This week's podcast is a sneaky peek into the live Q&A calls we do for our Find Your Creative Voice; Fly Your Freak Flag students. (They happen monthly at the moment.)

WHADDA CHAT.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Pursuing boredom
• The Artists' Way
• Why finding your style doesn’t always feel fun and easy and natural (Instagram's lying to yooou)
• What to do when you have hundreds of project ideas and no clue which one to choose
• How to handle agent/client feedback without immediately throwing your laptop into the sea
• Galleries are better when you don’t try to “eat all the paintings”
• Pens, colour, sketchbooks and abandoning black linework
• Quentin Blake, Mr Bingo and free flapjacks. Just a normal day, really.

If you'd like to join us, go for it! Enrolment is open right now, and our next live call is happening on Thursday the 16th of July at 7pm UK time.

Timestamps

00:00 Art block
00:55 Morning pages
02:00 Wide margins
04:30 Boredom
06:00 Creative sparks
08:15 Creative identity
10:20 Comparison
11:30 Constraints
13:30 Page layouts
15:15 Deadlines
17:15 Oblique Strategies
18:30 Slow looking
21:00 Drawing from home
22:30 Quentin Blake Centre
26:45 Too many ideas
31:10 Feedback
37:30 Coloured linework
39:45 Closing thoughts

Stuff we mentioned & links (so many this week, woah)

• The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
• Make Every Day Creative by Marion Deuchars
• David Hockney (RIP)
• Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies
• Quentin Blake Centre - Thank you for inviting us to the preview day, team QB!
• Derwent Pencil Museum
• Picture Hooks https://www.picturehooks.org.uk/
• The Catchpole Agency http://www.thecatchpoleagency.co.uk/
• Muji fine liners
• Emma Carlisle / Sarah Dyer
  https://www.emmacarlisle.com/
  https://www.sarahdyer.com/
• The Good Ship Illustration Art Club
  https://www.instagram.com/thegoodshipillustration/?hl=en
• Fly Your Freak Flag
  https://www.thegoodshipillustration.com/freakflag
• The Good Ship Illustration colour workshop
  https://www.thegoodshipillustration.com/colour

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 🎙

This week our Katie is chatting to Alice Bowsher, who's work she would like to bite (In a good way. The same way you want to bite very cute babies. Is it called cuteness aggression?)

Anyways, there's chat about creative career paths, Glastonbury bags, cardboard bedrooms, Walker Books, baby board books, and the very very important role of biscuits. Mmmm.

Timestamps, for the timestamp fans:

00:00 – Intro to Alice
02:00 – From fine art to graphics to illustration
04:00 – The YCN internship, signing with an agent, and learning how the industry works
06:00 – Grand Matter, how commissions work "I'm definitely an agent person"
09:00 – Pricing and getting over the guilt of making it look easy
11:00 – Social media, Instagram vs Substack - Substack feels like old school Tumblr
14:00 – What happens when a brief comes in?
17:00 – Alice's cardboard bedroom
19:00 – Sketchbooking
21:00 – The Glastonbury Guardian bags and seeing your work out in the world
22:30 – Hobbies, exercise, biscuits, and the new-parent juggle
24:30 – Baby board books for Walker

Links mentioned:

• Alice's website: https://www.alicebowsher.co.uk/
• Alice on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alicebowsher
• Alice's Substack, Easypeeler: https://alicebowsher.substack.com/
• Grand Matter, Alice's illustration agency: https://grandmatter.com/
• Fold out guinea pig birthday cards for Wrap: https://wrapmagazine.com/products/guinea-pig-surprise-fold-out-card
• We briefly mentioned Find Your Creative Voice, Fly Your Freak Flag so here's the link to that too in case you want to bask in your weirdness and make your best work ever: https://www.thegoodshipillustration.com/freakflag

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 🎙

This week, we're STIIIIIILL talking about Bologna Children's Book Fair (for the last time, we promise 😅) - this episode was supposed to come out as soon as we got home, but the technology gremlins have been fighting with us every step of the way. BACK OFF, GREMLINS.

You'll hear at the very end that we went on talking for three whole blimmin' episodes before we realised the microphones had conked out.

We chat about having a stand and exhibiting for the very first time, our Best-Stand award, given to us by the one and only Chloe Savage (sponsored by ham™️), meeting the most brilliant people, and...Mega Duck!

Timestamps, for the timestamp fans:

00:00 – Back from Bologna! The brain dump begins
01:00 – What it was like having a stand for the first time
02:30 – The Best Stand Award wot we won
04:00 – 1,500 stripy bags, tattoos, and the ham situation
06:30 – Meeting podcast listeners in real life
07:00 – A lovely chat with Steve Anthony (Mr. Panda!) and his route into illustration 09:00 – The Cambridge School of Art stand and Good Ship grads
10:00 – Katie interviewing people on the stand with mega microphones
11:30 – Holly's observation about illustrators
13:00 – Why picture book people are the best
15:00 – The Illustrators' Survival Corner
16:30 – Meeting new people and being mistaken for a publisher
18:00 – Jo Overend and the Mega Duck story / Walker Books
22:00 – Lisa Loffredo, the Nami Concours shortlist, and a very good group photo
24:00 – The Good Ship Illustration as a showcase for talent (a big idea brewing...)
26:00 – Our Bolognese Palace
28:00 – Tania on nonfiction illustration
31:00 – How to research publishers from home
33:30 – Whoops, the microphones weren't recording. Goodbye Bologna!

Links & people mentioned:

🎨 Steve Antony (Mr. Panda author-illustrator): https://www.steveantony.com/
🎨 Cambridge School of Art MA in Children's Book Illustration: https://www.aru.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/childrens-book-illustration
🎨 Jo Overend on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joverendillustration/
🎨 Lisa Loffredo on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisaloffredo_/
🎨 The Bologna Children's Book Fair: https://www.bolognachildrensbookfair.com/ 🎨 The Bookseller (check out the April issue, useful for agents and publishers list): https://www.thebookseller.com/

Byeeee for now!

x The Good Ship Illustration (Helen, Katie & Tania)

p.s. Heard Jo's story and feelin' a bit inspired? Good! If you want to find your own creative voice and start putting yourself out there, come and fly your freak flag with us. https://www.thegoodshipillustration.com/freakflag

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 🎙