Nov 2 - Experiments
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Okay. Let's talk about experiments. New ideas for fun. Those are my favorite ideas. You know, I just love ideas that spring up. I get very excited at the very first bit of an idea. Do you? Yeah. And if you tell me that, ~uh, ~it's an exciting idea, but then I must commit to it for an indefinite amount of time's.

~Nowhere where, what to do. Any of it. ~Kiss of death. Yeah, me too. Me too. So ~what I, ~what ideas have you tried? And then decided n nah and moved on. Ooh. ~Uh, ~having an agency. ~Mm-hmm. ~Scaling and trying to be [00:01:00] like big. So like the classic business advice is that's working. Scale it, do it more.

So having a big team, lots of illustrators. It was an experiment that I just didn't like doing. It was stressful. Yeah. I was like, I'll, I'll give it a year. See how I'll get on. It's quite hard once you are in that to be like, oh no, I don't like this experiment to then wind it back in and undo it.

Because there's part of you that feels like, oh, I did actually fail there. Or, or I need to do something to make it work. ~If this isn't working, I need to force it to work somehow. ~Yeah, yeah. But ultimately, canceling the experiment and taking it back to how it was when you were having a good time again. Is good 'cause then you've learned the thing.

~Whatever it was, you needed to learn the hard way and then you can talk about it afterwards. ~I found it was a revelation when you said, Katie, you can try something out, like set your ~web ~website up a certain way, or plan to offer certain services and then realize it doesn't work and nothing's forever, and you're not married to it and you can just change your mind.

I think maybe because of my generation where everything had to be set up perfectly, ready to go, [00:02:00] no soft launches, everything had to be perfection or you're not allowed to do it. That includes take a decision and stay with it for life, even if it's the wrong thing. So when you were sort of saying, no, just give it a go.

Maybe give it three months, put a deadline on it. If it's not working the way you want it to, then just rethink it and cancel it. Start again in a different direction. I was like, yeah, see, I've never heard of such a thing before. It's the opposite of you've made your bed now lie in it. ~Exactly, you've made your bed, but if it's not comfy, you can get back.~

It's not the right bed. Yeah, it's like three bears all over again. Don't just lie in bed. Wide awake, crying. Get out. I got chocolate or something. Trying to work out. That's so true. How many years career I've got left to implement this Radical thinking Loads you literal. At least 120. So my new plan at the moment is, well actually one of the things I always wanted to do, and it's beginning to work now, this isn't an experimentation, but I just thought I'd include this.

Years back when they started doing stock photography and talking about making money from your work. I really wanna know how to do this. It seems no one can give you the answer, but apparently it's a [00:03:00] thing and now I'm just getting proofs done of some maps and I'm gonna get 'em printed and sell 'em in shops.

I was like, at last, it's happening. And I was, I kept thinking someone else has to do it for me. They have to buy the thing and tell me how they want to reuse it. But I realized, no, I'll be in charge of reusing. I'd have to wait for someone else to do it. So that's my new plan, which is a slight diversion.

Instead of thinking all the time, you've got to keep making new work. You've gotta be commissioned and permanently be creating slightly towards the end of the career. ~Yeah. ~Let's just sit back a bit and make money on what really exists. You've made loads of work. ~Yeah. ~So why not make the most of it? And if it's things like maps that people like, then the copyright belongs to me.

If someone else doesn't want to use it, I'll use it. 'cause they'll be printed on better paper. They'll be printed better than if I just gave it to someone else and said, yeah, stick that on some shiny paper and put it in your gift shop. It wouldn't be very nice, would it? No. You've got full control over all the things, haven't you?

So that's, [00:04:00] maybe that's my micro experiment. Diversion from the career path. But as a, as a rule, now I like to lie in my uncomfortable un watched bed 30 years an old Victorian man has gone good. Yes, that's right. We dragged you into a mad experiment of the good ship though, Tanya. You're up for that. That when we were talking at the beginning about let's talk about experimentation and changing your mind, I said, no, I never do that.

The only way I'm here is because you threw me back in the back of the car lock, lock the boot, and said, right, we're off the good ship illustration. Here we come. So, yeah, as long as I'm invited, because that's the, ~uh, ~design, what's that thing called? Yours is respond. So if you respond to things and if it's your body, it goes, yes.

Good idea. That's a yes. What's the thing called? Design for human design. Human design, ~yeah. ~Yeah. So you're a generator. So yours is all about like, it's a yes or a no in your gut, is it? And you just [00:05:00] respond to what's around you. ~'cause sometimes you'll be like, eh, no, to something is a yes to some things.~

Yeah, there's definitely that. I just thought I was a self-starter. I had to be invited. I'm much better if I'm invited to do something. Like, would you get into the boot of this car? And we're starting a new business plan called the Midship Illustration that, that suits me. Well, thank goodness you did. They drove ever so fast.

It was really scary. Helen, have you had any, had any experiments that haven't? I think this is just my nature. ~Yeah. ~I think the ones that haven't worked, I wanna hear about that. Oh yeah. School visits. Oh yeah. I mean, school visits in real life work, but, ~um, ~I forgot about that. ~Yeah. ~During lockdown, I couldn't visit any schools in real life, so I thought, ooh, I know what I'll do.

Because we've been doing courses and telling them online, I thought, well, I'll make a, a school visit. In the, using the same software so that the school visit is made and there it is to buy and the schools can just go in and buy it and, and it's cheaper than you go as well? It's cheaper than me going in person.

It saves me traveling. ~And what's such a good idea? ~They get a tour of my [00:06:00] studio. They've got loads of stuff they can print out. I'll even send them something for real in the post, a big drawing for their classroom to send it in the post. It did not work. It just did not work. 'cause what I didn't consider is, ~um, ~schools cannot pay for anything online because the way that all of the admin in school works is that.

The council will send the illustrator a check. Like they do it in such old fashioned ways so that all of the software that I had set up where they could just look on my website, say, yes, I wanna buy it, the teacher themselves could not choose to buy it. And they couldn't use their own credit card 'cause the school wouldn't reimburse 'em.

So every time I had a school interested, they would say, please, can you send me an invoice and we'll send you a check. And it completely ruined the whole idea because it just took so much work. Admin as well. ~Work. ~Oh it was so annoying. Yeah, really annoying. Isn't that the thing you would ~last expect you'd ~least expect about the transaction being difficult was the financial purchase?

Yeah, I was [00:07:00] thinking, are you gonna say like. Putting it on a screen wasn't compelling enough to keep the kids quiet to listen. No. Well, I think that's okay 'cause I have it free on my website and schools download it all the time. And for World Book Day often I, I'm asked to do a Zoom visit. I just wanted to automate it.

I just wanted it automated so that it could be going on easily without me having much input. ~Um. ~I will, I still do Zoom school visits and in real life, ~zoom visit, um, uh, ~school visits sometimes. But, ~um, ~automating it and making a checkout for schools just to do it without me having much input. No, didn't work.

~Didn't work. ~That's fascinating. And you did so many nice illustrations. Some of ~your fa ~my favorite. Illustrations of yours were ~for that school, ~for the school visits. They're still on my website. Anybody can go and download it for free. I decided it was way ~better, ~better just to give it away for free than have to invoice to school and wait for a check and then take the check to the bank.

It was so annoying. ~A check. Yeah. I mean, what school still send out checks? Olden days. Yeah, even those jokes. Oh, we've got visitors. Oh, Billy's gonna bark in a minute. We might have a little jump in this just as someone comes through the door. Ready? Get ready for Billy. Ready. Put your fingers in your ears, everyone, because she's gonna Oh,~

~okay. ~She you to be quiet. ~Um, ~the other thing that I've really got in, got into and went mad for it for a couple of years was [00:08:00] making all of my artwork digital. And I made three or four books, digital, some, using a combination of handmade and Photoshop. One of them completely on procreate. I'm out the other side of that experiment now, and I'm really, really into doing paper again.

It's so funny, isn't it, to see the different things get obsessed with and then abandon. ~Yeah. ~I think that's what happens with me. I get obsessed with an idea and I really wanna do it, and sometimes they work really well and sometimes they just, like, Helen, that was a rubbish idea. Drop it now. But you see it through that.

I think you're not a kind of, you don't drop it at the first sign of trouble. You actually see it right through, make something of it, complete a project, and then say, I'm going in a different direction. So un flaky, that's, I'm scared to death about being flaky about things. So. I have to feel really sure it's gonna work 'cause I can't bear to drop it halfway through.

You're a follow through. Very, very laudable. I dunno. I think I've just got one of those brains that likes new ideas all the time. I just really like a new idea. I get very [00:09:00] excited about it. You're like recently on Sub, so on Substack for ages. I've had loads of newsletters I'll send out for free and then there are some behind a paywall.

But I really, really love the Blind Boy podcast as you know. 'cause I talk about 'em all the time. And it, on his podcast, he has a Patreon, but he says, I want this to be a fair system. Those that can't afford it can still listen. 'cause those who can't afford it pay for it. And that makes a nice community. ~And I've been thinking like on the back burner thinking, no, that's such a nice way to do it.~

And then one day just out of the blue, I thought, I am going to do that. Yes, now. And I just went in on that day and just turned off. Well, no, you can still pay. People who want to pay can pay, but those who can't afford to pay don't have to pay. ~It's so good, so excited about it. ~If it doesn't work and I end up not being paid to write the newsletters anymore, I'll have to rethink it.

But I really hope it works. ~I bet that won't happen. ~'cause even before, before my Substack was even a job spot and there was nothing was behind a paywall. People paid, which I had. I was like, why are you paying me? I like wrote to these people. I was like, you're paying me. Why? And they're like, I just like you.

I was like, that makes me feel weird. [00:10:00] It needs to be an exchange of something. ~So is Have you noticed anything yet so far? No. ~The numbers have stayed about the same. I really like the idea that, 'cause at the beginning of your career, and for lots of illustrators who are. Carers or parents and or, you know, they've got other stuff going on in their life, they're not making very much money.

So it feels like a fair, a nice way of doing it that might make a really nice community. So I'm giving it a go. I was thinking that about experiments, like Pre Good Ship, I had more time for little experiments, like Bullet Journal Gang was one, but then, yeah, when Good Trip started, it was like, where do energy to go and what is the most fun and easy and has the nicest reward.

Like not just financially, but like ~sat ~satisfyingly. Mm. And ~product pocket ~productivity was a random experiment as well and it was fun, but just didn't have like the, I just fizzled out. I think, what was ~P Pocket ~productivity? It was like a 30 day thing where I shed ~like ~different productivity tips and ways to get stuff done and people said nice things [00:11:00] about it, but it was just, I dunno, in hindsight now I'm like, oh, it was like a DHD coping strategies.

Yeah. Before I knew I had a DH adhd, but like at the time it was just fun. But on all those experiments, you learn so many things. Mm-hmm. And especially with Bullet Journal again, 'cause it was an online course before we had good ship. It taught me so much about even just like how to set up, it was so valuable for us, for Good Ship that you'd done that.

~'cause me and Tanya didn't have that kind of experience of setting up that kind of thing, did we? ~So it was brilliant. I said to name a cafe and we said, this is what I want to do. Do you want to be part of it? I was like, yeah, that's a brilliant idea. But how I went away on holiday and came back and Helen said.

I've just been speaking to Katie. She's got the how, the magic and the fact that we all live in the same town and already knew each other. All of those things are quite spooky actually. ~Mm-hmm. ~That they were already in place and ~e ~each of us had a different input into what we needed to make a course.

~Mm-hmm. ~It was like we had the starter, we had the main and the dessert together, and it's a dinner party. And actually that was the big thing I [00:12:00] learned from doing both bullet journal gang and pocket productivity is that I can't do it by myself. It's really, well, it can, but it's exhausting and not sustainable.

But working with you two is, and I couldn't do it by myself 'cause I'd had the idea that I wanted to run an online course. ~'cause one of my really good friends was doing it and really enjoying it and it was working really well. ~And I built up my Instagram following with a mine to, let's make a really nice community, then launch a course.

But I just never did it by myself. It was only when you two said yes. Yeah, I'll do it. That it start, that I could start and it kind of, that we're all in the same, in the same town is miraculous because we manage most of our interactions through the WhatsApp group, which is mostly red hot from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM but then we can still get together and have conversations.

And we know that when we're in person, we get loads more done and we have loads more ideas and we spark off each other and we can do the podcast in person. I mean, how mad is that, that we actually live in the same place and had all the ingredients to make something. I'm sure we're like the [00:13:00] Beatles.

She's gone crazy. It's all gone to her head. Actually the Beatles have got good hair. And Helen was cutting your hair earlier, wasn't she? Mm-hmm. I meant to say. Yeah. We've now built in some hairdressing into the community. I take, I take my hairdressing razor with me everywhere in case I, I'm not enjoying somebody's hair.

If you come to the line, maybe Helen could do your hair. Oh yeah, definitely. I'll bring it. Razor cuts an hour a day for razor cuts. 'cause we couldn't find anyone to raise a cut hair and it, my head, my hair was looking like some silver helmet. And Helen said so before we did, started the podcast today.

Helen's made it really beautiful. Your Graham walked in and went, what's going on? Because Tanya, you were just talking to your husband, weren't you? And he walked into the room and he's chatting to you and I just got hold of your hair and ran a razor through it. He said, what's happening? We were gonna continue it into the podcast.

So it's like a hairdressing podcast that that could happen next month. Actually. ~You get the As about, like~

I was thinking ~about, um, ~about mad experiments we've done in Good Ship as well and about Art Club. Do you remember we [00:14:00] had this chat where we said, shall we go live ~one ~one Friday night? Shall we just go live? And it was gonna be a one off thing and we did ~it and we just. ~It. We were so nervous, we just giggled our way through the whole thing.

But when we got to the end of it, we realized something like 500 people had been watching and we said, should we do it ~again? ~Again? And we're still doing it ~again. ~Look, you're now an institution. It was like every Friday for in the year 2020. I'm sure it was every single Friday. I think it was longer than one year.

I think it was a couple of years. Every single Friday. Yeah. We don't do any on Friday nights, so we might as well. Yeah. Especially COVID Friday nights. Yeah. ~It was, it was two years. Wow. That they happen. ~And it was just ~a, ~an experiment for one night, but it worked. ~So if you should, yeah. ~Experiments are important because sometimes they work better than you can even imagine.

Maybe we should make that ~a, ~a challenge. I mean, there's all these different drawing challenges. How about one big fat challenge, like experiment, do something experimental this month. ~I'm saying that 'cause I need it. ~I think I'm a terribly dull and an experimental person. You're not. So if I could say to myself That is not true.

That is a lie. Yeah. That is not true Fate. [00:15:00] Did I go in a straight line? I don't zigzag enough. I need to do more zigzagging experiment. Well, you were the of our car zigzagging. I was a little bit sick of the door to the car. I didn't realize she was acking. ~It would be good though. ~I wonder if, if anybody having listened to this, does a mad experiment if you could let us know what it is and how it goes.

Yeah. I think what makes a good experiment is when you ~So, so I do say like, you don't have to get married to it, but ~for an experiment. ~For the purposes of the experiment, ~you kind of have to get married to it for a set amount of time. ~Yeah. Mm-hmm. ~Otherwise, 'cause if you're a bit ~flip ~wishy washy, and you're like, I'll try that, you're like, oh no, I won't.

That's not a real experiment. That's being flaky. And that's the scariest thing of all this has to be a commit for a bit. You have to put your white lab coat on, get the test tubes out, and even make a spreadsheet if you, or like write something down what you're trying, and then at the end, did it work or not?

I've got a scratch record in the sound of my, it's in my head and I can't, so I can't talk about what it is because I'm so bored of hearing it anyway. ~But yeah. ~Can we guess? Yeah, you can guess. ~Yeah. Okay. ~What does it begin with? Whiskey? No, ~not, ~not [00:16:00] that one, was it? ~No. Oh. ~Oh no, ~we, oh, ~guess that one? So there's, yeah, ~there's two, ~actually two things that I've thought, right?

I've thought all the way through, the whole plan exists. Part of the work is undertaken, but I haven't completed or haven't even begun. ~I haven't set it in place. Do you want, ~do you want an experiment from us or do you want to make it up yourself? ~Do you, ~have you got a fresh experiment for this? I'm just gonna make one up for you right now.

Cool. Go for it, Cody. Okay. If you give yourself three months. Yeah. And even if you only did one post per month for three months and just saw what happened. Yeah, I'm, that's what I'm thinking. And if you will be my accountability buddy with that exact quantity, I don't have to do any more than that. ~I could, I, it might be a bit short, but ~how violent can I be with keeping you accountable ~as, ~as much as you like message you daily might have it in your post yet.

You won't have time to do that. I know it. I'll forget. Okay. Challenge accepted. ~Okay. This is exciting. Yeah. ~I think it's also useful to know that even the way that your substack looks can be an experiment. I think I've changed my [00:17:00] logo thing twice, I think since I've had it on. So I think a lot of people get really hung up on the look of their substack or their website or their business.

Exactly, exactly. And you can change that. You can make it nicer. You like it now and then if in a few months time you don't like it, you can change that. Yeah, you can up style it can't you. Mm. And even if you don't get around to personalizing it at all, still counts if you do three posts. Okay. That's, I've got, I think I've got my bit ready, my personalization ready.

I'm just gonna launch in and not introduce myself and say, I've always been here. Sorry, this is what was on my mind. And I begin here. Yeah. There'll be no, hello. This is my aim. This is what this is gonna be about. All intros are off. I'll just start like it's been running forever. Yeah. It goes straight to the action.

~Yeah. Okay. What do you want an experiment or if you've done enough? Oh, I dunno. Do you want an experiment, Helen? Um, no deflect opt off. I like it when mine's a hair brain scheme of my own. I don't like people giving me them. That's, yeah. ~Helen walked through the door today and I said to her, look, I've got one Wally dog.

The other one is missing. What am I gonna do if anyone who doesn't know, those are the like little white, Victorian king Charles spaniels that are hand painted like Stafford shares and I've only got the one. And Helen was like, well, this is a really good opportunity to make a cardboard one [00:18:00] or a paper shake companion.

Oh, I love the idea of making a mirrored one that's wonky. Your version of the other Wally dog. It'd be so good. Isn't that a lovely idea? I wouldn't, I've never thought that. ~So when you said it. ~That was a great example of how your brain works. It looks for opportunities to do something bonkers and that's, I think that's your kind of, your creative setting is you're open to it all already rather than thinking how little can I get away with, which might be my slight setting sometimes.

Do you have that thing where if somebody tells you to do something immediately seems like a terrible idea? Yeah. Even if somebody tells me to watch something on the telly, like, Nope, well this happens at home because I'll be, if I'm going to on my way to do something. Say, for instance, fold some washing, and Cameron's like, oh, that washing needs folded.

I'm like, well, too was gonna do it. And now I can't. 'cause you've told me to. Yeah, me too. I, because you felt told. Yeah. If you, if you tell me whatever you do, don't fold that washing. I hate that. ~I hate, ~I like, okay, I can do it now that you're not letting do it. And it's annoying because I can see myself being silly Yeah.

About it. But yes, it's, yeah. Yeah. Me too. Yeah. Like when Barbie came out and I thought, [00:19:00] that's the last thing I want to do. And then I went to see it and I really liked it. And then we told everyone liked it. Then we told I hated it. I hated, hated did. Hated it. I can't tell you how much I hated that film. Oh, we were like, yeah.

Double bluff, triple bluff at the end. You like it? No, on every level. Helen hated it. I felt manipulated it by the film from beginning to end, and on the bits where it made me laugh. I was like slapping my own face. Why are you manipulating me to laugh tonight? If you need to approach Helen with anything, you've got the strategy.

Don't tell her. Maybe invite. Oh dear. So experiment week if you fancy it. Yeah. Let us know what your experiment is as well. 'cause we're all really nosy. We are. I wanna know. I wanna know. Absolutely. And then later down the line, whether it worked, whether the mad experiment turned out to be the best thing you've ever done, or you had to quietly stop.

Well, yours, ~yours was accidentally drawing it. Sorry, we were supposed to finish, but now I've got another idea. ~Was illustrating a wedding or a TED talk and you didn't mean to [00:20:00] Yeah. I was like, oh, that drawing on the spot sounds fun. Try that whole, and then it was just like a snowball. I couldn't stop and I was like, okay, this is fun and I like doing it.

People want me to do it. I might as well make this my entire life. Yeah. That's amazing, isn't it? Has anyone's career or approach come about by accident or happy coincidence or conscious experiment? Yeah. Tell us about it. Yeah. Send it through. Cool. Okay, so next week. Yeah, see you next week. Yes. I was gonna say, this is the end of stickers, but it's next week, the 20, the end of free stickers for people who join the Picture Week Picture book course.

Yeah. It's the 21st of November, I think. ~Yeah. ~You can get stickers till then. Yeah. Art Club is also on the 21st, so the day ~that, ~that it's the last day of the stickers offer for the picture book course is art club.

No. Is, do you know what that art club is or is? Art club on the seventh is, we are making boxes into a little room and then put in a little character in there [00:21:00] as a, as a, an experiment for how to do backgrounds In a picture book.

And if you're listening to this afterwards, which you might be, it's on our Instagram, so you can go and watch it. The replay will be there. It's ~um, ~at the good chip illustration on Instagram.

~Okay. ~Okay. Goodbye. ~Bye. ~Bye. Bye. See ya.

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