What a treat of an episode! Today we’re chatting with Good Shipper and picture book author–illustrator Amber Au.

Amber talks about how drawing became part of her recovery from an eating disorder and how her therapist encouraged her to send her illustration work to her first ever client. Aaand how - in two whirlwind months - she was suddenly winning awards, signing a three-book deal, and being invited to meet editors at Bologna. Whaaa!?

What a blimmin' brilliant reminder to do the things. Even when you don't feel "ready". 

In this episode we cover:

• How Amber rediscovered drawing through her food diary
• Why starting with your local community can snowball into big opportunities
• How to survive mixed feedback 
• Competitions, and finding your people
• Being a self-taught illustrator
• Discipline, rest, and cultural expectations
• Picture books, packaging, and branching out into multiple income streams
• Amber's Bologna experience… including editors fangirling over her work (!)

Rough Timestamps

00:00 – Introducing Amber and her illustration journey
01:00 – Awards, exhibitions, and feeling overwhelmed
02:00 – From nutritionist → illustrator → private tutor → illustrator again
03:00 – Using a food diary as a creative lifeline
04:00 – Getting encouraged to approach her first client
05:00 – Community, grassroots beginnings, and early work in Hong Kong
06:00 – Entering competitions and the door-opening magic that followed
07:00 – The leap from self-taught to picture book maker
08:00 – Finding a clear voice without formal training
09:00 – Discipline, rest, and the cultural pressure to always “do more”
10:00 – Blue Tomato beginnings
11:00 – Mixed reviews, conflicting opinions, and staying true to your vision
13:00 – Bologna meetings and signing with Little Tiger
15:00 – Knowing which advice is actually useful
17:00 – Copying as learning vs developing your own voice
18:00 – Style influences: Hong Kong comics, European picture books, texture, mark-making
19:00 – Procreate, iPad life, and her work habits
20:00 – Diversifying income: packaging, food illustration, prints
21:00 – New opportunities, restaurants, markets, and thinking strategically
22:00 – Picture books, nonfiction, and future plans
23:00 – Final encouragement: “You’ll never feel ready. Do it anyway.”

Links & things mentioned

• Amber’s blog: The Pencil Bakery
• Bologna Children’s Book Fair (We're going to be there in 2026 - we've booked a stand! Come and say hello if you're visiting Bologna.)
• Inkling Agency
• Little Tiger Press
• Blue Tomato (Amber’s upcoming book)

p.s. We have a little rest at this time of year, so the podcast is having a rest too. We'll be back in January! 🎁

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 🎙

If you're an illustrator with access to the internet and you have eyeballs, you might've seen Lisa Congdon's work. Lisa started blogging her collections and illustrations back in the good ol' days, and even remembers Instagram back when it was good. (Remember that? It was nice, wasn't it?)

In this episode, Katie asks Lisa about consistency and how to keep on keepin' on when the world is the way it is. We also meander through topics like ADHD, collections, comparison, agents - whether or not she has one - and last but not least, daily projects that change everythinggg.

In this episode we cover:

• Ceramic mushroom collection 👀
• The “messy middle” bit of being an illustrator
• How consistency has served her well
• Surviving financially in the early years
• Why not being a perfectionist was her secret super power
• Instagram in 2025
• How to know when to work with an agent
• The magical domino effect of following excitement
• Squishing comparison and staying in your own lane

Very rough timestamps in case you want to skip to a certain bit

00:00 – Welcoming Lisa! How a decade of calendars sparked the consistency conversation
01:00 – Hyperfocus, collecting tigers, cycling five times a week, and going “all in”
02:30 – Early days: Etsy, commissions, pet portraits, and figuring out a style
04:00 – Most illustrators quit
05:30 – ADHD, Capricorn energy, and learning to be organised
07:00 – Posting imperfect work online and why it mattered
08:30 – Sharing finances, getting an agent, and diversifying income streams
10:00 – “A Collection A Day” and the power of daily projects
11:00 – Agents: when they help, when they don’t, and how pricing works
13:00 – The hardest job she’s ever done and how her agent stepped in
14:00 – Instagram then vs. Instagram now
16:00 – Why video doesn’t light her up
18:00 – The comparison trap (yes, even Lisa feels it!)
20:00 – Following your gut over the algorithm
21:00 – The daily project that led to a bestselling book
24:00 – Chronicle Books, chance encounters, and the magic of just...showing up!?
26:00 – The domino effect of doing what excites you
27:00 – Human Design chat 👀
28:00 – Byeee Lisa

Links for this episode:

• Lisa Congdon: https://lisacongdon.com
• Lisa's Books: https://www.chroniclebooks.com
• Follow Lisa on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisacongdon

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 🎙

In this episode, our Tania chats with multi award-winning illustrator Jill Calder about 30+ years of illustration, and how she’s explored pretty much the entire “illustration atlas” without losing herself along the way.

Stuff we cover:

• Staying recognisably Jill across 30+ years of illustration
• Moving from editorial to corporate to heritage work
• Building a career with both illustration and hand lettering
• Big, bonkers corporate jobs (including handwriting as other people!)
• Making the leap into children’s books later in her career
• The reality of nonfiction vs fiction picture books (time, fees, and headspace)
• Colour palettes, maps and Google Earth “walks” for picture atlases
• Working with Jackie Kay on Coorie Doon and handling deeply emotional text
• Bringing wild, playful colour to I Love You Every Color
• Keeping energy and looseness in final artwork
• What Jill’s working on now – including a brand new picture book with Gecko Press

Rough Timestamps

00:00 – Tania introduces Jill and why she’s a Good Ship favourite
02:30 – Early days: art school, editorial work and the 90s newspaper scene
05:00 – “By chance, someone took a risk on me…” – moving into design & corporate jobs
07:30 – Becoming “the handwriting person”
11:30 – The wildest job ever
15:00 – Champagne, iPads and the very fancy side of ad agency work
16:30 – Exhibition days, analogue work and why looseness matters
18:00 – Stumbling into children’s nonfiction with Robert the Bruce
21:00 – Picture atlases, strict colour palettes and Google Earth walks
22:30 – Nonfiction vs fiction picture books – fees, length and workload
26:00 – Collaborating with Jackie Kay on Coorie Doon and illustrating big feelings
29:30 – I Love You Every Colour – an illustrator’s dream text
31:30 – Two very different books in one year: soft dreamland vs riot of colour
33:30 – Handling emotion, light and character across spreads
34:30 – New project: Cass and the Beast for Gecko Press
35:30 – Keeping rough energy in final artwork (and managing the stress of it!)
37:00 – Where Jill pops up inside Good Ship courses and Facebook groups

Stuff we mentioned

• Jill Calder – illustration, lettering and books
• Find Your Creative Voice – Fly Your Freak Flag (Good Ship course)
• The Picture Book Course (Good Ship course)
• Robert the Bruce – nonfiction picture book
• Coorie Doon – written by Jackie Kay, illustrated by Jill Calder
• I Love You Every Colour – written by Carolyn Rose, illustrated by Jill Calder
• Upcoming: Cass and the Beast – written by Clare Mabey, illustrated by Jill Calder (Gecko Press)

Byeeee for now!

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

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 🎙

Y'know when you feel like your work is neeearly there… but it's missing a lil something-something? This podcast episode is all about that. Overcoming that.

How the heck do you put more humanness into your work?

• “Accomplished” isn’t the same as “alive”
• How generic styles can creep in without us noticing
• The danger of trying to look like “a picture book illustrator”
• Why you need to make work that freaks you out a tiny bit 🤪
• The power of real memories and emotions
• Ideas that stick: why some stories stay with us
• How character, tension, and contradiction shape good storytelling
• Letting your real obsessions lead the way 🐌
• Yessss, research in bookshops is absolutely definitely part of the job
  
  

00:00 – Aaccomplished work with no heart
01:00 – “Picture book style” stereotypes and why they’re dangerous
02:00 – Generic vs personal: how to tell the difference
03:00 – Making work that stops an art director mid-scroll
04:00 – Emotion in drawings (and penguins)
05:00 – True stories - using your real life
06:00 – The Nissen Hut
07:30 – Sticky ideas
09:00 – Plots built on tiny universal moments
10:00 – A “Smile in the Mind”
11:00 – Writing craft: thesis / antithesis / synthesis
13:00 – Character dynamics and why Bernard is… Bernard 🦆
14:00 – Films to study (hello, Groundhog Day)
15:00 – How Helen learned to write
16:00 – Why sitting in a bookshop absolutely counts as work
17:00 – Picture books now vs the 90s
18:00 – Jill Calder, Libby VanderPloeg, and holding onto your voice
20:00 – Don’t perform
21:00 – Honesty wins

• A Smile in the Mind - Tania's design book recommendation by Beryl McAlhone & David Stuart
• Made to Stick (the kidney-harvesting myth book Katie mentioned!) - Chip & Dan Heath
• Groundhog Day - film
• Jill Calder: https://jillcalder.com
• Libby VanderPloeg: https://libbyvanderploeg.com
• Emily Howorth-Booth’s writing workshops that Helen loves
• Good Ship Illustration courses: https://www.thegoodshipillustration.com

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 on The Good Ship Illustration Podcast, we’re chatting all things experiments -  we get particularly excited about FAILED experiments. In the words of that there Bob Ross, "we don't make mistakes, we just have happy accidents". 😆

Behind the scenes, Helen gave Tania a haircut just before we recorded this episode. Can you hear Tania's new hair?

Timestamps for our timestamp fans:
00:00 – Mmmm new ideas 
01:00 – Katie’s “scaling the business” experiment that didn’t work
02:00 – Undoing things that aren’t fun anymore
03:00 – Helen’s new plan
05:00 – Tania’s in the boot of the car
06:00 – Helen’s failed online school visits experiment
08:00 – Moving from digital art back to paper
09:00 – Helen’s Substack paywall experiment (inspired by Blindboy)
12:00 – The birth of The Good Ship Illustration 🚢
13:00 – Haircuts
14:00 – Art Club’s accidental success
15:00 – Why experiments matter (and how to run one properly)
18:00 – Creative defiance and why being told what to do ruins everything 😂
20:00 – From accidental experiments to a whole career

Links & Stuff We Mentioned:

• The Good Ship Illustration on Instagram (the Art Club replays are here!)
• The Picture Book Course
  Sticker snail mail bonus ends 21st November 🎟️

Byeeee for now!
 x The Good Ship Illustration (Helen, Katie & Tania)

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 🎙

First, before we jump into the show notes, here's the link to sign up to the Picture Book Pitching Masterclass we've got happening soon! 

🗓️ When: 17th of November at 1 pm UK time

💰 Cost: Freeeee

🚢 RSVP here: https://www.thegoodshipillustration.com/pbpm 

How do illustrators actually get their picture books published? And what really goes on at Bologna Children’s Book Fair? 

This episode is all about pitching, portfolios, publishers, and… how we each pronounce the word plaster? 😅

Here’s what we cover:

• Bologna Book Fair!  ✈️
• How to submit to the Bologna Illustrator Exhibition (deadline alert! They extended it to the 6th November! Sorry, we said the wrong date in this episode, but do let us know if you managed to submit something so we can high-five you.)
• The Picture Book Pitching Masterclass with Helen and Jane Porter 🎓 https://www.thegoodshipillustration.com/pbpm  
• How to pitch your book ideas
• Overcoming the terror of sharing your work 😬
• Building resilience to rejection
• The “myth of being discovered”
• Our excitin' Bologna Book Fair plans...

🕑 Timestamps
00:00 – Bologna excitement (and confusion)
01:00 – What really happens at the fair
02:00 – Snail mail sticker packs & upcoming Picture Book Masterclass
03:00 – Helen’s no-rules pitching philosophy
06:00 – Regional accent chaos: “masterclass” vs “plaster”
07:00 – Getting seen by publishers (and why Instagram still matters)
08:00 – Facing the fear of rejection
10:00 – Mindset hacks: why what others think is none of your business
12:00 – Myths about being “discovered”
13:00 – Good Ship’s Bologna stand & plans for 2026
15:00 – Why every illustrator should go at least once
16:00 – Global publishing inspiration 🌍
17:00 – Dreaming up a “Gone Fishing” Good Ship stall

Links we mentioned:

• The Picture Book Course
• Free Picture Book Pitching Masterclass – 17 November, 1pm UK time
• Bologna Children’s Book Fair

Byeeee for now!
 x The Good Ship Illustration (Helen, Katie & Tania)

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 interviewing another creative for the podcast. Hooray!

Catherine Rayner is an award-winning author and illustrator based in Edinburgh, whose books have sold over two million copies and been translated into 35 languages. She’s written and illustrated 25 picture books and collaborated with legends like Julia Donaldson, Michael Morpurgo, and Michael Bond. 

Winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal (and shortlisted six more times!), Catherine also paints, runs a greetings card and babywear range, and can usually be found in her studio surrounded by ink, animals, and Post-it notes.

Phew.

In this chat, Katie asks Catherine about:

• What an average week in the studio looks like
• Planning everything using a wall calendar and Post-it notes 
• Working with Julia Donaldson
• Short deadlines and thriving on a wee bit of panic
• Being a mum and illustrator at the same time
• Instagram, rejection, keeping your creative confidence alive
• A pep talk for newer illustrators

Rough timestamps for our timestamp fans:
00:00 – Meet Catherine!
03:00 – Post-it notes, assistants, and studio life in Edinburgh
10:00 – Julia Donaldson, ear-cleaning(!?) + friendship
17:00 – Jason Donovan and creative boldness
20:00 – 100 rejections, persistence, and finding your people
23:00 – Instagram tips and why numbers don’t matter
29:00 – Motherhood, burnout, and how it really gets easier
36:00 – Catherine’s parting words

Links mentioned
Catherine Rayner’s website
Follow Catherine on Instagram

Byeeee for now!
 x The Good Ship Illustration (Helen, Katie & Tania)

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 🎙

We've decided to play around a bit and do some INTERVIEWS. Ooooh. 

First up is artist and YouTuber Sandi Hester, who recently moved from the US into a 100-year-old fixer-upper house in the UK.

Katie (gently) grills Sandi about what it’s been like moving country and keeping her creative practice alive through chaos, health challenges, and renovation dust.

Sandi shares how painting has become her lifeline, why perfectionism is joy’s worst enemy, and how she’s learned to quiet the “blobbity blob” of negative self-talk that plagues so many creatives.

Nice.

💬 In this episode, we talk about:

• The big move from America to England
• How painting became Sandi’s release and restful place during years of illness
• Building the “muscles of creativity” to keep making art no matter what’s going on
• The “blobbity blob” of self-talk and why you can’t judge your art in the moment
• Going back to her older, more figurative painting style after moving to the UK
• Running a YouTube channel as a full-time job and how it replaced the gallery route
• Why being messy and human built more trust with her audience than a polished version ever could
• The unseen workload behind one 20-minute YouTube video (and why she can’t start a Patreon!)
• How perfectionism stops us from creating and why “the best you can do today” is always enough
• Why creatives should enjoy the journey instead of chasing the destination
• Learning to separate your self-worth from likes, follows, and algorithm robots 🤖
• Her advice to artists: stop stressing, stop comparing, and just enjoy the paint sliding across the page

🕰️ Episode Timestamps

00:00 – Introducing Sandi Hester and her big move
 02:00 – Creating through renovation chaos and hard seasons
 05:00 – The “blobbity blob” of mental chatter
 07:00 – Letting go of perfection and learning to just play
 09:00 – Returning to figurative painting (and why everyone thinks England “transformed” her work)
 10:00 – Choosing YouTube over galleries and showing real life online
 12:00 – Filming through health struggles and letting people see the messy truth
 15:00 – The hidden full-time workload behind one short video
 17:00 – Lowering the bar so you can actually make things
 19:00 – Teaching thought process over technique
 21:00 – How the YouTube algorithm punishes missed uploads (“Feed the beast!”)
 24:00 – Doing good work without being salesy
 27:00 – Staying the course even when you feel like bubblegum under a chair
 29:00 – Why the journey is the fun part
 33:00 – Re-training your inner critic
 35:00 – Final encouragements and gratitude

🌈 Links mentioned

• Bits of an Artist’s Life – Sandi’s YouTube Channel
• sandihester.com
• @sandihesterart on Instagram
• Bits of an Artist’s Life on Substack

Byeeee for now!
 x The Good Ship Illustration (Helen, Katie & Tania) 🚢🎨

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 🎙

Hi there, Helen here.

This is a special episode of the podcast because we had six of our Good Shippers - that’s people who’ve done our courses - selected as finalists in the Bologna Book Fair Illustrators Exhibition!

Which is pretty amazing news. It’s really difficult to be a finalist because the competition is so high. Last year there were 4,374 people who entered, and only 324 were selected to be finalists. So for six of them to be Good Shippers is SO exciting.

Now that the fair’s finished, I thought it would be lovely to catch up with them and hear how it all went. In this episode, you’ll hear from Emma Simpson, Lisa Loffredo, Amber Au, Sam Jones and Kate Leiper.

A special mention to Charlotte Durrance, who was also a finalist but couldn’t make it to the recording. 

Congratulations to all of you!

V Rough timestamps in case you like that sort of thing:

[00:00] Helen introduces the six Good Shippers who made it to Bologna 🎉
[00:02] Emma Simpson
[00:11] Lisa Loffredo
[00:18] Amber Au
[00:25] Sam Jones
[00:37] Kate Leiper 

Other links mentioned

Find Your Creative Voice, Fly Your Freak Flag course

The Picture Book course

DPictus Showcase

Bologna Book Fair Illustrators Exhibition info on how to take part 
– Entries usually open in July and close in November

Tiffany Leeson
– Creative Director at Farshore Books

Ken Max Wilson
– Writer, illustrator and publisher

Picture Hooks
– Helping illustrators access the world of children’s publishing (based in Edinburgh, open to all emerging illustrators)

🎉 If you’d like to apply for the Bologna Book Fair Illustrators Exhibition, the doors are usually open from July until November. 

Get your work ready and go for it!

We're cheering you on.

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

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 🎙

Our Helen’s #WalkToSee hashtag on Instagram is baaaack with a new monthly prompt. After seven years of #walktosee there are now over 120,000 drawings on there and counting!

In this episode, we chat about Helen’s relaunch of #WalkToSee (with new monthly prompts), drawing from life vs. photos, why small sketchbooks are weirdly hard, aaand rediscovering messy materials and carbon paper.

Special guest: an enormous chunk of charcoal.

If you'd like a gentle kick up the butt to do some drawing from life, then join in! 

In this episode:

• The story behind #WalkToSee and why Helen's relaunched it
• How to join this month’s prompt: #WalkToSeeWeather ☁️🌧️
• Why drawing from life feels more “alive”
• Sketching in public = good panic
• Small sketchbooks or massive sketchbooks... which camp are you in?
• Materials that make drawing fun again (paint sticks! Sharpies! toilet roll!)
• The autumn urge to make something just for fun
• Apple presses, lino cuts, carbon paper and whisky samples

Timestamps:
00:00 – Helen on starting #WalkToSee back in 2018
02:00 – Why hashtags stopped working and how she brought it back
04:00 – October’s prompt: #WalkToSeeWeather
06:00 – Drawing tiny and feeling rusty
08:00 – Sharpies, paint sticks and rediscovering fun materials
10:00 – Drawing in public (and how to avoid chatty strangers)
12:00 – The “panic” energy in real-life drawing
15:00 – Autumn creative urges and sneaky side projects
17:00 – The joy of carbon paper and slow stationery
19:00 – Studio updates, new neighbours and collaboration
20:00 – Katie’s apple obsession 🍎
21:00 – Tiny whisky bottles

Links & things mentioned:

• Join in on Instagram: #WalkToSeeWeather
• Helen’s Instagram: @helenstephenslion
• and ours @thegoodshipillustration
• The Good Ship Illustration: www.thegoodshipillustration.com
  
  

Byeeee for now!
 x The Good Ship Illustration (Helen, Katie & Tania) 🚢

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 🎙