One of the key skills an illustrator has to learn, it seems, isn’t about drawing at all; it’s about becoming comfortable with invisibility. For some reason, our culture still largely focusses on (and admires) words, “Do you also write or just illustrate?” is one of the most common questions I get from people who discover what I do. To be an author is something to aspire to. An illustrator? Not so much.

Pictures, we know, transfer information and feeling much faster than words to most people. Using pictures to communicate also doesn’t require the viewer to learn a language. I can write “smile” in English and I will reach an english-speaking audience. But to reach other audiences I need to translate that – Spanish, Mandarin, Swahili. Or I can draw a smile – 😊 – for everyone.

In commercial picture books, the pictures create a ‘visual identity’ for the book as it sits alongside all the other books on the shelf seeking a customer. A buyer doesn’t need to read a single word of the book to know whether it will be cute/fun, scary, serious, literary, or sad. Pictures do all of that heavy lifting on the cover, the best ones don’t just describe a mood, they tell a story.

Pictures work at such a natural and subconscious level that even authors and viewers don’t even recognise their effect sometimes. An illustrator will often be referred to by an author as ‘the person who drew the pictures for my book’. Most of the time, I’m OK with this, but sometimes, I’m not.

Part of the joy of drawing pictures for people in commercial picture books is to see a reaction, to feel that we’ve informed or entertained another human. It’s fundamentally about connection. But, unfortunately, the connection we make through pictures with eachother can often be one way – we send something out into the world, the receiver loves it, adores it, but doesn’t recognise the human behind it.

It’s easy to get a little bitter about this but there is another reaction: to channel how my 10-year-old self would have thought about the power of invisibility because he would’ve loved it!

Mass-produced products exist in almost every physical product category I can think of: Chairs, tables, mobile phones, clothing, food and others. We know the trade-offs we make when we purchase a mass-produced product over something custom or artisan-made. With mass-produced products, we typically save money, the quality isn’t as good as something hand-made, but it satisfies a need.

Sometimes, we decide to invest in something that isn’t mass produced – a custom-designed bookshelf, a set of handmade dinnerware; this also has a trade-off. We know we pay more but the quality is better, it’s likely to last longer, and be more suitable to a specific need or needs. We may even save money in the long run.

It seems to me that large language models in their current form now enable us to mass produce words and images and it seems that, on the most part, it will be fine for most people. And yet, there are people who know and understand the value of something more hand-made and who value it enough to pay for it because we’re already doing that in every other product category that exists. Why would illustration be the abberation?

I can’t remember where I heard this (I didn’t come up with it), but it goes something like this. Imagine walking down the street on your way to work one day and someone runs up to you and wants to tell you about an amazing dream they had last night. Imagine that you’re a kind and generous person and you decide to indulge this stranger, “Yes, OK, please tell me your dream.”

When you agree to listen, they give you two conditions.

“First, before I tell you my dream, we have to find somewhere to sit, it’s going to take at least 2 hours, maybe a bit longer.”

A reasonable person may stop them here and say thanks but no thanks and return to their day. A person with more time might say, “OK, I have the time, let’s go find somewhere to sit.” And so, they find somewhere to sit with this stranger and then the stranger provides their second condition.

“Ok, so, to hear my dream, you also need to pay me $20. Once you pay me, I’ll tell you.”

It may sound ridiculous, almost no one in their right mind would say OK – suddenly this dream is costing the listener time and money. And yet, no matter how illogical, this is exactly what we agree to do everyday when we purchase a cinema ticket and watch a film, or pay another monthly fee to a streaming service and binge a series on the couch.

The act of telling and listening to stories is illogical. It is inefficient. It is kind of insane. It’s also an act of generosity and a deeply human way for us to be informed, entertained, and create connection with one another which is why, despite the ask from the dream-teller, we do it almost every day.

Pictures in books have a problem. Our education system is currently designed to favour words over pictures. Babies begin with pictures because pictures are ‘easy’. They are intuitive and images are the primary way we experience the world before we are taught the symbols and marks that constitute the written word.

By the time a child is a toddler, pictures in books are paired with words, about 50/50. Soon after that, children begin reading books that have more words than pictures until, having fully grasped the written language, they begin to read stories without pictures–100% words. Having been educated in this way, a person can’t be blamed for assuming ‘pictures are for kids.’

I recently had an interaction with a grandfather in a bookstore who was looking for a book for their ‘very smart 7-year old grandchild.’ I suggested a story primarily driven by pictures but with big themes. He leafed through the book and said, ‘my granddaughter is too smart for this, it doesn’t have enough words.’ Which, of course, begs the question – how many words makes a smart book?

And yet, this same person would likely take their very smart 7-year old grandchild to an art gallery. They would likely gaze upon the works of Van Gogh, Cezanne, or Matisse. They would likely think this experience was important, intelligent and an objective good for their grandchild.

But, paintings are pictures without words. Why stand in front of a piece of canvas from hundreds of years ago, dabbed with colour? Shouldn’t that same child who was too-smart for a picture-driven story in a book also be too smart for a Van Gogh?

Paint on a canvas, like pictures in a book, provoke feeling and tell a story; they stimulate an emotional intelligence and also an intellectual one. But, like with most technology, the Overton Window of the medium will always change. The important thing is that we generate enough diversity across the arts to help people find their way to growing both of those parts of themselves as only the best art can do.

I heard this from a bookseller once: when people come into the shop and ask for a recommendation – a good book – what they’re really asking is, “Does it finish well?”

When something finishes well, it comes to a conclusion. It doesn’t just mean a ‘happy’ ending but rather that the reader walks away with a sense of accomplishment – they learned, they enjoyed, they felt something, they changed.

As a writer, it’s often tempting to try something different, something ‘edgy’ or ‘unusual’ like leaving the audience to decide their own ending. But, it seems, that isn’t want the vast majority want. We want something to finish, and finish well.

Many of the decisions I’ve made in the past have been driven by the sunk-cost fallacy; choosing to continually invest in something because I’ve invested so much in it already instead of whether or not the benefits of further investment will be worth it.

But, this is where it’s useful to remember the old Japanese proverb: When you’re on the wrong train, get off at the next stop. The longer you wait, the more expensive the return trip is.

The tricky part is working out if you’re really on the wrong train and, to know that, you need to know which train you’re supposed to be on and, to know that, one needs to know one’s self.

If someone had asked me 10 years ago where I’d think I’d be in my picture book career today, I’d probably have given them an answer and I’d probably have been wrong. I know I would not have said:

• I will feel like a more authentic version of myself.
• I will have more self-belief than self-doubt (on most days).
• I will have stopped working a day job for a while to focus on a personal project only because I believe in it.
• I will be more confident in my ability to draw almost anything (given enough time).

And yet, today, all these things are true.

Back then I probably would’ve tried to estimate how many books I’d have. Or how many awards I’d won? Maybe how many countries and translations, if any, I would have of my work? I probably would’ve tried to put a number on royalties or salary. For me, that would’ve been success.

Quantitative values give us a feeling of clarity; a mirage of certainty and solidity. If I can put a number on something, I can objectively compare that with others and, based on that comparison, I can more easily judge my ‘progress’: How many books do I have compared to another illustrator? How many followers? How many awards? Am I doing better or worse than my peers?

Of course, the problem with comparisons like this is that they provide a false yardstick for progress when it comes to what matters in an art practice. Quantitative comparisons are fundamentally market metrics. They don’t measure art progress, they measure commerce or ‘business’ effectiveness.

In art making, the only competition is oneself so the metrics need only relate to a previous version of yourself? How does my ‘today-me’ compare to ‘yesterday-me’? I can’t put a number on that but it also means I’m not ‘behind where I should be’, I just am where I am. And that’s far more rewarding.

There’s plenty advice on the internet about how to ‘improve’ (make more and better work) as an artist. How to learn to draw using perspective. How to create more interesting compositions. How to get better at colour theory. How to find the right art books to read. How to beat creative block. How to earn a living wage from your work.

But, I’ve not seen what I now know to be true; that to improve in anything, one must get actively rest. One needs time with other humans. One needs exercise. One needs to eat well. One needs proper sleep.

Sure, I could sit at my desk for 12 hours a day and I’d probably complete more pages of my graphic novel than if I sat there for 10 hours. But page count isn’t everything because the work would suffer; a tired brain, body, back, and hands won’t draw or write as well. If I am starved of social interaction, I lose perspective on the world. A poor diet fundamentally prohibits my body’s ability to function which, in turn, can simply mean I physically can’t draw today because I’m sick.

And yes, there needs to be a balance. Not everyone needs people all the time; solitude is also necessary. And I’m not talking about spending hours not working when one could be working, what I’m talking about isn’t ‘slacking off’, it’s cultivating a habit of healthy balance; active rest.

This stuff ‘around’ what we call the ‘craft’ – isn’t optional, it’s necessary. I’ll make better progress for longer if I prioritise the physiological and psychological necessities of my body. Sustainability of the practise is also part of the practise. It’s all in service of the work.

Wouldn’t golf be easier if we just picked up the little white ball, walked 400 yards and dropped it in the hole without hitting it with small sticks? Wouldn’t tennis be easier without a net in the middle? Why run an ultra-marathon when you could just walk or drive from A to B? Why spend years learning to play piano when you could just type a prompt and generate piano music at the click of a button? Why spend 9 months of my life making a graphic novel that no one will publish or anyone but a few people in my inner circle will ever read?

Maybe because ‘efficiency’ doesn’t always matter. Maybe because it’s fun. We have, as a species, for a very long time voluntarily attempted to overcome unnecessary obstacles (as Bernard Suits so eloquently put it).

In a market context, inefficiency is to be removed at all costs. They reward cheaper & faster. In a market, unnecessary obstacles are a problem to be solved. In a market, there is no tennis, or golf, or piano playing, and ultra-marathons have no value.

If we want evidence of the universality of our love for voluntarily overcoming unnecessary obstacles, we need only look to amateur play in every country and place on earth – the local sports clubs, chess clubs, board games clubs, music groups and yes, even artists.

Out beyond the market, we are happy. We play.

It’s easy to give a client what they want. Ask and they’ll tell you. They’ll give you the dimensions, the budget, the timeline. They’ll tell you which colours they like or don’t like; which ones are ‘right’. They’ll tell you what your work should be about and when it’s achieving that or not. If it’s wrong, it’s easy to fix. Just do another version, nudge it closer to what the client wants until they’re satisfied.

Much more difficult is the work one does for oneself. When there is no one to tell you what is working or not working, what’s right and what’s wrong. When no one tells you the dimensions, or instructs how much time you’re supposed to spend on, how much money you’re supposed to use to make it. It’s difficult to know when the work you made for yourself is done – it’s all on you. It’s also the best type of work.