Feelin' guilty about not drawing as much lately? [A Good Ship Illustration permission slip]

"I'm not drawing as much anymore - Aghhhhh! Is this ok!?"

If you feel like you’re not drawing as much as you “should”, then you’re definitely, absolutely not alone. In this episode, we share our drawing ebbs and flows, why guilt often sneaks in, and how to let yourself off the hook when life gets lifey.

We chat about:

• The natural phases of a creative career (and why it’s A-OK not to be drawing all the time).
• Why forcing yourself to draw can backfire.
• How other creative stuff like sewing or gardening can feed your illustration work.
• Finding the balance between illustration, work, and real life.
• How to quiet the mean voice in your head.

See you in there!

Come and say hello!

✏️ @thegoodshipillustration
🌏 www.thegoodshipillustration.com

p.s. We love answering your illustration questions. Click here to submit your question for The Good Ship Illustration Podcast 🎙

Transcript

Not drawing as much anymore - ahghhhhh is this ok?
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[00:00:00] Helen, you said you'd been having a good chat this morning. I went for a walk with picture book maker Jane Porter this morning, and we started off this chat by talking about whether we'd had gaps where we didn't draw for a while, and we both agreed that we have. We both, and I'm having one right now actually.

When I, when I say drawing, I mean drawing in a sketchbook. I'm still illustrating, but, um, there's been periods in my life where I've been sketchbook crazy. I just want to do it all the time. It's my thing. I started the Washington walk to see hashtag on Instagram drawing, drawing, drawing, just [00:01:00] love it, love it, love it.

But since starting good shape and having that brilliant creative couple of years. where I was drawing a lot and I was drawing for Instagram sometimes and sharing loads of sketches. I just, in the end, I feel now like, I need a break. And if I do draw anything, I'm drawing it secretly, quietly, and I don't want to share it.

What about you two? Have you had gaps in your drawing? Yeah, I feel like I'm in a bit of a secret drawing phase. And I think it is, that, what's the word, like you scunner yourself. That's the normal word, like, you sicken yourself if you share every single drawing you do online. Because you get to a point where I dunno, you just feel like you wanna keep something back for yourself, don't you?

I think I ended up feeling like I'm gonna do a drawing and I'm gonna share this so it better be good. Yeah. And that feeling ruins it completely. So I want to get back to the feeling of, I don't really share very much that I do anymore. Then when I draw, it's just for its own sake that I realize the [00:02:00] thing this morning that you have to draw so much to get back into it.

I, I haven't drawn that much outside of drawing maps. God, I don't think. Oh I have, I do, I always draw when I go on holiday and try and do the big push, like this is for you, just have fun drawing, but the holiday never seems long enough, just as you're about, you can see the improvement in the drawing, that's the end and it's back to normal life, where I should still obviously keep drawing, but um, at the moment.

Having done a load of, it feels like it's been such a business a year and a website a year, and I feel quite far removed from drawing, but I'm desperate to start this new project for myself, which has got this kind of push pull effect going on. I'm like, everything's going to be lovely when I settle down into my new studio and start drawing.

And I really, really, really, desperately want to draw, but life is either getting in the way or I'm allowing it to get in the way. And it's like having a weird relationship. I'm just like, I just want to snuggle up in bed with my pencils and draw and have a lovely time, but I'm kind of not letting myself.

What, what's [00:03:00] going on? I need therapy. It's so hard with time though, isn't it? I feel like if you don't do something on purpose, you never do it. I don't do anything unless I'm forced to do it. That's the horror. I need someone to force me. Come and wave a bunch of notes in my face and say, You've got till Thursday.

And I'll do it because, you know, my neural pathway for 30, 40 years has been, I would like an illustration. Here's your deadline. And this is the feed. And that's the only way I get things done. Yeah. Crying and sweating. So now to do something. Oh God. Yeah, but I think it's, there's no point in feeling guilty about it.

Like all of us, I think, start, since starting The Good Ship have drawn from life less than we did before. But I think that's because our creative energies are being used somewhere else. And we do art club and that kind of itches that scratch a bit as well. And I think in my life, when I look back over my entire life, there have definitely been periods where I've drawn less.

Like when I was a teenager and my social life was going mad, I drew less. Yeah. Um, and those phases just come and go, don't [00:04:00] they? Didn't you say when in your Substack you have You had to stop berating yourself about that. You're lazy. You're not doing drawing because you're sorting the house out. You're sorting your family life out and doing so many other important things.

that because you're not nosed to the grindstone working like a lunatic. Yeah. Like you're used to. Yeah. You feel guilty about it. Yeah, yeah, I've had to really have a word with myself about it. I'm just working like the average person. Yeah. And so I shouldn't feel bad about that. Wouldn't I say to you, like, every three months, I don't know how you do it.

Yeah, you were always saying that. I don't know how I did it now. I'm glad to be off that treadmill. I'm glad you are as well. I just used to think sometimes it would scare me. I'd look at everything you were doing and think, My brain would be frying by now. I would have blown up. But then I thought, you look at other people and think maybe they're made of different things.

Like, you know, Louise Lockhart describing her year and moving a house and building a barn. But yeah, I think that's it. There's periods in your life though where you feel totally on it and capable of it. And I definitely [00:05:00] went through a phase of that. But now The house needs doing that, you know, I don't know what else all of a sudden other things in my life are a bit more of a priority.

That's fine, isn't it? The energy levels are always different as well, aren't they? Cause you'll go through like, yeah, let's go. And then you run a marathon and then you need to walk for a bit. Definitely. And also you have like, uh, when I had a baby, I had romantic ideas about maternity leave and just drawing her and snuggling and it doesn't happen.

I only did one drawing when she was a newborn and I drew her when she was maybe 18 months old. And also every drawing you do of your child doesn't look good enough because your child's perfect. Yeah. And every time you pick up a sketchbook and a pencil they take it off you. Yeah, I wouldn't even get my pencils out anymore because she's, yeah, you know, really posh nice sketchbooks and she'll just be like, ah, hello cool mummy, and then 30 pages of just a line.

I remember when you spoke to Jill Calder for in the I think it was in the Freak Flag course. Yeah. [00:06:00] Um, she says when she gets to the end of a huge project, if she's just done a massive project, she just goes on holiday and does not draw for weeks until she gets the urge again. And then she starts again. I remember hearing that and thinking, phew, phew.

Yeah. I think there's a lot of guilt surrounding it because you feel like sometimes it feels as though it's some sort of holy vocation you've taken up and you're meant to love drawing when you're, working on paid illustration and then you finish it and you go, I'll just do a little sketch because I still love drawing.

Especially as I started that walk to see hashtag. For a while, when I wasn't drawing, I thought I'd better keep that quiet. If anyone discovers, if anybody finds out, I'm done. The worst thing is if you're having a busy work time, drawing for work. And so I had a time where I was doing loads, actually recently, like the end of last year when I felt a bit frazzled, I'd be drawing for, I don't know, six or seven hours at an event.

And then I was like, I'll take a Jane Porter actually, again, I did the comics class. So I'd finish seven hours of drawing and then be on the train home trying to do the comics class. I was like, I like drawing, I like drawing, I liked like [00:07:00] reminding myself, but then it's like, it's just so tired. I don't want to draw anymore.

And I felt, again, felt really bad and beat myself up about it. But in hindsight, duh, Kate, you've been drawing all day. It's like running all day and then going for a walk in the evening. You've got to be realistic about it, haven't you? Bussman's holiday. Yeah, and have a kind of, sometimes have a pragmatic approach.

I mean, I remember thinking in the peak of my career, editorial career, I don't think many people do, as we were talking earlier, do only editorial now, because the pay is not great and it's really hard to live purely on that, and the turnover was kind of bad enough anyway. jobs would just pop in and they suddenly need you right there and then for three days and can you meet a deadline by Friday?

So I spent, I felt like I spent about 25 years of my life just being on call and cancelling things constantly and then I cancelled stuff so much I didn't book things anymore like friends or holidays or theatre or I just didn't do any of those things and I lived on an island it took me a long while to get into town to do anything [00:08:00] so for a great chunk of time I just was like I'll sit by my computer and work and not do things like try and fit out the front room or change the broken toilet or, you know, these housey things that you end up doing and when you do them, you're like, this is taking a chunk of time out from work.

Is this what other people do? Like they sort their house out or do their garden. So it's become as a bit of a revelation that you, you, you could do those things and but not in the same way as illustrators who are just there. I felt like a doormat actually. I made myself into a doormat. Yeah. And I didn't have a bit as well because that eagerness to get work means you just kind of.

put everything else in your life aside for this one goal. And for us it's paid off, hasn't it? It's been brilliant. I'm glad I did it. But I'm really glad to be out the other side and that I can now go and potter in the garden for a few days. And it feels just as lovely as drawing. It feels like another creative outlet and it's really valuable.

Well when you made your flags and things [00:09:00] and you knew that you needed to do something you needed to kind of come off the work. mania and do something calming, but you still needed to be creative. So doing sewing and finding creativity in other forms, like even cooking is such a joy to give time and creativity and value to other activities instead of thinking, no, I just got to keep working.

I think that's the thing, if you're like, I am an illustrator and you're not drawn for a while and you start getting a bit like, am I, am I still an illustrator? Cause that's really tricky, isn't it? Yeah. You get yourself worth. From your work and making work and drawing isn't it a really lovely freeing feeling if you think Am I an illustrator?

Who cares? Yeah, it doesn't matter. What am I? I don't know. That doesn't matter at all. Isn't that a lovely idea? I like that one. Yeah. Cause your, your identity is so much of that and being the artist. But I think sometimes just opting out to do something else instead and develop another part of yourself because you end up doing this, the same [00:10:00] neural pathways over and over again, doing these same things that the rest of your life starts to dwindle, whether it's relationships or family or home.

And you do need to give time back to that. I reckon drawing in a way that gets your illustration projects done really quickly is the, is the way forward. So if your style is highly wrought, highly rendered, don't come work in editorial because Well, actually I just had a chat with somebody this morning who told me that she's been doing a long term magazine job.

I don't know how long for. I didn't ask enough questions. I'm passing on half a story here, but she told me that in New Year's she got an email saying, Happy New Year. We're cutting your fee by 40%. Bye. No discussion, no choice, nothing. That's editorial work. But that was a US job. That's really grim. And all we can hope is that it's brought it back to a UK rate because the Americans always pay more.

But even the UK rates are not great now. So I think we're Anyone who's [00:11:00] working in editorial needs to develop a way of working. works with your secret day rate, against the fee. Because really, if the fee is 350 for a quarter page, half page, and I used to spend a week and a half on something like that, that's madness now, to think of.

Really, you could do a day and a half max. I was going to say half a day. Well, half a day, depending where you're at. Um, what, what your exposure is. I mean, some people like the exposure of editorial, that it has some value as opposed to doing something that's going to go in a corporate report that no one will see, you could kind of say, Oh, right, I'll give it two days, but really a lot of people's rates, day rates are not far off that or, or above it.

Yeah. I always think with stuff like that, with the fast deadline, it's the stress cost as well, isn't it? Like the checking your emails all the time, making sure and like, and submitting it on time and then making sure they've got it. Any other bits of your life? That's awful. And I've had jobs like that in the past where you think you're done and then you go for a day out to celebrate, you go for a cuppa and then you get an [00:12:00] email on your phone, you're like, Oh, I've got, I've got to edit this.

Like, I remember going to barter books one day and I like, it's a very good bookshop, by the way. And then. We were having a cup of tea and then I got this email from the client being like, Oh, you need to change this thing, but you have to, we need it now, basically. So I had my laptop in the car trying to like edit this.

So stressful. Yeah, we've really got, you've got to think what are your boundaries in a job? I mean, I think that's so important when something's finished, when it's over. you know, signed off. But yeah, to come back at you and say it isn't finished and they're in a hurry, therefore you must be in a hurry. No, I, that's not right, but when you're younger you just capitulate.

Yeah. I was just going to see if you can hear panting, it's not me. Billy, Tanya's dog, is on the biggest cushion you would ever see in front of the stove and the stove is lit. I think Billy's cooking. A gently roasted border terrier. Yeah, that's the sound of a happy terrier panting away like a little roast beast.

She's nothing. She doesn't draw and she doesn't care. She doesn't [00:13:00] feel bad. Let's be like Billy. Yeah, be more Billy.. Lovely. Yeah, see ya. Bye.