Draw draw draw! ✏️ | Summer camp sketchbook week 2

Pssst, this episode was originally published in 2023 and we’re sharing it again as part of our Good Ship Summer Camp series. It’s one of five episodes to help you fly your freak flag this summer. If you’d like to join in properly, there’s a free workbook an' everything!

You can download the workbook here: https://www.thegoodshipillustration.com/workbook 

Got limited time to draw? Children hanging off your leg? Perfect. You’re in exactly the right place. 😆

This week's episode is all about actually drawing. Even when you’ve only got a receipt, a half-working pen, and 3 minutes to spare.

In this episode:

• Why drawing in a rush can be a superpower
• Katie’s eyebrow-threading sketch session 
• What drawing from life teaches you about your creative voice
• Tiny tools, weird surfaces, and packing your pencil case like a pro
• The #WalktoSee hashtag and sketchbook magic ✏️
• Three-materials challenge, anyone?

Want to join in with us?
Download the free workbook here

Timestamps:
0:00 – Intro + a great listener question
1:01 – Can you find your voice if you have no time?
2:17 – Drawing quickly makes it better (promise)
3:29 – Eyebrow queues and standing sketches
4:12 – The value of drawing from life
5:17 – Pack your pencil case!
6:24 – Drawing on receipts and IKEA pencils
6:54 – Walk to See, and how to join in
7:12 – Three-material challenge tips
7:38 – A wet thing, a dry thing, and something with texture
7:51 – Sketchbooker’s Friend: the robot voice that lives on
8:35 – Action step: keep your drawing tools on you at all times
9:01 – See you tomorrow for Day 3!

Links mentioned:
📖 Download the free workbook
🎧 Sketchbooker’s Friend audio guide
🖼 All about the #Walktosee hashtag on Instagram (started by our Helen)
🖍 Find Your Creative Voice – Fly Your Freak Flag course. Doors are open right now! Be lovely to see you in there.

Byeeee for now!
 x The Good Ship Illustration (Helen, Katie & Tania) 🚢

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

Tania  0:00  
Hi. We are the good ship illustration, and we run online courses to help illustrators and image makers navigate a creative career. We are Tanya

Helen  0:09  
Katie and Helen. We have about 70 years experience between us, each of us working in a different area of illustration.

Katie  0:16  
Welcome to this mini series. Find your creative voice. This week, we're digging into practical, powerful steps to help you find your way of working, finding your creative voice and your confidence and fly in your freak flag, if you like what you hear. The doors are now open for our eight week online course, find your creative voice, fly your freak flag, and would love to see you in there. Just visit www dot thegoship illustration.com/freak, flag, or you can just Google freak flag course and ta da, there we are, and you can read all about it.

Unknown Speaker  0:41  
You it. Welcome back.

Katie  0:46  
This is step two. Day two. Session two. Second one. And today we're talking about drawing. So draw, draw, draw, and then draw some more. We had a brilliant question that came in. Where

Helen  1:01  
is it? It says, I am so enjoying your course. It has even triggered some lovely drawing sessions with my kids, aged eight and 11. My main frustration is that my schedule is not allowing me the time I would like. Can I really find my style if my time is limited? I love this because I think it's a benefit. Actually. I think if, if you, if you don't work, and you don't have children, and your plan is to be an illustrator, and you get you get out, your alarm goes off, and you get out of bed, and you've got all those hours ahead of you just end up watering the plants, tidying up, finding the perfect sketchbook, rearranging your pencils. And you know, if your time is limited, it really focuses your brain.

Tania  1:44  
Yeah. And if you're if your time is limited, in front of a sketchbook or in front of a piece of work, that's even better, because if someone says, Well, finish this. Take as long as you need to work on this image. Well, how long is how long is that you could be there for eight hours, overworking it, ruining it. I used to think things took a long while, but now I think since art club and other stuff that we've done, the best work can come out really fast, and it takes bravery to do that, yeah, but you don't need to spend hours. It can be really quick.

Katie  2:13  
Yeah? I definitely do my best work with the shortest amount of time and the most stress.

Helen  2:17  
Yeah, me too, especially going drawing from life, the more pressure, the better. If you're in people's way, you don't have enough time, got the wrong materials with you, forgot your glasses. They're all benefits, yes, because they kind of they stop the critical bit of your brain jumping in and spoiling it, because you just have to get it down. And then magic happens, like bits of your personality arrive in your drawing because you didn't consciously try to make a style or drawing the way you usually do, or finishing everything off to look perfect. Yeah,

Tania  2:50  
drawing time drawings, I think, is worse, and giving yourself the time you've got, and if the time you've got is only 40 minutes drawing with your kids, that could be fine. You can divide that up and saying maybe five drawings or you're going to work on one piece, but giving yourself, like they always say, start from where you are and give yourself what you've got. There's you can't ask for more than that. Just work with what you've got. And if that's the only time, then you can produce something in that short amount of time. That's just as good as if you had all day. Well, we proved that

Helen  3:22  
better club, don't we? Yeah, we set that timer for 30 seconds, a minute, two minutes, and the magic drawings you get out of that,

Katie  3:29  
it's fantastic, yeah, and it's some of my favourite drawings ever have been like, standing in the queue, so I haven't even got anything to lean on, but I'm just drawing. And once, I was queuing to get my eyebrows threaded, and I was drawing the lady doing the eyebrow threading. And, like, you know, when they look, got the thread on the mouth. It was great. But because I had the pressure of being in the queue, it was my turn zoom, I was like, trying to get all the details down. There was no time to, like, panic and not draw anything. Sometimes,

Tania  3:54  
at the end of a project where someone has said, Oh, could you just draw a few more little images for this as well, but it's going to go to print after lunch, so you've only got a tiny time to draw that. That's the best drawings that I've come up with, just because you've got to do it quickly and you're focused and intense. Yeah,

Helen  4:12  
I think I was going to say something about the value of drawing from life when you're finding your creative voice as well. It's really useful to get a sketchbook out and draw from life. Well, last week, we were talking about how your creative voice is appreciating all of your interest in the thing that makes you you, all the weirdness of you, but you're drawing like literally, the way that you hold a pencil and put it on the paper and move it around. That's another massive aspect of your work. So drawing from life is really valuable. It's when you draw unconsciously, and you start to you can look at those drawings and work out what it is that interests you. Are you drawing in quite a graphic way where you really edit what's in front of you? Do you place things on the page very carefully? Or are you really do you express. A lot in your drawing, you can learn a lot from drawing from life. Yeah, it's not a pointless exercise. Exactly. It's not. It's really valuable. And if you want to find your creative voice, making a point of drawing every day, churning out as many drawings as you can, letting the bad ones happen,

Katie  5:17  
that's a practical step to get you closer to find in your creative voice. And the question as us answer, ask her question, asker asked about time. And I think one of the one of the things. So the action step that was scribbled down for this was about packing your drawing materials with you, so that you always have them. I think that can be a really key thing. You've always got your stuff. So the opportunity is always, then all you have to do is whip them up and

Helen  5:46  
packing drawing materials. Doesn't mean like a backpack full of easels and paints. I mean, just, you know, a pencil and a tiny sketchbook. And look a tiny, a five one that fits in your pocket with a tiny IKEA pencil, IKEA sized pencil. That's all you need, and you can just whip it out 30 seconds, stick it back in your pocket as soon as your eight year old climbs on your knee and tries to get your pencil off you, yeah.

Tania  6:09  
And keep one in the car as well, because there's always those moments where you're sitting there doing nothing I could be drawing. So stick one in the glove pocket. Yeah.

Katie  6:17  
And if, even if a sketchbook feels overwhelming, a piece of paper folded up. Still counts. Some coffee shops have really wide receipts.

Helen  6:24  
I love receipt drawings. I see a lot of those on walk to see on Instagram. Loads of those. They're really good. I was gonna say to see would be great join this walk to see. So walk to see is a hashtag I started a few years ago, and I looked at the weekend. I think it has 96,000 contributions now I think amazing all it's just a big celebration of drawing from life in a sketchbook. So if you do draw on a receipt, Oh, you do manage 32nd drawing from the car while your kids are in the swimming pool, push it at what to see, because I love seeing them.

Tania  6:54  
And also one of our good shippers, Naomi tipping and Charlotte Durant, they did the three materials challenged. And that was great. Just watching that work with limited materials, just drawing every day, some beautiful work came out. Yeah, so challenges can be a great way to hold yourself accountable for a quick bit of drawing every

Katie  7:12  
day. And that eliminates the decision thing, doesn't it? If you've got limited materials, you've got an easy, accessible bit of paper to draw on, you don't have to be like, Oh, which, which thing will I choose? What will I draw? You're just gonna draw what's in front of you, wherever you are, whenever you get a spare second. If I was gonna

Helen  7:28  
pack three things, I'd pick, I'd pick something wet, like a felt pen, something dry, maybe a pencil, and something with some texture, like a crayon, yeah. So a wet thing, a dry thing, something with texture.

Tania  7:38  
Then you cover all options. Oh, and also, you could download our sketch Booker's friend, the audio guide. If you got that drawing and you need someone, someone to kind of push you along, you could listen to my robot voice.

Helen  7:51  
It's the most hilarious thing we ever recorded. It's the first thing we ever recorded. And we were just learning on the job, you have to listen to it, even just for a laugh. Take a time capsule.

Tania  8:03  
Yes, this is the classic version of me not wanting to be vulnerable because I had to phone mine in, and they played it out of a speaker and recorded it the other end. And I do sound like a Dalek. I was like, we can't use this, but we have, and it's been there for three years. But basically, we guide you along through going out drawing, and say, We'll give you some timers. We give you some material tips. So it's like a friend in your ear when you want to go and draw, but you know you might give up after 10 minutes. So you can download that from our website, the good ship illustration.com sketch Booker's friend.

Katie  8:35  
Yes, yeah. So that's the action step. Is to pack your drawing stuff where you'll where you'll need it. So in the car, in your pocket, in your bag, whatever. And also we forgot to mention yesterday in the first one, we're going to do a printable thing. So if you want these action steps written down, you can get that on our website. We'll make it really obvious where it is. But yeah, we'll link it in the description of the podcast as well. So it's super easy.

Tania  9:01  
Well done. That's a good idea. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  9:04  
brilliant. Okay, come on to the next one. Bye,

Tania  9:06  
bye. Happy drawing you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai