Hello, welcome to the Good Ship Illustration podcast. We're here to offer no nonsense advice to illustrators and image makers navigating a creative career. In the good ship, there are three of us and Katie Chappell. And there's Helen Stephens and Tania Willis two, we are celebrating our flagship course find your creative voice file your freak flag being opened this week. So we've got lots of episodes all about finding your creative voice. This is a question that we get kind of all the time, then. And not directly, but we'll see glimmers of it like in our online community, and in the live calls and on Instagram and things in the DMS. And it's people wondering, like how long find a new creative voice takes, and not even in just like a commercial sense, like making a living from being an illustrator, but just you know, and feeling confident about your work, making work with feels good. Sharing it with the world, that kind of thing.
Helen:People ask how long the course is, as well, how long it takes to do the course, which is a similar difficult question to answer, because the course is actually literally eight weeks, but you have lifetime access. And you can do it at your own pace,
Tania:which is what we'd advise if someone just went straight through eight weeks, and that would have been a little bit overwhelming, you couldn't necessarily be in a full time job to do that. So we'd advise because most people are in a job. So you just eke it out in a way that suits you in a way that suits your life, maybe it takes you three months to go through it. Or you do a quick skim to begin and go back and then start again, spending longer on the things that speak to you and taking time.
Katie:And find a new creative voice sort of lasts forever. And I only I feel
Helen:like that lasts forever. It's like it's like, it's like saying, I want to have this idea life. You know, it's about it's the way you live your life as well. You're always improving it, aren't you always rearranging where you keep the cutlery in your drawer or how you're going to sort out where your clothes are stored or like your whole life is full of decisions that are trying to improve things. I think it's like that with your work as well, isn't it? So to
Katie:take the never ending project, but it's a good project. It's a fun project to work on. Yeah.
Helen:And we really help people pull it into shape. Quick, quickly with the freak flag course. I mean, it's still a lifetime work. But we got it. Exactly. Yeah, we kind of want to we we've kind of signpost, everybody in the right direction. Yeah, I
Tania:think we, they're not shortcuts, as such. And I think you wouldn't want to expect that you will be a fully formed illustrator at the end of doing an eight week course. And some people do have those expectations. But it's, it's all about developing yourself, like Helen said, and becoming a more creative person. But once you can start looking at a series of images that you've made that looked like they were made, by the same hand, they've got consistency, they this, they stand out in that they are not like a load of other illustration, you're not making yourself a cookie cutter, cutter Illustrator to be sent straight out into the world, you need to be valued for what you make. And that needs to be quite unique. So that's what we try to help you do is become yourself.
Katie:There's lots of ingredients to it, isn't it because you're developing your taste, your own taste, and then you're also developing your confidence in your own work. And your ability to like, appreciate what you do and think actually, this is valuable, like my work is gonna help. Wherever
Tania:and we talk about the gap a lot. Don't wait, the taste gap, which is a big, it's real, the taste gap is real. You know, you probably love, I'm sure you have loads of things that you would put all over your wall like an external Pinterest sheath, you've got great taste for what you make might not match up to that. And that's a real body blow sometimes, isn't it when you start and a lot of people get knocked off course because the gap is large. But if you know it's going to be there, and you're forewarned, and you're if you're in the early stages of your career, you can you can deal with it, you'll get there but perseverance is a really large part of illustrating a good illustrators skill. Because I You said there's lots of people you've seen have been really talented. But they don't. They don't follow through and don't keep pushing. Yeah, don't
Helen:get their work out there. That's good. I always
Katie:thought growing up that that was all you needed was to be really good at drawing. But then when you look at the pie chart of being a successful illustrator, being able to draw as a tiny slice yeah, there's so much other stuff involved that was really angry about that actually. You got that published. It's rubbish.
Helen:I was quite pleased when I found out that because my dad was a car salesman, and I thought oh, this is great because I really like art. But there's a bit of me that really loves hearing about what my dad does. So it felt to me like a brilliant a bit of me that seemed like when I was at art school the fact my dad sold cars was just a blank a bit embarrassing. He wasn't a great artist or a writer. But actually when I left art school and thought that brilliant I've got this extra ingredients to propel. Yeah, the entrepreneur, what did you Dad used to say? Throw a lot of it. throw enough mud at the wall and some of it will stick. That means send out samples to everybody all the time.
Tania:I think that's what your dad got your career on the road. Yeah. And it really is with his very wise advice. But then you were said, Katie, that only What did you say out of your course, how many people became illustrators from a course of what 2830 Off
Katie:the top of my head, like who have stayed in touch with and sort of peripherally seen, I think, three or something very, wow, sad percentage. But then people, I think part of the developing a creative voice and things are a big part of that is perseverance, isn't it, because it's not consistent. And it's so easy to be like, Oh, it's not working, I'll just go back to my job and stuff it never meant to get there was never gonna happen. But I think the people who do become illustrators and do find their creative voice Mytek make a success of it, whatever success is to you, or the people that kind of throw enough mud at the wall and see what sticks like to keep going and keep going and try new things. And, and even that perfect life analogy, like, you know, consistently just keep improving, painting things. And even if it's just like a nought point, 5% improvement, it
Helen:will accumulate and learning on the job is been really vital for me. So I didn't really know what I was doing. But I got my first book published. And I learned a lot doing that book. And I still didn't really know what I was doing. And I learned a bit more on the next book. Like, it's very hard to motivate to motivate yourself to learn it without a reason to do it. So I just jumped straight in with absolutely no clue what I was doing. And just learn as I went, like, an amazing apprenticeship.
Katie:Leslie, yeah.
Tania:But there's also in this time thing, there's also a case to be made for the part time job isn't there, you can start slowly on a low risk level, rather than going all in. Because then if, if you're not getting enough jobs, you can, it makes you feel like you're a failure pretty quickly. Because if you're not getting enough money to live on, you know, you think well, this isn't happening quick enough. But if you keep the part time job going, you can afford to take those risks and maybe do a few jobs, you
Helen:can turn down the jobs that you don't want to do the ones that don't feel like a good fit, which is brilliant, because you've
Katie:got the financial, I always felt like if my part time job paid my rent and bills, anything else was a bonus. And then it didn't mean that like if somebody got in touch and tried to lowball the budget of like now, I'm not your Illustrator. Whereas if I had no other financial income or anything, I think like raspy, desperate energy for consensus. You've got legis, not smugness, the word
Tania:safety belt.
Katie:I'm not gonna go for that, because I'd rather just
Helen:not be working don't want to end up taking any job. I remember when I first left art school, I was just telling you guys this a bit earlier. But a friend of mine said that she would pay me to do a card for her dad to think it was a retirement card. And I said no, immediately. And then she said no, no, it won't take you very long. It's just a quick one. It's just a drawing off. My dad playing golf and a naked woman in the bushes cream job.
Tania:If you've got that in your early career portfolio, imagine the jobs it would have led to margin where
Katie:40 Post
Helen:she said she would pay me with a lottery ticket, by the way. No. Yeah. Yeah, that part time job at the science museum was excellent.
Tania:Because they say whatever you do, you do more, there's some phrase like that, if you what you do, you'll keep doing. So if your first jobs in your really crucial portfolio are things that you accepted, but aren't really proud of in the end, and you put them in and there'll be, there's bound to be someone who says, Oh, I love that golf or with the naked woman. And then with loads of ideas, that will be your career, it will take off in that direction.
Helen:So there's quite a lot in the course, don't we, where people have ended up in a direction that didn't really want to go in. And they feel more certain what their creative voices now, and they want to do more of this, but they don't know what to put on their website, because if they put the old work, you're guaranteed to get more work like that, but they haven't really done a lot of the new year work yet. But it is really important, isn't it to just not don't show anybody the stuff you don't like, because you're just going to be stuck in that rut of doing that forever.
Tania:It's a sods law thing. There's always someone who loves your worst work. It's a bit like rubs, if you include a rough version of something you don't like the other two you love somehow
Helen:there was even and they always pick that one do you
Tania:almost have to put blinkers on and think I don't want to understand why that law works. It doesn't mean that my best ideas are rubbish. Because you've got to believe in yourself, which is the confidence thing as well. Perseverance, confidence. Yeah. And
Katie:there's that thing of never offer something you wouldn't be happy to give? Like it's it's like that basically, you know, if you say we say to somebody, oh, I can't do that day, but I'll do this other thing instead, when you're like don't don't take me up on the offer. Don't take the best option is to not even make an offer and assemble your portfolio like don't show the work in the first place. Hmm. Because then you will be in a sticky position where you want to do this.
Tania:So that's self initiated as a way to go, isn't it? Oh, yeah, put the work in the portfolio that you want to do, even if it wasn't the job, take the time to do your own work. So some people feel like their validation only comes when it's a real job. And then they become a real illustrator. But you become an illustrator, the moment you start making work and putting it out there, making yourself available for work that is you being an illustrator,
Katie:that's the stuff that's really hard to do by yourself, isn't it? Like, look at your website, change what direction you go in, in do self initiated work that's on purpose intentionally. I think that's when doing a course with a community and other people doing the same thing is so valuable, because you can
Helen:go and be like, This is really scary. And then
Katie:three other people have looked, I know, but then you carry on doing it because you've got, you know, other people to bring you along. And
Tania:the Facebook group is so good for that. Especially when, you know, the first cohort come in, they say, Hello, I'm from wherever I'm from Hereford. And I've been working for a couple of years, but I'm really nervous about becoming part of this community. And during this course, I don't know whether my work is good enough. The old famous one a bit of self deprecation. And everyone kind of gathers around them says, Don't worry, we all felt like that when we first joined. You works great, and you'll feel confident by the end of this, you'll have a lot more certainty about your work. So yeah, the community is another part of the confidence building and giving you realistic expectations about you know how long it takes to get that creative voice going.
Katie:A long time but worth it.
Tania:What if we got anything nice to repeat?
Helen:Yeah, maybe a testimonial?
Katie:Let's find one.
Helen:I found one here. Well, good. The course is exactly what I've needed at this point. At this point and abundance of ideas to rekindle the joy of drawing making an exploring.
Tania:Castle lovely. Yeah.
Katie:We're doing art club this Friday. Club
Helen:doors to the Find your creative voice course close at our club. And if you love our club, we run it every now and again. We used to do it every single Friday, didn't we? Not anymore? Not anymore. We do special pop up one. So if you don't want to miss them, you need to sign up for our emails.
Tania:Yeah, 10 five second animal is the best bit as well as someone told me that this morning they said I love art club. But you know, the best bit is 10 second
Katie:Ellen's favorite. Yeah. Well, we'll hopefully see you there. See you