Nice illustrator loneliness & working from home

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Ok, on with the shownotes 🤓

Why we secretly love working alone (almost all the time)

This week we got a good question from an anonymous listener 'how do I deal with loneliness when working from home?'

Sometimes we love it, sometimes we do not 😅

In this episode we talk about:

• Why lots of us illustrators prefer working solo… sometimes
• Shared studios vs. doors-that-close
• Headphones, boundaries, and avoiding “being watched” energy
• Partner-as-studio-mates 👀 Can it work?
• Using Zoom to humanise client relationships
• Instagram as a “virtual kitchen”
• Local micro-communities, Good Ship meet-ups, and regular check-ins
• Assuming positive intent ❤️

Rough timestamps, for people who like that sort of thing

00:00 Anonymous listener Q: “How do I deal with loneliness working from home?”
01:00 Tania’s Hong Kong years: craving team vibes
02:30 Partners in the studio: the headphone solution
04:00 Open-plan offices, self-consciousness, and wiggly energy
05:30 The magic of a shut-the-door studio
06:30 Home distractions vs. helpful pottering
07:30 The dream setup: close to home, small, warm, tree view
09:00 Commit to the space: move the “big computer”
10:00 Cloud storage and keeping work in one place
10:30 Instagram as water cooler… or a brain sponge
11:30 Real-world chats that top up your social tank
12:30 Online threads that turn into real communities over time
13:30 Good Ship meet-ups: sketches groups and weekly Zooms
15:00 Why creativity needs privacy and no-one-is-watching energy
16:00 Lonely… but nice lonely (with planned people bits)
16:30 Zoom with clients to reduce email-anxiety and “they hate it” spirals
18:00 How to write and receive feedback without spiralling
19:00 The rule that saves sanity: assume positive intent
20:00 Quick answers: studios with doors, small communities, kinder stories

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Transcript

Sept 1
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[00:00:00] an anonymous question that says how to deal with feelings of loneliness when you work from home by yourself? A lot, which is life. As an illustrator, it's very different from other people's lives, isn't it? I always envy people who have got their own studio with friends around them.

I think I spent 25 years in Hong Kong working in a corridor on my own, on an island, and there were no other illustrators around, and I was so lonely. That. I think that was one of the major reasons to move back, just to be in a world with other people. Then I found you too. It has been so good working together, hasn't it?

Yeah, it's been so nice 'cause we're all illustrators and we work alone in our separate spaces. A lot of time and then we get together. It's lovely. Community's really important. I really like working from home. I've tried sharing studios and I'm, I'm just too easily distracted.

I really love a chat and I'm just really easily distracted. So I, I work from home 'cause I enjoy the solitude of it, but I would go mad if I [00:01:00] didn't. Do other stuff. Yeah, because I mean, Jerry's an illustrator as well, your husband, so you would never be entirely alone. Have you ever been in a situation where there's only you usually laughing?

'cause I called Jerry your husband? No. Well, yeah, that, that is really weird. I never call him my husband. I know. When I said it I thought, oh, that's such a weird thing to say. Your spouse, your partner, Mr. Helen. Yeah. Um, uh, no, I'm laughing because, so we sat next to each other at Glasgow School of Art, didn't we?

Tanya And you were our tutor. And then we left art school. We lived in various flats in London, mostly around Hammersmith and Shepherd's Bush. The flats were so small we always shared a space. And then we moved up here and we shared a space, well, this must be like 25 years in when we suddenly decided we could not do it one more day.

We just couldn't share a space anymore. Yeah, it worked really amicably for years and years and years. And then I found I just had to put my headphones on every day because Jerry started talking about politics all the time and I couldn't take it. And so, and Joey's not listening to this. He [00:02:00] knows. I mean, we had to talk about it.

It was really bad. I was like, either you need to shut up, or I'm putting my headphones on. No, this isn't working. Now. We need separate studios. And that works brilliantly. We just get together to eat, we get together to go for walks, but we are working separately and it, oh, it's so much better. I think if you get the right answer to the loneliness.

Or the annoyance of having your partner in the room with you. I was like, when I was working on my own, I worked a lot with one art director at the South China Morning Post, and when they needed to redesign it, he said, right, come in and be part of the team. I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna be part of the team, not just one of those.

Like a little weirdo in a box that they occasionally asked to illustrate things, because they, they did invite me to Christmas dinners with all the other journalists who knew each other really well and the art department, and they didn't know what to do with me or what I looked like either.

'cause I was this invisible contributor. And they would ask me to do cartoons of people at the Christmas dinner. I'd be like, if this is what it takes to be with other people, I don't think I want it [00:03:00] because A, I can't draw cartoons. And the art director was so glamorous if I did something terrible about her in a drawing.

That really would not be good for business. So anyway, he called me in and said, come and work in the offices for three months while we redesigned the newspapers and you're gonna be the visual and color. So I did all the color palettes for them and worked out all the imagery. But the moment I got there, I could not work with other people present.

I felt like someone was looking over my shoulder, no one was looking at the screen, just me. So I had to wear headphones for the entire three months and not talk to the people I'd been looking forward to working with because I was like, this is weird. Working with other people, it was so alien. I was gonna say like the, I really like working alone because of that.

So I, I think in my mind I'm like, oh, it's a bit lonely. It'd be nice to be working in the same place as other people. But even so, when I was at college, I did an internship at a graphic design place and I was really excited. I was like, oh, gonna be working with loads of people. And then we sat, it was like an open plan thing with all the graphic designers and [00:04:00] whatever.

It was awful. Like just, I felt like I couldn't work 'cause it was exactly feel you can't work. Yeah. I felt really self-conscious. I don't even know why. Like I felt like my work was fine and things, but just people watching was really distracting and I felt like my energy wasn't right 'cause it was all wiggly.

And then and the same thing, like me and Cameron shared a studio. But he was never home. But then lockdown happened and he was home all the time. And I think it was like December of lockdown. So like it did whatever April to December is, and then he was like, I'm going to kill you. I need my own space.

So I've got the smallest studio I could, and now I really like working alone. But I think if you're strategic about who you spend time with, like, I like you two a lot, but that's good. Just anyone not good. If it's, maybe it's good. Your studio setup is good because you can close the door, so you're going to a place and there are other people there, but you can close the door.

Yeah, that's true. Because I think that's what I, I would quite like that. I really like. Being at home. But when I shared a illustration studio [00:05:00] the same as YouTube, I was in a room with other people and I used to I use my hair dryer a lot during my work, so I'll make a layer of work and I'll use the hair dryer to dry it.

And I just felt as if I was being really, my hairdresser would be in my really noisy for a few, a minute or two, and then I'd turn it off and people would chatting. And if one person made a cup of tea, they'd ask everybody else if they wanted, before you knew it was a chat, I just couldn't do it. But maybe having a door that closes is the key.

Yeah. Knowing people are nearby so you're not alone. And also just not doing the dishes all the time. I don't know. You seem to have a good separation between workspace and home space. Um, I just get distracted and don't do any work at home. I'm not really sure how I navigate that. I definitely do get distracted by stuff in the house.

Sometimes I feel like I need to be distracted for a little bit. I'd take my mind off the problem and go and do something else for a while and that might be pottering about doing something in the garden or something. I really love being at home. The [00:06:00] only thing that's ever tempted me is that, um, there's a possibility there are gonna be studios, literally a minute walk from my house.

If it was any further, it would be a solid no, but a minute from my house is really tempting. And there, there will be doors that close. You could go in your perhaps Yeah. I could walk around in my pajamas in the middle of the night. So I might be tempted by that. Yeah. You So the loneliness is a weird thing and all that.

Be careful for what you wish for. Yeah. Thing because. It. It is a really isolating career, especially in the beginning when you can't really afford studios and given the cost of property, particularly in London and other, other places like that, I think the studio experience we had when we were younger is very difficult for new estate illustrators to replicate now economically.

So you're always gonna be slightly working at home. And I think back to our first studio, there was six of us in this massive room, which was on the first floor in Shor High Street, right opposite the church. We had Rob Ryan in there, Bruce Ingham, [00:07:00] Marion Dejas, RO Rosie, I can't remember Rosie's second name.

But somehow we all kind of got on but there was a level of tolerance that people would extend to each other of either you'd work with headphones on or you'd. Not say too much and get, eventually it would settle down to a quiet productive, don't talk too much environment, but I dunno whether you can do that anymore.

And then you grow outta it. Like you say, if you do those the lonely years at home on your own, then if you get offered a studio, you can get really picky and think, oh, I couldn't work with hairdryer girl. She'd drive her nuts. Or, that's it. When, when I'm thinking about the possibility of moving into the studio, that might open around, not even around a corner, it's one minute straight walk.

I think, what about the other people? What if they get on my nerves? Yeah. I think I'm so, I'm just so used to being in my own space. I don't get lonely. I definitely can, but they're gonna, they're gonna be rooms that you can shut the door on. You can. And I think that's maybe the perfect answer to know people are there.

You have a [00:08:00] co, a common area, like a kitchen. So if someone's taking time out of their studio with a kind of, I'm up for talking. I have a mug of tea. Here, come and sit down and chat with me. 'cause I've just got new studios. Up the road? Well, I've got my first real studio in 30 years. And I feel super grateful. And it's not too big, not too small. It's warm. I've got a view of a tree, I can shut the door. There's lots of fine artists around me, so I feel like the naughty commercial person.

It sounds perfect. Yeah, I think it's, and it's just a minute walk from your house, isn't it? Yeah. You just walk up the walls as well. Looking at the seat. The walk is unbelievable. When I came back on Sunday, I thought, I cannot believe my luck. So next up is break the habit of a lifetime from sitting in my studio and going to work in the place, which is, it sounds really easy, but I'm so struggling. I think have to take the big computer up there. So there's none of this morning, start the morning fiddling around, reading emails, and then suddenly it's two o'clock and you haven't gone to the studio.

So you like, was it, you [00:09:00] said, Katie, it's like taking your makeup and cosmetics bag to your boyfriend's and leaving it there. Did I say that? I think you said that. You said committing with the big computer and saying that's it. This is where I work. Do you have everything in your studio so you can't work at home?

Yeah, I've got a big computer at studio and. I used to be naughty and bring my iPad home. Sometimes, well, sometimes I do, if I've got a job on and I don't wanna go to the studio, like if, if my daughter was at home, like when she was really little, she'd be napping and I'd work at home. But, um, yeah, just everything's at studio.

I have emergency laptop at home, but that's it. And also, like cloud storage is really helpful 'cause it used to be like, oh, that's on my other computer. Oh, I've done that at home. But because it's all in the cloud. That is really useful for just nipping back and forward digitally,

What about the online thing for loneliness? I think that's a bit of a double-edged. So like online communities at Instagram, I feel like it's my water cooler. So if I'm working by myself all day, I actually love working by [00:10:00] myself.

I have a great time. I'm brilliant company. But then I'll be like, oh, what's everyone doing online? And it feels like just popping into a kitchen where everyone's hanging out and seeing what's going on. But I think sometimes because it's weird, you think you're getting community and having a good time, but then ahs, you actually haven't, it's not very nourishing.

Is it fake? Because it's not real fake? Yeah. I dunno. What's your thoughts? I really like looking inst on Instagram. Obviously it can turn into scrolling, which feels mindless, and my brain goes to sponge and then I can't work. 'cause my brain's now sponge, so I have to be careful. I like that a lot of the people I've met on Instagram have then met in real life.

Yeah, that's been nice. I think when I think about every day, I don't need to see an illustrator every day. It doesn't have to be an illustrator. It can be a chat with the lady over the road who brings us eggs from the farm. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like I don't feel like I need a community of specifically illustrators as long as there's people to talk to every day.[00:11:00] 

Taking dog for a walk or, you know. Yeah. Having real chats with people feels so nice. Mm-hmm. And they don't, well, that's how it was when I was living in Hong Kong, there were no illustrators around. The only people I spoke to were just regular people. Mm-hmm. And I used to look at Britain from afar and think, look at them all having a lovely time together, knowing each other, running around, having parties and needle pub running down the beach.

Yeah. So I used to put things online in a kind of desperate attempt to wave, hi, I'm over here. And quite lonely, but it didn't really amount to much. But then being back now I realize all that time that you invest in online building a kind of online connection, it really does pay off. Because I remember writing to Andy J.

Pizza from Hong Kong saying, I, I want to buy your print. It's so lovely. And I thought about him the other day and thought that was 15, maybe 20 years ago. Wow. He then he is always been in the ether around us and that is a very [00:12:00] real community, that illustrator community. Um. Even if you only drop the odd question into an Instagram feed, you are ultimately connected with them.

But the nice thing about the Facebook groups as well for good ship is lots of people say things like, is there anyone in Norfolk? Is there anyone in Scotland who wants to go out drawing? And now that loads of little groups are formed like good ship sketches groups, so they meet up quite regularly.

Yeah. And I've no idea how many they are, but I know I've seen lots of call outs of people say, yes, we'll meet up again. So now they've gone off on their own into little subgroups, which is so nice in the existing real. Yeah. I was talking to somebody the other day who's done good ship courses. I've forgotten who it was.

Now A picture book person and there's about five picture book people who have this Monday morning chat on Zoom. Yeah. Is it Pencils on Toast? Yes. Yeah, pencils on toast. So Sam I can't remember. Bedroom Floor Productions. Lovely Sam and a group of other illustrators have a little chat once a week.

And um, the [00:13:00] walk to see hashtag that started years and years and years ago. Loads of groups of people meet up to go and do walk to see drawing challenges.

I think that's when the internet makes you feel less lonely. When you're really interested in something and other people are interested in it too. And you can talk about it together. Yeah, like directly, like in comments or in direct messages. But it does, it's definitely a strange kind of life. There are probably other people like blacksmiths or I dunno, who work on their own and have to find their own clients and maybe go to blacksmiths, fancier meetups, shall we find the local blacksmiths and see if they wanna hang out?

Say, are you lonely? Find all people with the lonely jobs because we can sit here mith and go, oh, it's a lonely life being an illustrator. But they, I'm sure there's plenty of other like coders I dunno anyone coding, I'm alone on my canal boat coding. It's definitely be careful what you wish for though.

'cause I always, I was like, oh, I hired an assistant last [00:14:00] year and she was local and she was like, oh, I can come into the, into the studio to work. And I was like, oh, that'll be so nice. And this person is lovely and everything, but I just realized it was this. It was a studio thing again, like somebody's in my space.

Yeah. I can't get anything done. I spend the whole day before worrying that they're kind of come, they're gonna come in, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna pick Myas up off the floor or whatever. Not the medicas are on the floor at the studio, but you know, you just walk studio, carry on, carry on, illustrating, make sure you don't fart tomorrow.

Don't eat anything. Garlicy. Very worryingly. Just being, because I, my old studio is very small, so if somebody was in there with me for a whole day, very stressful. It's just the awareness of other people around you, isn't it? 'cause I'm thinking of your studio if I was sitting there in your room with you looming over.

Yeah, because it's only about four square meters, wasn't it? You can't not loom. It's that tiny. Yeah. It's just the energy change, isn't it? The notion of needing to feel completely alone and unobserved. [00:15:00] Is the only way you can create it is I, I just go through reams of paper that gets either scrunched up or just float onto the floor beside me as I go.

One drawing. No next drawer. No next drawer. Maybe I'll stick it on the wall. It's all pri all those decisions feel really intimate and private. And if somebody was watching me, yeah, I can't make those decisions. I've got to be a hundred percent in my own world. Impossible. Somebody else there. I can't do it.

It's like nobody's watching. That's what it's all about really, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So anyway you can only be unconscious. Oh, alone. I don't mean unconscious like on the floor, but you know what I mean. Un unconsciously creative. You've got nickers on the floor, you're unconscious on the floor. Great work.

Oh dear. Do you think that answers the question about loneliness? Definitely not, but we had fun talking about a general ramble about loneliness and the illustrator's plight. [00:16:00] Like it's lonely, but it's nice, lonely, and then you get to meet people in between and it's not lonely. Yeah. I don't feel, I don't get lonely.

I've, I really love being in my own space as long as I definitely have chats with other people at some point in the day. Yeah. Yeah. I think Zoom makes it better as well. Yeah. If all clients began projects with a Zoom and you're like, oh, they are a real person and not just a name on an email, that would make projects better.

But I think the other illustrator specific condition is. You know, they, you call it like being on Tinder, just a new person every three weeks. And if you don't actually have a chat with them or feel that they're a real human then you're just, you are on your own again, with someone's email popping through, going, make it a bit more bouncy or no, I don't like options two and three.

And those are quite serious questions, aren't they? You really, I'd find it really hard if I didn't know the publisher. And I know a lot of people do this, like a lot of [00:17:00] British illustrators will work for publishers in other countries. And so they'll just, all of the brief will come by email, all of the changes will come by email.

I don't think I could do that. I really like going to see the publisher at the beginning of a project, then having some Zoom calls as it's going along. Chatting on WhatsApp, sending pictures of the dogs, like mm-hmm. I really like building a relationship. The relationship with the publisher. I think I'd find it very difficult working from home if the brief came by email and the changes and it'll be really hard.

That's because I think that's the other part of the loneliness is not having a relationship with the art director in, in Hong Kong I did, 'cause it was a small world, you could pop in and go and see 'em. They say, oh, come in at lunchtime, we'll go out for lunch and talk about the roughs. And that was so serialized and nice, but when, usually when you're working long distance, like we all are, email seemed great because we could work for anyone.

But then [00:18:00] after a while, it's a very dried up relationship and delivering those tricky rejections via email. In fact, I'd had to. Reject some work from someone else. Recently I was like, oh, this is what it feels like to be an art director. I better praise this really carefully. I have to write much more than I really want to because I've got to couch it nicely.

And we are on the receiving end of that by email. That is quite an isolating thing. So Zoom chats are probably the best way to build a relationship on a job. And if you're not having a good day, you can read an email or a text message in totally the wrong tone of voice, can't you? Yeah. They're just saying like, hi there, these things need change.

And you're like, hi there. These things need change because you are terrible at Aate and I hate everything. You, everyone. You're like, oh my God. So much effort into it and they hate it. And then you talk on his, he got on a Zoom and they're like. Oh yeah. How do you get on with the changes? You're like, oh, you don't hate me.

Yeah. So that's always a big one, and that's when I think you spend too much time alone. Yes. When you start disappearing into your own head and then you read things wrong and [00:19:00] Yeah. Yeah. But I think, like you always said, Katie, and I've taken that to heart and it really works. Assume positive intent.

Definitely. It's so much better to say that at the beginning of all interactions with any human being. Frankly, I, I think that's really good advice. I remember 30 years ago in therapy, once she said to me, would it be easier to believe this scenario or this really horrible, hard scenario? Which do you want to believe?

I was like, you can do that. I can just choose which way I want to believe. It's mind blowing. It was mind blowing. I couldn't believe she was giving me that permission. Yeah. Yeah. I remember some. I think it might have been. I can't, where I heard it, it was people in the internet just talking about basically your whole life is just the stories you tell yourself.

Mm. About what's happening around you. And that blew my mind. Yeah. Because like the facts are always very boring. This happened, that happened, but then the bit your feelings, how you interpret it is how you see your life. Yeah. Which is therapy. That's what therapy is. Isn't it? Wild? Mm. Brilliant.

There go. [00:20:00] That'll help with loneliness. Facts are you haven't seen anyone all day. That's not a good or a bad thing unless you want it to be. Yeah. I think and the answer to studios is just get one with a door. Get some other people around you. Yeah, I think so. But yeah, if you are younger, you might want a big gang in a room.

I'm too old for that now though. I was not good at that. I was no good at that when I was young. Really bad. Couldn't do it. It's horses for courses, isn't it? Yeah. Studio wise. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Lovely. Bye. Bye. Bye.