Dear Helen, I don't really know your work or care much what you do
but I am sending the following fifty-five three part questions to lots of random illustrators I found on the internet
I’ll get back to that title 👆 later, in the meantime my pal
sent me a brilliant question: What comes first: the idea then the materials, or the materials and then the idea?
I used to say no to all dissertation questions, I got so many. Or sometimes the student got the approach all wrong and turned me into a furious, ranting mess for the day 🤬*.
But now I have Substack, I am happy to answer. If I post my answers here, it helps everyone, not just one person at a time, and it gives me free content ideas. It’s a win-win for all of us.
🤬* ‘Dear Helen, I don't really know your work or care much what you do, actually I probably wouldn’t even like it if I saw it. But I am writing a very important essay and I need you to answer the following fifty-five three part questions that I am sending to lots of random illustrators I found on the internet. I need the answers by Friday, I thought you could take a couple of days off work to answer them.’
Anyway, I loved Naomi’s question, What comes first: the idea then the materials, or the materials and then the idea? So I sat on my daughter’s bed and made an audio in reply and I thought I’d share it here. Thanks for the question Naomi!
The pictures down there 👇 are from books mentioned in the audio.
If you have any questions, ask in the comments below. If you’d rather remain anonymous you can email me and I’ll keep your identity under my hat 🤐.
Love Helenx
I get these questionnaires (mostly from students) a couple of times a year. If these are fun questions, which will give me some food for thought or help me to understand my own work better, I don't mind answering them. If I can use bits from it for my own classes or Substack: even better.
But if the questions clearly show that they haven't even looked up my work or what I do, it's a BIG NO. Ask your mum to do your homework.
And if I've taken hours (yes, it sometimes takes that long) to answer questions and they don't even bother to type 'thank you' back, I'll email back to ask if they've received my answers 'as it took hours of my time and I don't want to end up in your spam inbox'.
So, to all students sending out questionnaires like confetti: First google who you are sending them to, and ALWAYS say 'thank you' when someone took their precious time to help you out.
Love your answer :) is it just recorded on your phone or with a special microphone? The sound is very clear . Just wondering as I’m thinking of maybe recording some stuff for substack ...
Do you work much bigger than picture book size when working traditionally? When you mentioned ‘blowing the image up ‘ it made me wonder that ?