In 2021 fellow illustrator and now friend, Sue Gent and I did a podcast episode for the Association of Illustrators. It was about finding your voice as an illustrator, being that both of us had had extensive careers up to that point and therefore had a lot of experiences with and without clients calling the shots. I felt compelled to share again the accompanying text to the podcast, that was written up into an article for 3X3 Magazine by the AOI’s very own Marianna Madriz. We don’t have access to the podcast anymore but this article covers the main points.
Here is the text repeated here:
Finding your voice: With Caroline Pedler & Sue Gent.
Author: Marianna Madriz, Illustrator: Caroline Pedler courtesy of AOI
Finding your ‘style’or a preferred way of working is a very individual journey which nobody else can do for you. There isn’t a clear step-by-step, and nobody has all the answers. It’s about achieving a sweet middle ground between condensing your personality visually and creating a language that can be enjoyed by others. While the results can take time to bubble, there are cautions and elements illustrators can consider throughout their personal creative journeys:
Don’t be a victim of your own success, or your insecurity. While it’s crucial to get commercial work (illustrators need to make a living after all!), it’s important to not sacrifice personal development. It’s also equally important to create self-initiated work in quiet periods to push your practice further. If your portfolio ends up becoming an inaccurate reflection of your ethos or your goals, invest time and energy to steer the wheel in a direction of your preference. You are in control.
Don’t forget the artist in you. Trends and new technologies come and go. For longevity, you must enjoy what you’re working on in the present and future—if you dislike how you’re approaching illustration work now, take the time to re-invent yourself and reflect. Allow yourself to be intuitive—change and play is part of the process.
Set yourself personal projects. It can be an individual image, or a series.The key is to not force a clear outcome, but to do it for the sake of experimentation. Caroline Pedler began a daily collage project every day of the year in 2016, and as a result, a new illustrative way of working was developed. Moments of solitude (going on walks, having a coffee by yourself) are often the best ways to spark ideas, without other distractions getting in the way.
Be open. Branch out of obvious inspirations, look beyond contemporary illustration and take influence from other sources like sculpture, film, and other mediums you don’t necessarily practise yourself. This can help build distance, and reduce comparison with other artists and illustrators. Be open to stepping outside of the box, and try things you wouldn’t necessarily consider at first.
Failure is good! Failure is a big part of the journey, a big part of being a creative too, and it’s best not to antagonise it. If you don’t like a drawing you did for yourself, that’s ok—finish it and carry on to the next one. Keep the failed experiments as part of your own archive. These tests can inform the next drawing you do, and inform your process overall. Don’t get caught up on self-imposed expectations, allow yourself to play and to make mistakes.
Be honest. This was one of the phrases that kept being mentioned throughout the chat. It’s good to stop sometimes, look at your body of work and reflect: do I see myself here? Is this representative of where I am at the moment? If the answer is no, then move on the next drawing and keep reflecting.The more you reflect, understand yourself, ask questions and realise what you’re happy creating, the easier it will be to see a clear pathway. Once you see a direction you’re happy with, this will inform what kind of commercial work you’d like to focus on next and what strategies you need to put in place to make it happen.
Can you have more than one style? This is another big question in the illustration world, one with many opinions. Caroline shares it’s fine to work in different ways, but may be best to limit it to two styles if possible. Try for it to not come out of a place of fear or insecurity, but out of confidence within your abilities. Some artists enjoy being versatile and multifaceted, others prefer to have one recognisable visual language. There are no rights or wrongs, just what’s right for you.
What to do when you get stuck? A blank piece of paper or solitude (or both) can be the worst enemies for some illustrators. If self-direction becomes a challenge, try investing in other activities: attend a workshop or a meet-up, sign up to an online course, collaborate with a peer. Others’ feedback and direction can be the right push to spark a new idea, or pick up where you left from. Also, breaks are essential for your physical and mental wellbeing—sometimes space is all you need to re-energize and get back to creating.
Why is it difficult? Illustration is storytelling, problem solving and communication, which aren’t easy feats! Nobody has an easy rite of passage, no matter how easy it looks from the outside. Instead of getting frustrated by the difficulties, reflect on what you’ve learned and achieved. Even if these don’t seem like big successes at the time, these small learnings will pave the way for positive and flourishing outcomes in the future.
Be persistent: it takes time. As highlighted many times in the talk, and throughout this summary, there isn’t a linear way of achieving that unique voice. It’s a process that’s very much down to each illustrator and artist—but with the right headspace, resources, support, perseverance, and willingness to experiment, you can evolve your practice and set yourself for a long and fruitful career.
Published April 21. AOI.com featured in 3x3 Magazine US.
So in a brief response to this, why is it important to find or locate your voice as an illustrator or professional creative? Because when your work is only driven by a trend, or a client, we as ‘the artist’ within the role of illustrator or creative professional, can lose ourselves in the job and over time give everything we know away, meaning we can suffer burnout, lose the love and an income. It is not sustainable constantly sourcing our ideas and ways of working from exterior sources or giving our ideas away without filling the creative pot from time to time. It is of course possible to make a living like this, to source from other illustrators, artists, switching into a new style or trend and step into the copycat roll, but there is little, if any creative integrity, enjoyment or sustainability to this and leaves the illustrator for example, and the industry in a situation of over saturation, creating work that is meaningless ‘tittle tattle”. (Zeegan 2012a: n.pag.) Sadly the commercial world oftentimes needs the professional creative to make the same thing over and over again, led by trends and sales, not by inclination or creative desire. Creative evolution is inevitable in an authentic and authorial led practice, where change is integral to the lineage of practice, which does not suit capitalism.
If we work in a creative field it is essential to feed our own creative pot in order to maintain creative and professional momentum and a certain level and quality of idea generation and enjoyment, giving time, attention, thought and consideration to ones own needs, sensibilities or interests. Writing our own briefs and creating personal projects led by curiosity, exploration, experimentation and inclination is essential in maintaining a healthy and sustainable creative career, so we can bring authentic ideas and applications to the client, which invariably can help ignite the illustrator, the project, the client and their portfolio, future and present. It’s a win win situation!
After nearly 3 decades of working professionally as an illustrator and before that as an exhibiting artist, and student of art, and later a teacher, what comes up time and time again when talking about how to find your voice is that creative immersion, commitment and attention are integral components of finding your voice, of locating a visual language that houses your values, beliefs and ways of seeing, and the bedrock of a healthy, sustainable and enjoyable practice. How do you do this? Well that is an entirely different post that will need some thought and attention. Breaking it down into bitesize tangible steps that I have learnt in all my years of helping people locate themselves in their work. If you‘d be interested in this let me know below.
I hope you found this insightful and helpful in your own journey and feel free to comment below or ask any questions in relation to the content. I’d love to hear from you. Thanks for reading.