Speaking of illustration:

This is a long read. Get the kettle on, and maybe some biscuits!

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This week I gave a talk via the Speakers For Schools programme to a large, digitally-assembled audience of schoolchildren from schools around the UK.

Live from my studio I was invited to answer questions posed by host Charlotte, followed by questions sent in by the students as they listened. This is always my favourite bit - the questions an audience asks, particularly one composed mainly of children, are always the most interesting to answer, for they are often surprising, insightful, cheeky, direct, oblique or all of those things at once.

I've missed travelling to events, schools and universities over the last year, environments in which I'd be chatting on a stage to potentially hundreds of listeners, but it's actually been very freeing not to have to organise the logistics of a long drive or a train trip - and I've not missed the amusingly awkward fifteen minutes it usually takes to get my drive, disk or CD talking to a college PC system!

No; instead, I've been able to prepare, present and chat from my own studio, which means longer talks, and more relaxed environments for all.

I made notes for this most recent talk as I usually do, because although I never read notes verbatim, especially in a stage situation, I wanted to stay on track and not waste any time fumbling for answers. Since I typed them all out though, I thought it would be useful to share those answers together with the questions here, as they're things I get asked a lot.

I've added a couple of my favourite 'Q&A' questions from the end of the session.

I hope they're useful! Keep in mind that any one of these questions could be expanded into at least an hour-long talk all by itself, so these are skimming the surface; this part of the talk was only 40 minutes long. All the images are from the slideshow.

If you're interested in organising a talk for your own college, school, event or university, do get in touch.

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Firstly, please can you tell me how 'Inkymole' came about?

When the time came to set up my first ever website, sarahcoleman.com was already taken, and there were far fewer domain options in those days. At school one of my nicknames was Mole, both because of chronic short-sightedness and because it rhymed with Cole (another nickname) and Colehole (yet another), and because I was always dabbling about with ink and paint, the 'inky' part began to stick too.

So the obvious choice for a domain, which was only ever meant to be a temporary solution, was inkymole.com. It wasn't long before people started ringing up and calling me Inky, or asking for Inkymole - and so it stayed!

(and sarahcoleman.com STILL isn't available - it's owned by a company who buy up domains purely to sell to the highest bidder - a practice I don't approve of!)

Please could you talk to us about what is it like to work as an illustrator and some of your responsibilities?

- Hard work. It's always hard work!

- You may work by yourself - at home or in a studio - but you’re part of a team whose job it is to get work completed and often to print to a deadline.

- You need to be able to get the job done on time, on your own.

What are some of the skills you need to be a successful illustrator? 

- Flexibility and adaptability - both in terms of your ability to manage time, when you can / want / need to work, and in terms of your style and way of working.

- Perseverance and the ability to stand your ground; this'll be important in negotiating contracts and fees, and in arguing your corner when you feel a direction isn't right, or something won't work a particular way.

- Must be able to take feedback and criticism objectively - it's not personal.

- You need a flair for marketing and self-promotion without sounding fake or inauthentic. If it's just you say YOU! (If there's no actual 'we', never use it. Also: people KNOW when you're being sales-y vs. just talking 'in your own voice'. 

- Ability to manage cashflow!

Please can you tell us about some projects that you have worked on that have been really memorable and why?

 

There are loads, from very small projects to very large ones, and not all for clients. Here are some; they're all on my website (part from the one marked with a †).

- Try 50th anniversary 'To Kill A Mockingbird' cover.
- Illustrating 'Out To Get You' and 'Only If You Dare'† by Josh Allen.
- Some of my own shows; big logistical and creative personal challenges.
- The Playboy cover!
- Hillary Clinton's book cover.
- The 72ft billboard in Times Square.
- My July 4th Fireworks poster for Macy's.

What are some of the main challenges of being an illustrator? 

- Staying in work - generating enough to make a living, long-term and consistently - and not only 'a living', but the kind of living you want, whether for you that means 'I want a big house' or 'I need to be able to support loads of kids', 'buy a horse', 'have four holidays a year' or 'I'm happy with enough to cover my bills'. 

- Managing jobs and your time (you’ll often have more than one job to do at once, often for overlapping deadlines).

- Staying on people’s radars; it’s a very competitive trade.

What advice do you have for aspiring young illustrators? 

- Start looking for clients and work (experience) BEFORE you leave education. When you leave, you’ll be swimming upstream with thousands of others, all trying to get work. This means making contacts, doing interviews with people in industry, writing to them, maybe working for them (work experience), inviting them to your end-of-course shows, and more.

- Your best work is yet to come, so don’t worry about how your work looks right now - it will change throughout your life, and it should.

- Never put work in your folio that you don’t actually like or didn't like doing - even if it’s brilliant or been published or you got paid a lot for it. If you hated doing it and don’t want to work like that again, don’t show it to anyone; that way lies madness.

Are there any misconceptions about illustration and what would you say to address them? 

- It’s not just about kids’ books!

- Yes I do kids' books. 

- That 'it’s easy' - I have DEFINITELY got the impression people think my job is easy!

- That we’re willing to knock out a drawing in front of the TV. If we’re watching TV, we’re watching TV, not working (and vice versa)…

…ergo, just because it’s art and we use crayons doesn’t mean we’re going to do it for free.

How has technology advanced throughout your career and do you think it has created more opportunities for illustrators?  

- It’s made it easier than ever to show work publicly, and deliver it worldwide, cheaper than ever (free in a lot of cases). 

-Technology has sped up the process of actually making [some types of] work and delivering it - I'm thinking of the obvious software, Apple Pencils, and the internet at large - but it hasn't sped up the process of learning to create illustration, think up concepts, answer briefs. And it definitely can't speed up or create shortcuts for gaining experience.

- However, technology means that your competitors are ALSO visible, and suddenly you realise there are thousands of you, any of whom can do the job - whereas when I started, you were mainly hired by clients in the same country, and your work would only be seen if you sent it specifically to the client or they’d seen something you’d had published.

- This also means you were mostly only aware of illustrators who'd been published, rather than the situation we have now where anyone can share any of their work 24 hours a day, published or not, professional or amateur alike - and we can all see it (and see how good it is!) 

In other words: technology means that illustrators trying to gain a foothold in the business today are competing in an enormous, omnipresent market - clients are spoilt for choice.

What inspires you to be creative? 

- Every human is creative, we all just express it and use it in different ways. I’m no more or less creative than a plumber who solves a particularly difficult piping problem, a café owner who’s found a way to carry on retailing through the lockdowns, or a coder who can’t work out a game problem!

- So I wouldn’t say I have to ‘become inspired’ to be creative; I just am - as is everyone, in their own way.

It’s just that I 'look' more creative because my work is visual, and can thus be ’seen’ - being ‘able to draw' has long been seen as a benchmark of being creative, but I don’t think this is accurate.

- On a pragmatic note, I'm paid professional-level fees because of my ability to create on-demand - so I can't really 'wait for inspiration to strike' if I have a deadline.

[Having said that - see below!]

What do you do if you are having a bit of a creative block?

- I go back to the book/brief and have another look!

- Ask the art director for more info/a chat.

- If the deadline allows: switch to a different job for a bit.

- If the deadline doesn’t allow: send what I have! You never know, the client might like it anyway (the best advice an agent ever gave me).

- Sometimes it helps to get the obvious solutions or clichés out of the way - just do them, work through them, maybe send them; at the very least look at them, because that often leads to a clearer path to something more interesting.

- If none of that works: give up! Go back to it later (again - if deadline allows - if not - you have to plough on - it’s what you’re paid to do!) And do something else.

As stated in the last answer, as a professional you're paid money to create to order so, although creative block does occur (you're not a machine), as a pro, you need to have the strategies to get past it and deliver the work - even if you don't think it's your finest output!

~ My two favourite Student Questions ~

Have you ever had to deal with copying, infringement or plagiarism?

I have. Many times. But I need to break my answer into two parts; first, being copied or imitated.

A few years ago I was getting messages from chums and even family saying they liked the work I'd done for a particular high street store (there's a little crew of people who go Sarah-Spotting). It had been a VERY busy few months so I looked up the work they were talking about as I couldn't remember doing it; this didn't mean I hadn't, it's just that sometimes the lead time between doing a job and the job going live is quite long - as much as a year and a half sometimes. And as I said...it HAD been a really busy time.

However, this one I had NOT done - but for second I thought I was losing my mind as it just WAS my work. I looked EXACTLY like I'd done it. The rest of the story is here, but I realised that yes, my style, energy, the movement in my work, the way things flowed across a space, and the other intangible, slightly hard to articulate things that make my work 'mine' had very definitely been mimicked - almost studied. The artist in question maybe knew, or maybe didn't know, just how similar their work was - either way, they carried on working in that way for a good long time, and I had to really keep an eye on things for a while there.

Mimicking a style is harder to prove, should a court situation ever arise, and indeed a recent case of one lettering artist vs another lettering artist which almost came to blows in a very public way was a good example

The second thing I've had to deal with is infringement. (This is distinct from plagiarism - which is a specific piece of work being copied and passed off as an original:

'Plagiarism and copyright infringement overlap to a considerable extent, but they are not equivalent concepts' - Wikipedia.) I'll often share examples on my Instagram account partly to let current or potential infringers see that what they're doing is easily discovered.

My work has been stolen constantly by users of Etsy and Redbubble for making their own (mostly terribly-put-together) products. I have to report each case and get the listing - or in extreme cases, the account - taken down. I bet that if I went to Redbubble or Etsy right this minute, I'd find a new one! 

[Note: I did.] 

[Secondary note: I found 7.]

A full blog on this subject is due for publication soon.

 

What do you see as the future for art and illustration in relation to technology and AI? 

This was a big question that I didn't see coming. But my reply was an honest one. Since this wasn't written down, this is a rough transcript of how I answered! (expanded on a bit).

Although AI and technology in general has made breathtaking leaps in my lifetime - from the very hyperlink itself to synthesising art and the creation process, piercing together visual information fed to neural networks to make 'new' things, AI-generated music like that of Holly Herndon's 'Spawn', and robots which are getting closer to mimicking the natural movements of humans, such as everything Boston Dynamics has been working on, I feel sure that the kernel of that which makes art and ideas - the human mind - cannot be replicated in its full form. Not only that, it's the human mind (rather than merely 'the brain') working in conjunction with with the intricacies of human decision making, moral, aesthetic and emotional judgements, feeling and intuition, nuance and storytelling, and solving problems presented by human existence, which complete the recipe for creating things.

We will probably one day soon see a walking, talking robot that mimics us and can hold a pencil or paint on canvas or write soliloquies in seconds, but it will still be a machine. (I recommend reading Ian McEwan's 'Machines Like Me' which explores this in detail.)

And that makes me think that if that happens, the market may divide into a situation similar to that seen in wartime, when you had, for example, ‘real’ coffee and ‘ersatz’ coffee; the crap stuff, but it was passable when the real deal was unobtainable or unaffordable. At ground level, as opposed to within the research labs or billionaire’s basements, there’ll be Machine-Made Art (MMA) which is cheap and plentiful and just about adequate, and there’ll be Human-Made Art (HMA), which is the real thing, and comes at the appropriate price. Like the difference between a mass-produced made-in-China thing or one hand-made by a craftsman in a workshop. (There may be a lifelong love of the film Bladerunnerwith its replicants coming through there). And 

We’re seeing the beginnings of something which feels a bit like that now with the likes of Fiverr, where you can get a logo banged out for literally a fiver, which will ‘do the job’; but if you want something properly considered, unique, designed and refined, you go to a trained, experienced professional. There’s an argument there that the Fiverr model is the democratisation of design — that you don’t need a degree or training, merely the right software and an ambivalence about the outcome — and that these £5 logos are just as good (indeed some of the people on Fiverr claim to have many years of experience). But that’s for another blog entirely!

Ironically art made with machines (digital) is now being sold by machines as NFTs for ‘I really need to sit down’ sums of machine-generated money — forcing all of us to think about what ownership means — both taking ownership of something’s creation in the first place, and ownership of a finished piece — and whether, when provenance of digital work is as traceable and provable (maybe more so) than physical pieces, there remains any value in the concept of one-offs and originals.

So my outlook is optimistic, while remaining realistic. Those machines are not getting any less clever.

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Thank you to Charlotte Stringfellow and Lily Clifford at Speakers4Schools for organising, hosting and editing the talk.

The World’s fastest and most powerful Nissan Pao….for now!

At 354bhp and 303 ft/lb of torque, the Pink Pao is easily the world’s fastest, most powerful Pao* - maybe even the most powerful K10 chassis’d Nissan/Pike Factory car.

Why are we writing about our car again, and not pens or ink or book covers? Well, you may remember, good readers, that when we imported our little pink car from Japan in 2017, we knew we'd adopted something a bit ornery and special which would require us to maintain a certain lifestyle for it. 

The blog that recorded the first few months of the car's life in the UK can be seen here, but this is the next chapter, detailing what we've done since with our Nissan Pao x Silvia SR20DET-engined machine. If you've read my blogs before, or follow me on any socials, you'll know that we keep a small fleet of 'interesting' Japanese vehicles, and if that's your thing too, you can follow us on Instagram at @inkymolesmotors.

Like any of our projects, this was something we put ourselves and our energy into. People LOVE this car and smile and laugh wherever we take it, laughing in disbelief as we tell them the current bhp, as the sun bouncing off the wheels blinds them and the little kids point at the pink and coo. Just like our gallery, our shows, records, our chocolate projects and our radio stations before it, and everything else that's to come, we know that our projects often give other people enjoyment; they’re neither designed to make money (though they sometimes do), nor to satisfy any brief but our own. And it's not like we started this project with a brief, I think with this one we're writing that as we go along!

Both a show car, a driving-wherever-you-want car and a potential track car, this beastie emerged from its time with Dynodaze a much-improved and upgraded version of itself; a makeover of the likes seen in car programmes on the telly: stronger, safer, faster, tidier, cleaner, more stylish, but still very much the one-of-a-kind car that first attracted us to an auction thousands of miles away.

So, for those who share a penchant for the JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) car scene: here's what happened next.

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~ THE BIG STUFF ~

Engine

On track at Silverstone in the summer of 2018 we were into only our second lap when the engine thrust out one of those noises that you Do Not Want To Hear. Being of unknown age, around 30 years old and subjected to who knew what kind of life, the original SR20DET had finally given in.

That was the end of our track day, but it was the beginning of a new engine era: a trip to JDM Garage allowed us to review the four rebuilt engines on offer there, glinting in the window. The chosen engine went in with a GT28 turbo, a new flywheel, stage 3 clutch and a winged sump.

While the engine was being swapped, the gearbox was subjected to an overhaul as well as the diff; new brake discs and pads, and we changed out the alternator. 

Do we buy this one? Or this one?

THIS one.

Roll Cage

We knew that we'd need a roll cage fitted as the car got faster and more powerful, so we asked HDF Motorsport to build one for us. One of the most awkward installs of his life, the tight spaces of the Pao required yoga-like welding moves for 6' 2" owner Billy.

Wafting about the HDF premises like it works there.

'A Comfortable Working Environment'

Cage in progress.

Wheels

The car made its way from Japan on red and silver 1980s Star Sharks, and although we were fond of these and the fact they were a recognisable link with 'the car that Nomuken drove on TV', they were tired and had suffered in their very long lives. We took them to Isaac Brain at Rimscarnated who treated them to a full restoration, widening the back rims by half an inch and blasting off the old red paint. The rims were polished to a ludicrous high-maintenance gleam (we use Peek cream to keep them shiny) while the red paint was replaced by one of over 100 silver paint options - the choosing alone took over two hours, comparing swatches and shades.

And the finishing touch was a single pink stud, hand-painted with enamel by Mole (took me HOURS) and fresh centre caps.

Here are some gratuitous shots:

Progress shot by Rimscarnated

Centre caps by Barrel Bros.

This original pink was close, but not close enough, so was swapped for a near-perfect matched 'Pink 200' by Humbrol Enamel, hand-painted on.

Photograph by Rimscarnated

Photograph by Rimscarnated

(We made him some stickers to say thanks.)

Headlamps

In a bid for better night vision and 'to help people see' the hard-to-spot noisy pink thing hooning down the road, we swapped the factory headlamps for LED versions, more commonly seen on a Jeep. They're an almost perfect fit, and give flexibility with their very human-like ring option or full loving gaze:

Wheel arches 

Since it had always bugged us that the wheel arches made the car look like it was floating way above its wheels when viewed from a distance, we got them painted in matching Hellrosa (an 80s Mercedes colour) by Keith Ellis at Uncle Keith's Paintshop.

They'd needed a bit of a wriggle to get them to fit, and they're still not a super-slick match to the car, but it looks so much more 'together' now - especially from across the track.

Suspension!

The car's also been fitted with a Tein EDFC coilover suspension system which totally revolutionised the handling. Our first words on returning from a post-fit test drive were "it drives like a normal car!"

More stable, level, comfy and highly adaptable due to its myriad setting options, the car did indeed go from feeling like a lairy unpredictable bounce-fest to a comfy ride you'd be happy to give Great-Grandma a lift to the track in.

And of course, the tiny control box LEDs have been set to pink.

Door cards

We'd bought a tired donor Pao a couple of years ago and kept the door cards, which we hacked hard to modify into a fit for Pink Pao (which had had its battered cards removed early on to allow for roll cage fitting and other work). Serious chopping and slicing was needed to fit them around relocated handles, but once painted Hellrosa-pink and put in place, they brought the car another step closer to 'comfy'.

Digital Dash

We added a Sinco digital dashboard for easier, more immediate sight of the vitals while driving.

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~ THE SMALLER STUFF ~

Gear knob

We re-painted the faded gear knob it came with - a MAC screwdriver handle - in Hellrosa and picked out the lettering in permanent black. Much better!

Steering wheel

Rather than replace the wheel it came with, which is a bit tired but wearing its Japanese drift history with stoicism, we gave the empty horn push centre an identity of its own.

We ordered a stock horn push, took out the badly-printed 'Nissan' logo and replaced it with our own. Since the car is a half-S13 half Pao Francarnstein, we designed a 'Paovia' logo in the style of the Silvia marque and printed it on a brushed aluminium stock.

Tiny Pao

The teeny pull-back-and-go toy Pao we bought from Japan, which arrived in fugly yuckpink, was repainted to match its real-life counterpart!

Tiny Pao now lives on the dashboard.

Original body shell

Proper pinked (Elgrands and Carry van parked behind it in the desktop car park).

RIP BACK AND GO

~ THE NUMBERS ~

354bhp / 303 ft/lb. Here's the most recent dyno print out.

*Ours is certainly only one of two rear-wheel drive Paos in the world, the other is currently being finished in the US by the brave (and now probably empty-pocketed) Roman Vasquez. 

Roman went for 13B rotary power and is currently naturally aspirated, but we know that a satisfyingly big turbo is on the horizon next year!

Showtime!

2020 wasn't the most fruitful year for car shows, but we really didn't do too badly considering. As well as some Exclusive JDM events and a couple of pre-covid track sessions, Pink Pao's last public outing of the year was at a double Exclusive JDM / Go Japan! weekend in September 2020.

With its new bits all in place, Connor at Exclusive JDM kindly invited us and Pink Pao (along with Blue Pao) back for a third time in a year, somehow managing to pull off well-organised and welcoming events in a very difficult pandemic landscape. New to the car show world, Connor's events have a 'less is more' approach with a hand-picked roster of cars representing the full spectrum of JDM machines. This particular weekend he had a post-rainstorm slot at Yakushi! which saw both Paos side by side on an only mildly treacherous grassy slope, the sun beaming down for 8 hours.

Pinkymole was invited to be part of the 'JDM Legends' stand at Go Japan! where we got to take part in the parade: a selection of infamous drift, rare/tuned and show cars taking to the iconic British track accompanied by a lively commentary detailing the specification and history of each one.

Streamed live on the day, Leigh drove the first parade and Sarah the second, alongside the Ayrton Senna NSX, the HKS Hiper Genki S15 and Blitz Nissan Skyline R34 drift car (owned by Garage-D), a rare Subaru SVX,  the V8-powered Fujin Nissan GT-R, the Winfield R32 Skyline replica and a beast of a Porsche 911, with enthusiastic commentary by a narrator who was clearly a fan of the car. Sun-drenched visitors were treated to a mini-drift display while given plenty of time to enjoy the cars cruising past.

Scroll down to watch!

Next

At the time of writing, like all loving built-not-bought car owners, we've got a pile of plans as long as your lockdown to-do list, and we hope to be through most of them by the mid-to-late summer when the car shows reopen for business - and at that point we'll probably be ready to write Pink Pao Blog Part III! 

From where we sit right now on a rainy dull February day that all feels like a long way off, but we hope you enjoyed this run-down, and we're really looking forward to meeting people again in the outdoors with an overpriced coffee; fumbling with sunglasses with one hand and a dyno print-out in the other.

Thanks again to everyone mentioned in this blog who's helped us get the car where we want it to be -sorry about the cuts/burns/strains/scraped knuckles - and everyone we might have unintentionally omitted.

Why I don't do competitions.

~ New York Society of Illustrators Awards, 2008 (two prizes) ~

I'm at the tail end - seeing the 'light at the end of the tunnel' - of making a brand new website, starting totally from scratch and focussing on all the things that are currently missing from the current one. 

I've been meaning to do it for a couple of years, and much as I adore social media for sharing and enjoying each other's work, there's nothing like an online Mothership for telling the world who you are and what you like to make; a central place where I can put everything that's 'me'.
In the course of doing this, I chose to re-visit my FAQ section and where necessary (which as it turns out was 100% of all of it) write my thoughts afresh. After all, the types of questions I get asked have changed in nature, and mostly now come increasingly via Instagram messages and Twitter messages rather than via email, as they used to.

FAQs feel a little 'noughties', but they remain useful: it's still the case that most of the things I get asked are similar in nature and are thus given a similar answer. Though I'll endeavour to answer EVERY query I receive, as soon as I can, there's still an argument for having a 'first line of defence' which provides the answers to the most commonly-asked questions, so that the enquirer can check there first and if necessary, compose a more granular question to fire my way.

One of the answers that remained pretty much the same was this one. I expand on it here as it's something I've been meaning to elaborate on for a while. This is that 'elaborated' version.

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Q: I don’t see any awards or gongs on your website, why’s that?

A: I do have some, but they’re not on the site. I honestly don’t think they’re that important, or would influence whether a client thinks I’m suitable for a job. A client will look at the style of my work, the colours, maybe the medium; they'll look at my profile in terms of whether I've created work of this nature before, and if I haven't, they'll ask whether the work on show suggests I could take a run at the project they have in mind. Finally, we'll talk, and they'll assess my availability, process and timescales, and finally-finally decide whether I should do the job (or, it might be me that makes that decision).

Never in my working life of 27 years have I been asked by a client, or any of my agents, whether I've won competitions, or whether I have prizes or awards. Yes, there's a lot more to committing to a creative vocation, as it can be more than 'just' your profession, job or trade, and a client or agent asking this question is not the only set of circumstances in which competitions might be relevant to that vocation. In an educational setting, for example, doing well in awards might be part of a wider landscape of professional achievements being sought out, alongside qualifications and experience, especially where an institution has a policy of putting students into competitive settings.

But I don't feel they've ever played a part in my myriad clients' decisions to hire me for jobs, nor do I feel they should.

Of course, I'm not saying NO-ONE should enter competitions, or that they shouldn't exist. Not at all; that's up to the individual. But I know that from the very beginning - starting in the second year of university - the pressure was on to compete: with each other, and with total strangers, by entering competitions, and with ourselves. The latter I had no problem with - putting pressure and high expectations on myself is something I've carried about in my 'holster of burdens' all my life - but the first two, competing with my peers, friends and colleagues or people I'd never met - always felt a little off, and distracted from the main focus of being in the educational environment: to experiment, play, evolve, develop, and learn.

That's not to say our course wasn't abso-fucking-lutely hardcore. It was. 9-5, 5 days a week, with stuff to get done at weekends and every single holiday; 26 fully completed, handed-in projects in the first 11-week term alone; crits every week and a ball-breaking amount of written work to go alongside it all. The pressure from that was enough, without a tutor arriving with a pile of photocopied competition briefs ready to add their name to the winner's certificate as 'supervising member of staff'.

The weird thing is I had a love-hate relationship with competitions. I hated the pressure, and my friend and I would quite literally break into a run in the opposite direction from a tutor striding down the corridor with what was so obviously going to be another competiton for us to enter. But I also loved the challenge. I hated pitching myself against my colleagues, but I loved the thrill of everyone disappearing to their rooms every night and scheming on a solution, knowing we were all doing it at the same time and to the same deadline: what would Simon's work be like? How would Mel answer this one? Is Michelle going to go for gouache, or try something else?

And I won things. I entered competitions and I won them, or got runner up places, or some other kind of recognition because of them. And obviously, I loved that, too. 

But alongside those positive feelings was the uneasy awareness of an inflated sense of security, the success feeding the erroneous notion that I might have 'made it', before I'd barely begun. In fact, the 'success' I was having generally on the course and via competitions caused me to have the closest thing I think I've ever had to a little breakdown, coming home one Christmas and declaring that I was spent, all my ideas were gone, I'd done all my best work and how on earth was I going to be able to carry on from here?

It was silly of course and, as my Mum very quickly realised, I was just exhausted and a bit emotional at being home. TV, sleep, tinsel and good food quickly sorted out my terrible twenties angst.

But competitions entered later on, as a working professional, continued to make me anxious with a big dose of self-doubt if I didn’t get anywhere, and when I did do well, I could feel the outcome giving me that same inflated sense of security and maybe a little internal gung-ho. Perhaps, I thought, success in competitions meant I didn't need to try so hard, all the time, because a group of people I've never met have decided my work ticks a set of boxes, or it's been passed in front of the subjective opinions of five different people. And if I entered and got nowhere: the opposite: maybe I'm a fraud. Why am I even trying. Why do I bother. Am I actually a failure and everyone else can see this but me.

Note those were statements, not questions: all those evil, niggling little dialogues spoke up because I'd thrown my work into an unknown vat of work by a hundred or thousand other people, which didn't scratch the particular itch of whatever the judges were feeling on the day.

* 

I continued to enter competitions, but over time I started to become totally ambivalent about them. Those tended to be ones I'd paid to enter - and that scenario made me uncomfortable, too. WHY was I ambivalent? If I didn't care about the outcome, why was I bothering to enter? I realised it was out of a sense of duty, and very much born from the notion that 'that's what professional illustrators do'. And we don't, not all of us, just some of us. Competition gongs are most robustly not a signpost that you're a working, professional, busy illustrator: they're just a sign you like entering competitions.

Coupling all those realisations with the fact that I was paying hard-earned quids to enter, knowing that in some cases thousands of people would be paying the not-terribly-modest entry fees (with winners paying additional fees to display work on top), and my decision came into focus: just don't bother. The time I would spend choosing work, formatting and uploading it and filling forms online could very much be spent doing something more productive - something with a definite, positive, guaranteed outcome, like a piece of work, or doing some admin, or cooking something tasty, or reading the book I'd allowed to get dusty through repeated late nights working, even if just for the hour it took to enter that comp. (And where were all the fees going?)

Even during my many fun hours spent being a competition judge, I would struggle to reach a decision and, channelling my early-career experiences as a lecturer, I wanted to write to every single entrant and tell them something positive about their work, along with a suggestion or two on how they might improve. But I had to pick a first, a second, a third. I loved the process of looking at all the wonderful work, and I'd do it again, but I felt mindful of all the entrants' reactions whether I were to award them or not. So I finally made the decision to stop entering competitions myself a few years ago. If I was happy with a piece of work, and my client was happy with it, then it ended there.

And that was that.

Some people love entering competitions every year, but not me. I get the round-robin emails of this competition opening and that deadline looming, and I don't feel tempted to yield. Years after deciding to ease back from them, I have chilled a little, and instead of a blanket ban have narrowed it down to one illustration competition I’m happy to enter now, which is the V&A Illustration Awards, run by one the UK’s oldest institutions. I don't make myself enter every year, my policy being only to enter something when I feel it would sit well in the setting of the organisation, and alongside company that that competition attracts. The process of surveying a year's work and identifying something to fit the brief is a useful and contemplative exercise, whether I win anything or not, and allows me an opportunity to ponder my trajectory, the historical world of illustration, and my place within it now, and in future. 

And of course, despite my decision-making, I totally reserve the right to enter anything I feel like, at a moment's notice - but only after I've run the full-body diagnostic of 'why' - what's compelling me to enter, and can those needs be met by an alternative course of action? I heck myself for signs that I might be being tempted by the dangled carrot of an ego boost, or a need for some professional reassurance, and think about what it is I’m really after.

Nice as competitions can feel, making a living as a freelance illustrator is competitive enough. It took me a while to realise I don't need a list of prizes to tell the world how much I've invested in the profession I love, and how much of my soul is already, in fact, shaped like a little yellow pencil.

  

A very, very old home-made website page! Back when I was a super-keen Dreamweaver.

 

DREAM BIG!

~ Illustrations are mostly shown in this blog in their original pen-and-ink form ~

 SPACEY! Published this week is this energetic new book by Abby Harrison aka @astronautabbyofficial, co-founder of The Mars Generation, called DREAM BIG! 

Illustrating this book occupied eight months or so of my 2020, begun and ended in different lockdowns, with over 30 black and white pen-and-ink illustrations to help guide its young readers through the process of not just envisioning a goal, but making it a reality. Not through wishing and hoping and throwing cosmic orders out there, but via the only method that works: planning, small steps, staying focussed and good old fashioned hard work!

Abby’s manuscript was utterly charming but pulled no punches either: if there’s something you want, you have to work for it. There truly is no such thing as ‘overnight success’ - what appears to be that is usually, just like an iceberg, the suddenly-visible tip of years and years of hard work. Abby’s narrative cheerfully breaks down the methods and steps involved in taking the vague and sometimes intimidating blob of an ambition or goal and breaking it down into do-able, realistic small steps. Because one step at a time is all we can actually take - even if ultimately, the step we most want to take is the one onto Mars!

I came up with the idea of creating a cast of characters for this book, who would be there to represent as many kinds of people as possible. Each character has a chapter of their own, and although their names aren’t mentioned in the book, you’ll meet Tina (named after a go-getting, opportunity-loving friend of ours), Zafeera (whose name means ‘always successful’), André (named after musical innovator and entrepreneur Dr Dre), Charlie (named for my energetic nephew who always throws everything into every challenge he’s given!), Georgia (my niece, who’s shaping up to be a real character and probably will one day be reaching for the moon),  and Chlöe, whose name simply fitted the character as soon as I’d drawn her.

It was important to me that this little group of friends was as representative as possible. I’d need more characters to fully encapsulate all the shapes and sizes and colours that human beings come in, of course - there’ be no room left for Abby’s words - but ‘reaching for your stars’ does not refer just to those wildly glamorous or seemingly unattainable goal types such as becoming an astronaut or a professional spy or an adventurer. It applies as equally to the lad who wants to be the best hairdresser in the world as it does to the girl who wants to be a a writer, a boxer or a Mum. They’re all goals, and they all take series of steps and some planning to get to them. And our little Dream Big people needed to be physically suggestive of exactly that enormous spectrum of possibility!

Happily, publishers Philomel embraced that idea, and as well as representing a nice spectrum of young humans, it also provided us with a useful system of referring to the characters, what they were doing, who they were interacting with, and in which chapter. 

The book also threw me some unexpected challenges. Two of the chapters deal with the idea of mentors - people we not not only look up to but might choose to engage and correspond with on our journey to the goal we’re moving laser-like towards. This required me to draw Real People, and not just any old Real People. So I went from inventing ambitious children doing imaginary things to capturing the likenesses of Malala, Serena Williams, Michelle Obama - gulp - not exactly faces you want to get wrong!

Fortunately I’d had a little practise with a previous chapter, drawing three female ‘disruptors’. Disruptors are people who, simply by following their dream, perhaps in an area not traditionally open to them or populated by people of their particular gender or background, or entering it from a different field, move to significant positions within that field and from within it make radical and long-lasting changes to it.  Perhaps, for example, they were not the first person to do something, but they did it in a way that had never been done before. Those ‘disruptors’ were Elaine Welteroth, ex-editor in chief of Teen Vogue; Emma Gonzalez, who survived a shooting at her school and became a spokesperson and advocate for gun control, and one of my own role models, the beautiful and dramatic architect Zaha Hadid. Drawing each was a challenge, but because their stories were so vivid and moving, it was easy to channel their achievement and strength into each of their wonderful faces.

So it was with Malala, Serena, Jonathan Van Ness and Michelle O. Such well-known and beloved faces were a joy to draw since their characteristics are richly evident on them. I wouldn’t say it was *easy* - but they did kind of flow, amazingly, in one take (apart from Serena who had to be drawn twice, as she was judged to just looked TOO determined and fierce in the first sketch - shown here!)

This book gave me the opportunity to draw the same characters over and over again in different scenarios and with the gamut of facial expressions from nervous to scared, to cheeky to laughing and joy. Over the course of the many months I was working on the book, Tina, Chlöe, Charlie, Georgia, André and Zafeera resided on some part of my desk at all times, and it was with some sadness that I drew the final scene and realised I’d have to put them all away.

Some of my favourite bits are the tiniest of details - André's cat, whose name has significance for Abby; people in the background, facial expressions, clothing details.

I’m grateful to Lindsey Andrews, Dream Big's art director, for giving me the opportunity to be the pictures to Abby’s words, and to Abby for cheerleading as those pictures were being created. The Philomel team were joy to work with during this long and sometimes tricky project, especially as all of us were working through lockdowns and associated Covid anxiety in our different corners of there world, and I can’t wait for the opportunity to work with them, and Abby, again! The book made me reflect on my own career; whether and how I’d taken some of the steps in the book myself - consciously or otherwise - and got me thinking about whether I could possibly have set the bar a little higher for myself. What the book did make me think about the most, though, is that you don’t stop once you’ve got to a certain place…and dreams continue to evolve and develop in unexpected ways, as long as you still love what you’re doing and want to stay active within in.

So DREAM BIG people. And if Dreaming Big scares you - well, dream small. All dreams are important, regardless of their shape and size. And they’re all worth chasing!

“Fun and helpful…appeals to both STEM-oriented fans of the author as well as those whose interest lie in other areas.” 

- Kirkus Reviews