back to the drawing. I think being a writer, Illustrator is a very different thing to being just a writer, so you might not think of yourself as a writer, but you might be a good visual storyteller. So yeah, we explore that a lot in the picture book course we find ways of helping you make your own story.
Tania:There's so many people that come out of pitch book course, who went in as illustrators and didn't imagine they would have the book content. By the end most of them got it.
Katie:Helen's got a good tools for eating a story out whether you think you can do it or not. So there was another question. I haven't got the exact word here, but the general gist was like, What do you reckon of this? The thing you said it's been happening for years, but this move Have to shorter, less words in vegetables? Yeah,
Helen:that that is a thing. So I think when you buy a vintage picture books from the 60s and 70s, or before, picture books were much wordier. They were long pieces of text like 500 words, 700 words, we've got a brilliant book by John Burningham called Barker, I think it came out in the 70s. It's about geese, is so good. It's absolutely brilliant. The text is really long in a way that you very rarely see in a picture book, or at least a British picture book anyway, the trend seems to have been ever since I've been doing it in the 90s has been shorter texts. Every now and again, something breaks the real I think the Gruffalo is probably a bit of a longer picture book format. So I think, yeah, try and keep it you've you're really taking into account how likely it is you'll get published if you keep it short sort of 200 words. It's an easier thing for the publisher to publish. Yeah, there's always exceptions aren't there where they'll do something longer, but you'd be
Katie:more allowed more likely to get away with breaking the rules if you've already made a name for yourself. Yeah, yeah.
Tania:What what is 200? Words look like, for example, a double page spread. If we got a small sentence on each page,
Helen:yeah, a sentence or two on each page, or like, you might have three vignettes with a short sentence on each vignette, and then two sentences on the other side of the double page spread. Yeah. Whereas you know, you look at some books from the 70s. And almost what have a double page spread, a half spread could be text, and the other half could be pictured here. If you can hear little footsteps, this is Billy Tanya's dog.
Tania:She was either in a wine outside the door, or we need to know what she's coming for. It could be more whining, but
Helen:it is a shame because there are some really lovely books with longer texts. Lots of them. I really like lots of the 1970s John Burningham books with longer text. Yeah, just doesn't seem to be the fashion at the moment.
Katie:But that's good to know if you're completely new to picture books, like any writing stories, keep them short.
Helen:You know, if a publisher, if you've written it longer, and the publisher absolutely love it, they'll help you knock it into shape and help you edit it. But as a rule of thumb, 200 words is about right.
Katie:Yeah. Billy's been put in our bed now.
Tania:You want to get the crunchy treats out.
Katie:There was a question here as well about struggling to visualize. So this person has written a story, but they're illustrating it. But they're really struggling to visualize what the children and their stories look like. And don't worry, you're in luck, because we did a workshop about this. Yes. The other day.
Helen:She says I can draw everything except the characters. Any advice on character design? Yeah, brilliant. We've got a freebie on the website that we just mentioned before, go on the website. Have a look at that. We'll get you started. Yeah. And in the course, there's loads of character stuff in the course, that is
Tania:so unusual, isn't it for someone to say, I can draw everything else except characters. Most people are character driven. And the question is, how do we do backgrounds? Yeah, so that's quite an unusual one.
Katie:And the character workshops great. It's just like a Quick Fire series of prompts, isn't it? And we've done it on Instagram a few times. But this time, we were like, Okay, it's gonna go on Zoom. So that can live forever on the website.
Helen:It's amazing what you can do against a clock or Arkla. We always draw it against the clock. And then we've done these character making workshops against the clock as well. And when you put off, you'd have no time to worry about it when you're against a clock. So when you put all of those worries, and what if the character doesn't work, if I do this, you put all that aside, and you've just got a timer on, you've got to get it down on paper. It's amazing what you can create in those little shots spaces of time.
Katie:It's magic. Yeah. Next one, this one is not about picture books. This was not either sneak this one in is about live illustration.
Helen:Or shall I read this one out? Yeah. So this is for you, Katie, it says, what are your top tips for live illustration? Would love to know more about how Katie does what she does? Maybe should explain what you do?
Katie:Yes. So I do live event illustration. So basically, that just means that draw pictures at events and meetings, while people are talking. So people are talking about things and I'm drawing pictures live. And I've done that for lots of companies like Google, Apple, Netflix. But the reason I became a live Illustrator is actually because of my inability to do deadlines. I just created a whole business around my inability to do normal illustrate things. But yet, so the adrenaline and fear of a live event makes me get stuff done. And I found out something I really enjoyed doing. So here's my top tips. And the first tip is to draw very fast that sounds really obvious, but you've got to be super quick. You can't draw everything that everyone's talking about. And I always think that's a mistake people make when they're starting out is they feel like they've got to be like an AI transcript machine and draw absolutely everything. But firstly, you can't do that because you're a human, not a machine. Secondly, when you draw too much content, it starts to look nasty, because it's too full. And it's just all word, nobody's looking at an illustration because they want to read loads. So just like the more pictures, the better. So you don't draw everything and have fun of it. Because it's scary, you can easily get really like tense, oh, my God and have a terrible time. And so the best and then oily, the only way to learn is to throw yourself into it and to force yourself to do it. Like everything, learn on the job. Exactly. And join TED talks in your bedroom is a great way to start. But it's not the same. First, the TED talks are so heavily scripted, that everything they say is perfect content, and you can't draw it all. And it's really stressful. But when human beings are talking, in a less practice the way, you know, like human conversation that meanders around, so they probably podcasts are much easier to draw, actually. Because it's more of a human
Tania:waste. more organic. Yeah, it's
Katie:more organic. So you could go to actual events and draw people talking. But you can't do it for free forever, as well. If you want to do it as a paid thing. You got to stop charging people.
Helen:Do clients ever come back and ask you for changes after the live event?
Katie:Yes, but I've got good boundaries now. So like you're talking about in the doing picture book to a things for schools that in the same way, like for like illustration, I've got clear boundaries. So I say like, this is what I consider an easy change. And I'll it'll take me like two working days to do adult work Fridays, this is a big change, it'll take up to 10 working days, I don't work Fridays. Piazza don't work, right. So you know, like this sort of change will be charged extra. You don't have to have changes if you don't want changes. So it's, yeah, sometimes, it's usually things like I might have done a little spelling mistake or have missed off something
Helen:that I didn't think that's what I would do, it'd be full of spelling mistakes can be atrocious,
Katie:too. It's only over the names, people's names, they get wrong, even if they're written on the screen. Sometimes it just like, obviously, very rarely, I'm very reliable.
Helen:And so you were telling us once that you have like a catalogue of symbols that are very useful when you're doing these
Katie:years, it's like the same sort of things come up again and again and again. So you get like almost a bank of icons in your head. It feels like the opposite of observational drawing because you like a globe, hand holding a house. Some of them are quite cheesy and gross, but then they do get the words across really quickly without having to write words. But developing your own bank of icon icons like that can be really helped. You
Helen:should have a look on Katie's Instagram for some examples of exes. Brilliant.
Tania:We should have a cut of Katie Pictionary. Christmas party.
Katie:I feel like unfair advantage Pictionary
Tania:will get you really drunk first think straight The other thing I think about your your your job bury you must be a complete genius. Do you know everything about the world? Because you've been on in on private conferences where they're talking about the future?
Katie:Just random knowledgeable, silly things. Yeah. leadership conferences and environmental issues and acronyms for things I don't need to know acronyms for. It's great.
Tania:Do you look at the news and thank god guys, you're so far for not doing that. They've got a whole other plan now.
Katie:Do you see like a generally like a general thermometer of the world like COVID? Obviously with a huge topic for ages. Yeah. And then the great resignation that everyone was quitting their jobs. That was a big one for a while. talent retention? Yeah, also a thing. Now everyone's quitting their jobs.
Helen:You must have a very organized brain to be able to pick out which bits of the talk are important and organize them on paper in a nice way. That's fair
Katie:affiliate my brain, maybe it's because my brain is so disorganized. Like one thing pops out in my mind. I'm like, Oh, but I write that down. Exactly. Pure Chaos. And if something pokes his head about, like, take that. It's amazing.
Helen:I'd love to you should do a call. I was gonna say, You should do a course about
Katie:one day, I would love to do a course on it. In the good ship, like after all the business courses, birth and everything. I think it'd be really fun. Yeah,
Helen:that'd be so good.
Tania:Yeah, watch this space for next year. Everyone's been asking for it, though. So next year, we're not pushing you or anything.
Katie:Like it's payment? We're ready?
Tania:I think so. Can I ask one of the really straightforward questions that people always ask over and over again about picture books. If there's a potential picture book idea, is it enough to approach publishers with the cover the main character design two to three spreads and a synopsis of the story? Like a bit more than an elevator pitch? Or are they expecting a full blown mock up of the book,
Helen:the first, the first option, do not do the second one. The first one is It is enough, you kind of summary of the story, or if you've written it, the whole story, couple of spreads so they get an idea of what it'll look like but don't think those are going to be the final versions. They're not the final spread versions of those spreads. Because as soon as you get a contract with a publisher, they're going to wade in there with their own advice and their advice is good because they've made so many books. So you know, send them some some samples of your work generally, one or two spreads from the book, a summary of the story, a synopsis of the story, maybe some little sketches that you've done, you know, development sketches for a character. And yeah, those sign, you can get a contract off the back of that. I think if you went in with a completely finished book, they would worry that you were too precious and you didn't want to change anything. And it might actually put them off. And imagine all the work you've done for no reason.
Tania:So You Think You don't even need the cover, you could do the synopsis, couple of double page spreads, character development sketches,
Helen:sometimes I do thumbnails, and I might do a little thumbnail of a possible cover, but that hardly ever makes it to the final cover. So I'll just do a thumbnail do a thumbnail thumbnails of all of the pages very, very roughly. And the synopsis of the story, or sometimes I've got the story and type it out. One time I was commissioned on the strength of lots of drawings of a dog that I'd met to, you know, a dog free home free housing shelter, yeah. Battersea dogs home, I had done lots of sketches of the dog, one in particular I really liked and I'd written the word fleabag above it. And I knew it was going to be a dog without a home. That's all I knew. And my agent sent it to my would be publisher, and just said, who will give this dog a home? And the publisher replied, we will. And then that became the book. So you, you definitely don't need a full, a fully illustrated finished book. That might be
Tania:the record for the smallest amount of input into the book before bagging the deal.
Helen:I don't think it know that often. I think once you've gotten your your foot in the door, and people know that you are capable of making a book, they'll give you a contract on an idea like that. And then sometimes you might say, I know we said we're going to do this idea. But now I've got another one. And they're flexible about it. That's it. All right, you've gone off. Unicorns now. Okay, we'll do one about what whatever your obsession is. Yeah. Yeah, sure
Katie:that you're flexible, isn't it? Yeah, they can be flexible, flexible,
Helen:creative, you've got lots of ideas, you're like working in a team, you're happy to take their ideas on board. I would also not send a publisher, just one. If you're going to send them a book idea, you need to make sure they know you've got lots of ideas, maybe some bits from sketchbooks, little characters. And so can I come and see you and show you all the interesting things happening in my sketchbooks. They want to see you as a whole person, they want to know that you're not you haven't got this one idea. And that you're precious about that one, they want to know that generally, you're a creative person who can generate more ideas.
Tania:And if you're thinking, Well, how do I even get to see these people in real life even doing that a big ask. But as visual people, we could make up the equivalent kind of digital PDF portfolio and send that to them again, right, here's my main idea. But I've got two or three look on these other pages. Here's some scribbles. And here's one made into a full blown character. So you can literally virtually ape, the meeting you would have with a publisher that you can't get to see because you're you're an early career illustrator, by putting together a kind of really compelling PDF like deck portfolio that you can send to them, or that your literary agent can send to them,
Helen:I'll put loads of those little little bits of your idea on Instagram. So you know, your characters face, and then your character meets their friend. And, you know, you could sort of tell the story visually in very rough form on Instagram. And if you're part of a nice big community of other illustrators, who know publishers, you know, editors, and you're in that, you know, follow the nice hashtags, where all of those people are hanging out, like walk to see ship LOL, or you can make connections that way. And publishers are actively looking for people on Instagram. So you know, don't write your whole story out and share that. But you can share tiny elements that show how lovely your work is. I know people who've been commissioned for a picture book off the back of a lovely image on Instagram.
Tania:That's hard. Isn't there? A hashtag for children's picture book pitch, there's some pitch, hashtags, a
Katie:picture book postcard or something? I'm not sure about that. I'm floating around where it's like you just put a little postcard of like, the sort of work you do and details I think
Tania:can be so much easier than sending to people just do the equivalent of your who will give this dog a home fleabag. But do it over a few days on Instagram with the right hashtags. That's perfect. Do you want to do any more questions? Or are we then I
Katie:think that's all of our questions. Excellent. Well, if you do decide to join the course we'll see you in because the doors closed tonight.
Helen:Yeah, Friday, nine o'clock tonight doors close after our club.
Katie:Yes. And if you've got any more questions that you'd like us to answer on the next see visa podcasts, email them to us. We're good ship ello@gmail.com Yeah,
Helen:we always find it hard to say goodbye. Don't we always
Tania:look at each other. We just loiter a bit here and people are listening drift off and then we can go alright,