67 – Children’s Book Illustration with Mel Armstrong

Laura

0:04
Hi, this is Laura Lee Griffin.

Nikki

0:06
And this is Nikki May, with the Startist Society, inspiring you to stop getting your own way and start building an art biz and life that you love.

Laura

0:15
We are artists who believe strongly in the power of community, accountability, following your intuition, taking small actionable steps and breaking down the barriers of fear and procrastination, that keep you stuck.

Nikki

0:30
Follow along with us on our creative business journey as we encourage you on yours.

Laura

0:38
Today’s guest calls one of my favorite countries on the planet home, New Zealand. Mel Armstrong has had an amazing life journey. She’s gone from being a professional ballet dancer to a web designer, award winning illustrator and surface pattern designer, she’s illustrated 15 children’s books so far, she’s a top Skillshare teacher, works with an agent to license her work globally and she’s a mom of two amazing kids. I’m kind of tired just reading that.

Nikki

1:09
I’m too overwhelmed by how amazing she is to really have any words to add to that intro. Mel, welcome to the Startist Society. We are so happy to have you here.

Mel

1:19
Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited.

Laura

1:22
Well, we like to start our interviews by getting to hear your Startist story. And I think yours is a fascinating one. We shared a very brief overview of your story in the intro, but can you please give us the full story of that journey?

Mel

1:39
Sure, it is quite a long journey, but I will try and shorten it a bit, I guess. I guess my creative journey started as a dancer, a ballet dancer. And when I was 15 I won a scholarship to go to Australia to join the Australian Ballet School. So I left home quite young, traveled over to Australia and never looked back, really. And unfortunately, my ballet career was quite short, because I ended up breaking my foot quite badly. So that meant I had to kind of reassess where I was going with my life. And I kind of went into IT. I did an IT degree at University, became a software engineer and worked for some massive companies in Sydney, in Australia. But the creative side of me was really calling me. And so I delved into a bit of acting because I felt like I needed to get back onto stage. And I did that for about eight years. And if you’ve heard some Australian shows like Home and Away, I was on there once. And then I kind of was like, oh, yeah, this isn’t quite working either. And I just had my kids and trying to get to auditions with kids was proving to be quite impossible.

Nikki

3:12
Oh, I bet.

Mel

3:13
Yeah, I had one audition once, it was for a massive, massive job. And my babysitter didn’t turn up, which meant I didn’t get to the audition, which meant I got a big red flag on my name. It was just like, no, that’s the end. So anyway, then I had my son and I was trying to find some fabric. And I couldn’t find any fabric that I liked, because I wanted to make him some clothes. And I was like, I need to sort of branch out a bit here and I ended up searching the web for “create your own fabric” and found Spoonflower. And this is going back, I don’t know, about eight years ago, I guess. And I discovered I could probably do it myself. And that’s where it all kind of began with my surface pattern design and illustration. So I designed some fabric and made some clothes for my son and was like, Oh, this is like the best thing ever.

Laura

4:13
How did you learn how to do that? Did you just teach yourself?

Mel

4:16
No, well, I’ve always been a drawer. I’ve always been an artist, I guess, in my own sort of world, as a hobby. I never thought I could do it as a career. And I’d never studied art in that way. I did do a graphic design course once and did a lot of graphic design work for some companies around Sydney and obviously web design, which has a lot of graphic design as well. So that obviously helped me to create illustrations and stuff, right. But I think just the combination of me always having that experience as a hobby of drawing and combining that with the graphic design, it kind of sent me on my way, I guess.

Laura

5:05
So you were you were making clothes for your son you were creating on Spoonflower. What was next?

Mel

5:12
From there, I submitted a design to the Make It In Design course, for the scholarship. Because I really wanted to study how to do pattern design. And I won it, which meant that I got to do their wonderful course. And from there, I built up a portfolio and managed to get an agent and started licensing. And that’s kind of when I started thinking, wow, I could really do this as a full time career.

Laura

5:42
Now, let me ask you – for the agent, did you go seek out the agent or did they find you,

Mel

5:48
I went and seeked them out. So I kind of looked around, and I saw what other artists, who they were with, if they had an agent and kind of saw what they were licensing and what I wanted to license. And the agent that I found I felt would be the best fit because they both license patterns as well as greeting cards as well as do children’s book illustration as well. So, yeah, it felt like the right fit.

Nikki

6:17
So that’s a lot of really cool things that you’re doing, right? Creating your own work, illustrating children’s books, licensing work, teaching. We didn’t even get into how you started teaching.

Mel

6:30
No. And I think the interesting thing about how I got into children’s book illustration was a publisher saw some fabric of mine on Spoonflower that had a cat in the pattern and went Oh, I like that. Can you illustrate a children’s book for me?

Nikki

6:47
And of course you said, yeah.

Mel

6:51
Absolutely.

Laura

6:53
Well, it’s amazing, because a lot of people think that Spoonflower, now this was probably some time ago. I don’t know how long ago it was, when they found you on Spoonflower?

Mel

7:02
I think that would have been about five years ago, maybe for, not sure.

Laura

7:05
Yeah. I mean, a lot of people think that you can’t get discovered for a licensing deal or an illustration deal off of one of those platforms. But you absolutely can.

Mel

7:15
Absolutely, yeah. And I really encourage people to sell their designs on Spoonflower, it’s is not only a great place to be spotted, but also a nice little passive income as you grow your shop and as your designs get noticed. My passive income from Spoonflower is a huge proportion of my income each month. It’s fantastic.

Laura

7:38
I mean, if you don’t mind me asking, like roughly what percentage comes from Spoonflower?

Mel

7:44
I’d say about 20%.

Laura

7:46
Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s something that we’re actually, we’ve just had a print on demand series that we’ve been talking about and I don’t have a shop yet. But I’m getting excited about starting one. I just started a Society6 one. But I love the idea of being able to create fabric and like in your experience, it actually led you to children’s illustration. So your first book, basically, somebody found you on Spoonflower, they loved the character of the cat, and they said, Hey, can you make a book around this? Can you tell us a little bit about that process? And what it was like creating your first book from start to finish? Like how long does it take? And do you do like storyboard stuff first? Or, you know, how does all that work?

Mel

8:28
So the publisher, I worked with an art designer, a book designer, with the publisher, and they basically design the layout of the book for me, not everyone has that with some publishers, you don’t get that. But with this particular one, they had it. But first of all, I had to come up with the character and do some character designs first. And then they basically said, Yep, we love that, let’s go forward with it. And so the book designer came up with the pagination of how the layout would go through the book. And then it was my job to basically do the illustrations, and I started with a storyboard. And then thumbnails and then roughs which had the sketches and then the color is the final part.

Laura

9:16
And when they do the layout, they kind of tell you where the text is going to go and all of that?

Mel

9:21
Not necessarily where the text is going to go. But what text is on what page, more than where it’s going to be on the page. That was more my job, but she also gave me a few ideas of what could be on that page.

Laura

9:33
Yeah, and so how long did that process take?

Mel

9:37
Three months?

Laura

9:38
That sounds quick to me, actually.

Mel

9:40
Yeah, yeah. And I’ve done some that are bigger books in shorter timeframes, and then some other books in longer timeframes.

Laura

9:47
So from start to finish, like from the thumbnail process to the end result, you delivering, it was about three months of time. And then how does that work in terms of when did it actually get out into the world.

Mel

10:00
Yes. So they seem to time it with certain competitions or festivals or things like that. But I think with that one, it took about maybe a year before it came out, which is pretty normal.

Laura

10:17
And then once that happened, you basically had one under your belt, right? And did you start like immediately on the next one? Did somebody approach you? Did your agent then use your first book to say, Hey, she can do children’s books? How did it go from there?

Mel

10:33
After that first one, the publisher was very excited to do another one with me. So they waited until the next manuscript came along, that they thought would suit my style. And that wasn’t very long. It was probably, I think I had started it before the book, the first book had actually come out. So yeah, it was pretty quick. But then I was also working on a couple of other books at the time that had gone through my agent. And they hadn’t seen my first book, so they wouldn’t have known, you know, what it was like, I guess. So I was working on some board books, I think, for a publisher in the UK, which were completely different.

Laura

11:16
Yeah. So I forgot to ask the very first book, how long was it? How many spreads? Was it?

Mel

11:21
It was a 32 page book, which is a standard picture book.

Laura

11:25
Yeah. And in three months, that’s just fascinating to me, were you using like Photoshop or like digital or Illustrator? What were you using to do it?

Mel

11:34
I did a lot of that in Procreate on the iPad. And I also used Photoshop, and I like to create all my textures from paintings and photographs. So it has a bit of traditional stuff in there. Yeah. So it’s a real mix.

Laura

11:52
Yeah, that’s amazing. And especially with with Procreate, it’s amazing what you can do on an iPad now. I’m a huge fan of Procreate. And, and I actually released my second Skillshare class recently, which happened to be about Procreate. And what was so cool was just, you can do all types of illustration, you could do greeting card design. In your case, you can do books, but I imagine you have to start with a pretty big canvas to have it be to where it’ll print nicely. And that limits your layer size, right?

Mel

12:22
Yes, but there are a few tricks.

Laura

12:24
And your stuff looks very textural, like your stuff is beautiful and textural. So what are your tricks to doing that? I am curious.

Mel

12:31
I often will end up with about five canvases for one spread, at least. And each time, I will send it over to Photoshop and basically, so I’ve always got all the copies on my computer, just in case I lose them off my iPad, which hasn’t happened yet, but you never know. And yeah, and so it just keeps layering until I’ve got it all into one file in Photoshop. Yeah, it could be it could be five canvases, at least.

Laura

13:04
Wow, that’s a great way to manage it when you have a limited size. But then if you have to make a change that’s in the first canvas, then you have to get it through all the other canvases as well.

Mel

13:13
Yeah, well, that’s why you have you have, make sure that you keep the original, you don’t flatten anything. And as you go to the second canvas, you can flatten it there, but you’ve still got your original so right. And then when I’ve got my file in Photoshop, I can just pull, you know, if I have to go back and change it, it’s really easy to go and take it back into Photoshop.

Laura

13:32
Okay, cool.

Nikki

13:33
So Mel, give us a little bit of an idea about how people get paid for illustrating books. Do you get paid up front? Do you earn royalties? How does that work?

Mel

13:43
It’s different for different publishers. For my picture books, there’s always an upfront fee, and then another fee when you’re finished the illustrations, and then you have royalties as well after after that. But I have worked with other books that it’s just one off fee, and I haven’t gotten any royalties from it, and they will give you a lot more money than the other ones. So it kind of works out in the end.

Nikki

14:13
It just varies.

Mel

14:14
Yes.

Laura

14:15
So clearly you’ve enjoyed this process, because you’ve done it, what 15 times. And your artwork is amazing. And I think you also have a Skillshare class on how to illustrate the cover of a children’s book. Is that right?

Mel

14:32
Mm hmm. I do, yes. I just go into some of the tips that you need to make a really good cover, I guess, color and tone and layout, composition, that kind of stuff. And you can also, I find that I get a lot of jobs that I just do the cover of a book. There’s a lot of publishers out there who get different illustrators to do the cover as opposed to the insides.

Laura

14:59
Oh, that’s interesting. I didn’t know that. I thought usually the person who did the cover would also do the the layouts on the inside. But that’s not always the case?

Mel

15:06
Not always the case. No.

Laura

15:08
Interesting. So it can you tell us what your favorite book project is you’ve ever worked on?

Mel

15:14
Ah, yes, I think that would have to be some adventure books or activity books that I did for Scholastic in the UK. I’ve done four of those now and they have been the most fun. And I think it was just fun working with Scholastic and the content of the books was all my favorite sort of things to draw. And yeah, it was just fun.

Laura

15:39
Do you go back and forth a good bit with the publisher? Like, do you submit a spread, and then they come back and say, No, we don’t like that, we want this?

Mel

15:45
Yeah, you can, especially with Scholastic it was, in the sort of hierarchy of approvals. You would submit something and the art director would love it. But then it had to go to like another level of approval with a board of people. And then it would then go to the sales people. And it could get to the top of that high, you know, letter and someone in sales is like, Ah, I don’t know about that. And that comes all the way back down again. And it can go up and down, up and down. Yeah, it can get quite frustrating.

Nikki

16:18
Yeah, I bet.

Laura

16:20
And Scholastic is pretty huge. Right? So I imagine. I mean, how many books do they produce when you have a deal with the publisher like that.

Mel

16:29
Thousands, thousands. Yeah, I have no idea what the true number is. But they I mean, the books are all over the world. Yeah, it’s, yeah, a huge amount.

Laura

16:40
Do you ever go out and see them?

Mel

16:42
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. They’re in my kids libraries at school and book shops and stuff. So yeah.

Laura

16:50
That’s awesome.

Nikki

16:51
That’s very cool.

Mel

16:53
So Scholastic, in this case, with activity books, they don’t pay royalties. So they paid a very large fee up front for each one which was quite nice. But royalties would have been nice for this, because there’s so many copies out there.

Laura

17:05
Yeah, cuz it’s done so well.

Nikki

17:07
Do you ever have the option of an upfront fee or royalties? Or some combination? Do they ever give you a choice?

Mel

17:16
Not really? No, they just all have different sort of policies, I guess. And I think my agent does a lot of that negotiating.

Nikki

17:24
Which do you prefer?

Mel

17:26
I think I think royalties are great. Because over time, the more books you have, the more money you’re making. So then you can probably pull back on the number of projects you’re doing. That’s how I kind of see it.

Nikki

17:41
Yeah. And I would imagine when new books come out, then people who find the new ones will want to go back and find all your old ones once they like it. So then the older ones can kind of get a resurgence.

Mel

17:54
Absolutely. And yeah, and reprint, they reprint them and that means more royalties as well.

Nikki

17:59
Nice.

Laura

18:00
And do you think because you have two children…how old are they now?

Mel

18:05
I have an eight year old and a five year old.

Laura

18:08
Do you think that also influenced your desire to go into the children’s illustration? Because you were probably looking at books going, you know what? I could make a really cool book.

Mel

18:18
Yeah, absolutely. In fact, I am constantly down in my kids bedroom, studying their books, looking at new ways to compose layouts and stuff, like I’m always in their books.

Laura

18:33
That’s a great way to do research.

Mel

18:35
It is and I highly recommend it because it’s, in fact, it’s just something you have to do. But my kids also influence a lot of my drawings. And my son in particular, often will come into my office and have a look at something and go, Oh, I think you need like a ladybug up in that corner. Or I think you need something over here. And he’s always right.

Laura

18:57
Oh that’s awesome, because those are the eyes that are really the ones that you’re trying to cater to right. And they see things in a creative, awesome way. So I love that.

Nikki

19:07
So Mel, what are some of the biggest challenges you faced with children’s book illustration?

Mel

19:13
Drawing people. I really struggle with people.

Nikki

19:17
Oh, it’s the hardest thing, isn’t it?

Mel

19:19
Yeah. Yeah. And I’m still trying to get good at it. Like I just think it’s one of those things, everyone has something they struggle with and people is my biggest struggle, and I just need to practice and practice and practice I guess.

Laura

19:34
Yeah, I struggle with it too, to be honest. And I’m I gave myself a portrait challenge a long time ago, to learn sort of, at least how to do the appropriate proportions. Children’s book illustration is something different, because it’s all like you’re kind of developing characters, so it doesn’t have to be super realistic. And do you do more people or more animals in your work?

Mel

19:55
I’d say more animals, because that’s kind of my thing, I guess. People yeah.

Laura

20:02
I mentioned before that you have a Skillshare class on book illustration. But I know that that’s not the only class you have, because you’re a top teacher on Skillshare. So tell us a little bit about how you went from doing the illustrations and doing surface pattern design and then shifting into teaching.

Mel

20:21
So I am a online course junkie, I take them all the time. And I think it’s, I think it’s great now that we live in this online community, and there’s so many amazing artists out there sharing their skills. And I just think it’s great. But anyway, I got onto Skillshare. And they reached out to me and said, Oh, we think that you should teach. And so they set me up for one of their teacher challenges. And so with my first class, I did the teacher challenge and ended up winning the challenge.

Laura

20:58
Oh, wow.

Nikki

20:58
That’s fantastic.

Mel

21:00
It was amazing. And they ended up promoting my class so much. I just got so many students. And I just think it set me up in a really good place to continue teaching on that platform. And they’ve been amazing, Skillshare.

Laura

21:12
So what was the first class you did? That won the challenge?

Mel

21:17
Yeah, it was how to create a half drop repeat in Photoshop using Smart Objects.

Laura

21:23
Nice. Well, I think I need to take that class.

Mel

21:27
Yeah, and it’s a really old class now. But it still works with the current Photoshop, so you should be fine.

Laura

21:33
It’s still relevant. Yeah.

Mel

21:34
Yeah, it’s still relevant.

Laura

21:36
So what other classes do you offer on Skillshare?

Mel

21:40
I have a mix of surface pattern design classes and illustration classes. My surface pattern design classes seem to do a lot better than my illustration ones, I think.

Nikki

21:52
I’ve actually taken a couple of your surface pattern design classes myself.

Mel

21:56
Oh, cool. Thank you. I hope you learned something.

Nikki

21:59
Yeah. They were fantastic when I was learning how to do repeat patterns.

Mel

22:03
Awesome.

Laura

22:04
So you started teaching? How long ago was it that you started teaching on Skillshare?

Mel

22:10
I’d say three and a half years ago, actually, no, it’d be four and a half years ago, because it was just before I moved to New Zealand, so yeah, four and a half.

Laura

22:18
And you became a top teacher. So when did that happen?

Mel

22:22
About a year into it, I think, when I became a top teacher. That is I think so mostly from that first class, because it did so well. It got me right up.

Laura

22:31
Yeah. That’s amazing. I’m really enjoying it. I’m a new teacher on Skillshare. And to me, it’s just so awesome to be able to share your skills and then see somebody else create with it. And being able to pass on that knowledge. And I love Skillshare because I’m a class junkie too. And not just Skillshare. I do all the classes.

Mel

22:50
Yeah, I do too.

Laura

22:53
So I also understand that you have a new class that is in the works. And can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Mel

23:05
Yes. So I’ve decided to do a masterclass in surface pattern design. And it’s called The Art and Joy of Surface Pattern Design. And that is due to be launched in April 2022. And it basically is everything I’ve learned about the business and how to create design. So there’s both the technical side of creating patterns plus the business side of getting licenses, and selling your designs, and also how to earn money in different areas outside of licensing through your pattern. So I cover a lot of content. And it’s basically all my Skillshare classes put together in one large class.

Laura

23:55
So in this course, you’re kind of helping people learn more about the technical aspects and how to create the designs, all the way to the business side. You mentioned before that probably about 20% of the income comes from your Spoonflower shop for yourself. Have you found that the art licensing and the surface pattern design has been a significant portion of your income as well?

Mel

24:17
Yes, a huge proportion. Especially there’s some licenses out there that I get royalties for, they just keep coming every year. And I have a few clients that I do repeat projects for, I keep working for and they provide me with royalties as well and that just has steadily grown over the last few years. As well as all the licensing that I do. It all adds up and it’s been quite a large proportion of my income.

Laura

24:48
Have people mostly found you or have you gone out and sort of pitched your portfolio or your work to companies that you wanted to work with?

Mel

24:57
I think most of it’s come through my agent, so my agent does all that pitching for me mostly. And so most of my work comes out of the UK and America. And then I have a whole lot of clients down in Australia and New Zealand that I’ve approached myself. And so it’s a bit of a mix. But I’d say the biggest majority of my income is from those, through my agent.

Laura

25:24
Yeah. And I’m curious also about marketing. So that’s sort of, you know, pitching your work. And you have an agent who gets to do all that business stuff for you, which is kind of nice, so that you can focus a lot more…

Mel

25:32
Yeah, especially contracts and negotiating, which I hate.

Laura

25:36
Right. Yeah, that’s a struggle, I think for just about anybody. And I work in the business world so I should be more used to all of that stuff, but yeah, it’s intimidating, I think, for everyone.

Mel

25:48
No, it never gets easy.

Laura

25:50
I am curious from a marketing perspective, because you do have a very successful Spoonflower shop. And that’s not something that your art licensing agent is responsible for, that’s you. Are there tips that you have for marketing your Spoonflower shop when it’s not your agent running the show, it’s you, in order to get found?

Mel

26:09
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is to enter the competitions, they have weekly challenges. And if you can get into the top 10 on there, you don’t only get noticed by potential buyers, but you also get noticed by the people at Spoonflower. And if the people at Spoonflower notice you then they will buy your designs and print them for products and then put them in their magazine, or they put them onto their social media, which then helps you. So they’re kind of doing the marketing for you. But if you can get noticed by them, then do you know what I mean? Like, that’s what helped me, hugely.

Laura

26:52
It’s getting it in front of the right eyes and having them help you do the marketing by basically submitting really high quality artwork and getting it picked up, or noticed in the competitions.

Mel

27:02
Yeah, absolutely. But then also marketing yourself. So if there are any discounts coming up on Spoonflower, then obviously put something on your Instagram to market it. I find the two for one deals are really good, that’s when I sell a lot. Or the wallpaper discounts or things like that, the wallpaper is huge, because people buy a whole lot of it. You get a good nice commission from it.

Laura

27:30
Oh, nice. And your agent doesn’t have any concerns with you licensing items through Spoonflower versus through your own portfolio? Do you use different patterns and different images?

Mel

27:44
Yeah, it really depends. So my agent’s okay with me finding other licenses through other companies, and also having things on Spoonflower. But then if a client through my agent buys a license, then sometimes that may change. So I’ve recently licensed some patterns to a fabric company in Australia and New Zealand, they are a very big, big store. And they they asked me to take my designs off Spoonflower. Whereas some others don’t really mind. So you just have to check.

Laura

28:15
Interesting. So it can be like a like whether or not it’s sort of exclusive or not agreement, but you have the ability potentially, to still do some of your own things. It’s not like because you have an agent, everything has to go through the agent. So it’s nice to have that flexibility. I know a lot of people are concerned that if they they put their artwork on something like Society6 or Spoonflower, then other people won’t want to license their work. They get afraid of that. But it sounds like that’s a fear that we don’t need to have.

Mel

28:46
Yeah, well, in my case, absolutely not. I think it’s helped me to have it out there. So yeah.

Laura

28:52
So let’s talk a little bit more about your class. So how many modules are in this course.

Mel

28:58
There are six modules and they will be released one a week, so that’s six weeks. So that you don’t get overwhelmed in that first week with everything. And you get to sort of stagger it out and do the course at your own pace as well.

Laura

29:15
Yeah, I think that’s fabulous that you’re covering such a large breadth of the surface design world and you have so much real life experience in it.

Nikki

29:23
So Mel, we wanted to ask you what some of your biggest influences were when you were getting started. Do you have some favorite artists or people whose careers you were admiring that you wanted to follow in their footsteps?

Mel

29:37
Oh, good question, there’s so many. There’s Katherine Norman, who lives in New Zealand. She’s probably one of my favorite artists and because she’s a kiwi as well. I just love her unique style and her patterns are divine. So she she’s a huge influence for me. In illustration, children’s book illustration industry, I really like the work of Benji Davis. Yeah, he has a great use of texture. And yeah, I just I really love the way his characters are. And I aspire to be able to draw characters the way he does, but I probably never will be able to. But um, yeah, he’s he’s fantastic.

Laura

30:25
Oh, I think yours are pretty phenomenal. I have to say, I, you know, I feel that way about you. I’m like, Oh, I wish I could do characters like Mel can. So we all have different people that we look up to, right. Yeah. So what are some of the most helpful resources that you found for yourself in your career so far?

Mel

30:45
Um, I would say, obviously, classes online, classes, as you’ve heard before, I’m a junkie. I also am a junkie of podcasts, like this. I get a lot of inspiration from from hearing other people’s stories. But for resources, online communities are huge. Finding inspiration and bouncing ideas off people and finding resources as well, I guess.

Laura

31:16
And are there any online communities that you found particularly helpful?

Mel

31:20
Yeah, there’s a number of online communities on Facebook that have been fantastic. But probably my biggest is actually the Skillshare, Top Teachers community, that we all chat together all the time, and they’re inspirational, every single one of them, and I just yeah, I love them all. They’re amazing.

Laura

31:46
They are amazing. And we spoke with Liz Kohler Brown in one of our past episodes, and I know she is a top teacher as well and a surface pattern designer. So it’s a pretty impressive group of people that you’re a part of for sure. And being able to bounce ideas off of people makes a huge difference. I know that we have an accountability group ourselves, for the Startist Society. And Nikki and I are in one with four women. And it’s just a such a great thing to have community of people who kind of understand where you’re at and what you’re, you’re doing in your creative journey. And a lot of people sometimes in your daily life, don’t get it. Right. So finding that that sense of community is really awesome.

Nikki

32:27
Mel, what is one piece of advice that you can give to artists and illustrators who are just getting started, something that you wish you would have heard when you were getting started? Um,

Mel

32:37
I think my number one tip is to just draw every day and don’t think too hard about it. Just one of my favorite things to do, in fact, I do this every day is I will go for a walk in the morning, take the dog for a walk. And I quite often will take photos of strange looking plants or pebbles on the ground and come home and then blindly draw them. So draw them without actually looking at the picture.

Nikki

33:09
Oh, yeah, like a blind contour drawing.

Mel

33:11
Yeah, so you’ve got it in your memory, but you’re not looking at it, and then just see what happens. And so many of my designs have ended up being some of the best from those little walks in the morning. So I just think it’s a really nice habit to have. Because you don’t know where it’s gonna end up.

Laura

33:24
Yeah, have a routine and not have the pressure on it that it has to be a certain thing like you, you don’t have to use the output of that session for anything in particular.

Mel

33:34
Yeah, there’s no pressure. So there’s no deadline. It’s just have fun.

Laura

33:38
I love that. Now, I do have a question. Because of you know, we’ve just talked about so many amazing things that you have done from being a children’s book illustrator, to surface pattern design and licensing to teaching and being a top Skillshare teacher, you have this new course that you’re doing and you’re a mom, right? How do you manage your time?

Mel

33:59
Yeah, good question. It’s been tough the last couple of years, I have to say with COVID and everything. I do like a good spreadsheet. So I like to have everything organized, especially when I’m doing multiple projects. So I use an online product called Monday that I keep track of all my projects in . And so if I don’t have it organized, then I tend to procrastinate and nothing gets done. So I have to yeah, be organized. But really, it’s been a huge challenge with lock downs and being able to navigate homeschooling children as well as working. Yeah, that’s been really hard.

Laura

34:46
With two young ones at home for sure.

Mel

34:49
Yeah. And when we had the first lockdown, my son had had a terrible year at school and we were in the process of getting a all these assessments done because he just wasn’t coping. And then we went into a lockdown. And we had this kid that was out of control basically. Plus I had had a lot of book projects on and it was just a messy time. But I mean, we got through it, and he got a diagnosis of autism. And since then it’s been amazing, because we can now just love him the way he is. And, he’s been my rock. Really. So. Yeah.

Laura

35:25
That’s amazing. Yeah, I think so many people in this past year have faced challenges. Parents have faced so many challenges with having their children at home.

Nikki

35:35
Laura and I can barely manage our dogs.

Mel

35:38
Yeah, we added to that pile was recently with a new dog. So yeah, having another puppy is like having another child, it’s even more challenging.

Nikki

35:47
Yeah.

Laura

35:50
But yeah, it’s it’s impressive. So it sounds like this tool is pretty cool that you use called Monday, you said.

Mel

35:54
Yeah, yeah, I love it. It’s and you can actually share it with your, the publishers or whoever you’re working with, so they can see what you’re up to, which is good.

Nikki

36:05
There’s another question that I wanted to ask. So I love to ask this question. Is there anything that we should have asked you that we didn’t? Put you on the spot.

Mel

36:18
Yeah. Um, maybe what I would imagine I’d be doing in five years time.

Laura

36:27
Yeah, that’s a great question.

Nikki

36:29
That’s a good one. Mel, what do you imagine you’ll be doing in five years time?

Mel

36:34
Hopefully, exactly what I’m doing now. But maybe a lot better at drawing people.

Nikki

36:42
Perfect.

Laura

36:46
And by then, you’re gonna have like, I don’t know, 50 books published. Some impressive number.

Nikki

36:52
Probably.

Mel

36:53
That would be great.

Laura

36:55
Well, we should all become children’s book illustrators. But wait, I have to learn how to make characters first. I need to take all of Mel’s classes.

Nikki

37:04
Yeah, I just like drawing naked ladies. So I don’t really see that in a lot of children’s books.

Laura

37:10
Children’s books?

Mel

37:12
Maybe in a different market.

Nikki

37:14
All mine are nude, nude adult women. So…

Mel

37:18
I’m sure that would sell well but just in a different market.

Nikki

37:22
Maybe not for children’s books.

Laura

37:24
And they’re all drinking bourbon right, Nikki?

Nikki

37:27
No, I’m drinking bourbon. They’re just lying around naked with giant insects crawling on them.

Mel

37:35
I need to see one of these.

Nikki

37:37
nikkimayart on Instagram.

Mel

37:39
I’m going right there after this.

Nikki

37:41
And pretty soon I’ll be driving around in a school bus covered with those illustrations.

Mel

37:47
That sounds really good.

Nikki

37:48
I just bought a school bus that I’m converting to live in.

Mel

37:52
Oh, I’ve always wanted to do that.

Nikki

37:54
And I will be painting on it.

Mel

37:56
That’s awesome.

Nikki

37:57
Well, come visit. I will take you for a ride.

Mel

38:01
If I can ever get out of the country.

Nikki

38:03
Yeah, really. I can’t drive to you though.

Mel

38:07
Oh, well. As soon as we get the freedom to leave this country, I’m going everywhere. I can’t go anywhere at the moment.

Laura

38:13
Yeah, but if you have to get stuck somewhere, New Zealand’s a pretty awesome place to get stuck.

Mel

38:18
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Laura

38:20
It’s home for you. But I was there and camped the southern island for like a month. And I just remember getting down at my little tent in the morning looking around and being like, It’s Lord of the Rings. And it’s real. Like it really exists. It just as amazing.

Nikki

38:37
And speaking of amazing views, don’t you have a studio overlooking a really beautiful view of the Wellington Harbour?

Mel

38:44
Yes, yep.

Nikki

38:45
Tell us about that.

Mel

38:47
It’s just a cool little studio. That sounds really elaborate. But really, it’s just a room in the house. That’s my office.

Nikki

38:55
It’s still a studio.

Mel

38:56
But it does, I look out my window and I’ve got a lot of trees and bushland. And then if I look out, I can see the harbor, which we have an amazing view of the harbor. And we live near a sanctuary where they are trying to bring back all these birds that were endangered. And so now they’re all flying down into the suburbs where we live. And it’s been incredible to see all these birds come back. So there’s a whole lot of inspiration out there for me to draw every day.

Nikki

39:29
Cool. Do you happen to have a nice photo of your view that you could share with us?

Mel

39:34
Absolutely. Yeah.

Laura

39:35
We’ll put that in the show notes. We’re all jealous of that view. I’m sure.

Mel

39:39
Yeah, we’re pretty lucky.

Nikki

39:42
All right. We’re gonna have to have a Startist Society retreat in New Zealand.

Mel

39:45
Yeah

Laura

39:46
Of course. We’re all going to Mel’s studio, didn’t you hear about it?

Mel

39:50
I better clean up.

Nikki

39:53
You’ve got a little time before we get there.

Laura

39:58
So where can our listeners find find you online.

Mel

40:01
Yeah, they can go to my website, which is melarmstrong.com. And from there, you can find all the links to my social media, so I don’t have to list them all. But basically, Instagram is probably where you can follow my stuff the most or sign up to my newsletter. MelArmstrongDesign is my Instagram tag.

Laura

40:21
Okay, perfect.

Nikki

40:23
And I believe you have a fun freebie on your website that people can sign up for your email list and get that is all about different types of repeat patterns, right?

Mel

40:34
Yep, it’s a free PDF download, and I have put in there all the different types of patents that you can create, just to get a bit of a taste of what you might get in my course.

Nikki

40:46
Awesome.

Laura

40:47
And if they’re interested in the course, then they’ll have a chance to sign up for that in in April.

Mel

40:53
Yeah, the end of March is when they’ll be able to sign up. Okay, but you can go on the waitlist to find out the actual date now by just clicking on the links through my website.

Nikki

41:03
We’ll link to that in the show notes.

Laura

41:05
I think it sounds amazing. The course that you’re offering that really gives people the everything from the creative side to the business side.

Mel

41:13
Yeah, I’m really excited about it.

Laura

41:15
All right, so I just wanted to thank you so much, Mel, for taking the time to speak with us today.

Mel

41:22
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a real pleasure.

Nikki

41:26
Yeah, really, Mel, thank you for being here. And for our listeners, to learn more about Mel and read today’s Startist Society show notes. Go to startistsociety.com/melarmstrong.

Laura

41:39
If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, we’d love for you to share it with a friend. Sharing helps us reach more Startists like you and keep us inspired to create new episodes. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next week.