Laura Wall Talk

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Transcript

It's so nice to be here and come and speak to you. So, I hear that you're all on an arts themed course, illustration, graphic design, that kind of area. So, I thought I would share with you my journey, my personal journey to where I am today.

 

So, this here is my art gallery, and this is based in Teignmouth. And I'm really known for my pen and watercolour style. So, I love to paint really detailed landscapes of my artwork. I like to sneak in lots and lots of little characters and details within every single picture. But this here, you can see, is where I'm based and I do a lot of my painting in that studio.

 

 So, a lot of customers come in and they can watch me working if they want to.

And that's a really nice way of interacting with your customers when they can see you at work. That actually really creates a really lovely connection between the buyer and the artist.

 

So, we have a photo of one of my paintings and you'll really see the level of detail I go to.

 

 Right so this is Teignmouth Back Beach. It's a really special place, it's this little old rugged seaside town and it's a place where on the surface you might not be that inspired by but actually when you just sit and you watch people it's the most amazing thing in the world. So, in this picture you've got this jumbled Ness of everything You've got the fishermen there on the key unloading their lobster pots.

You've got girls sunbathing in between the boats, people in the windows, washing on the line. And it's a place that the more you look, the more you see. And so, what I was saying to some of my students earlier. So, you've got, these are the lobster pot guys unloading here. And they're fished for the crab shack here, this red building. You've got the ship here which is very famous and people just drinking. You've got paddlers here. You've got the sunbathers here, people in the windows and the washing.

 

I have a little bit of a signature thing that goes into all of them. I always sneak in Goose. This is a little character called Goose. So, in all of my pictures, you've got this young boy and the dog as well. And that kind of goes through every single picture and has become a bit of a thing that I'm known for within my art.

 

But my point was, what's really important if you're an artist is to look up. Look up from your phone, look up from what you're doing, and see the world. If you're on the bus, look at the people around you, what are they wearing, what are they chatting about? If you see someone walking down the street with a lovely little dog or whatever, log it in your mind. If you've got a sketchbook even better, jot it down.

Honestly, I've got reams and reams of notebooks and sketchbooks where I've jotted down, for example, a guy with big tattoos sat on the bench and he's got a chihuahua next to him. That was a real thing. And he went into these pictures so all these people are real people over the years. I've just watched and jotted down. So, it's really good to have this observation of life.

 

So, I'm not just known for my pen and water colour series but I also do a lot of collaborations, a lot of product design. My favourite one being gin which was excellent. So, Exeter Gin came into my art gallery one day and they said “Hey do you want to collaborate on a new gin?” and I was like absolutely. So, we got to taste the gin and create something that was my brand. So, because I'm known for the seaside, we went for a seaside themed gin, which has seaweed in it, which sounds really weird, but it's now won two gold awards in Tastes of the West and Food & Drink Devon.

 This is another fundamental thing in my business, is that I'm always putting things up for awards. Whether it's Goose, whether it's my gallery, whatever it is, just keep putting things in where you can, because some you're not going to win, some you might. And the minute you start winning things, then people start recognizing you and noticing you a little bit more.

 

We've also done collaborations with an umbrella company. Now this company I approached and said I'd really like to make my own umbrellas, but I couldn't afford the minimum quantity because they want thousands printed, but they really liked our designs so much that they incorporated my designs into their range of umbrellas. They also sell them around the UK and I get a royalty. However, I can also buy them at trade price and sell them in my art gallery. So, there's some really nice business things you can do. If you can't afford the big quantities on an item, you can sometimes work with that company to take on your designs for you.

 

This is the other thing that I'm really known for, and it's a children's book series called Goose. And It's all about this Goose character and a little girl called Sophie.

They're best friends and basically the whole story is just about a little girl called Sophie. She goes to the park one day, she meets a Goose in the park, they become best friends. That’s it. That is the whole premise for the story. But there are now 16 titles in the series. They're in 40 countries, 16 different languages, and I'm going to show you that journey of how I got those published from this one simple idea.

So, my journey started in 1985. Yes, I am quite old. I was born in Gravesend in Kent, which is a miserable old place, it's very grey. So anyway, when I was 16, I moved to Devon and this really helped me. There's a really budding art community here in Devon. It's a really wonderful place for you to do your art degree actually because there's so much inspiration and real communities of artists.

 

So, I originally studied art at university, and I enjoyed exploring the practical side of it all. I think this is where you start really experimenting with different things. Just keep experimenting because you'll start to find your true voice with that.

 

When I was at university, that's where I wrote Goose. As part of my projects, the lecturer said, you've got to write and illustrate a children's book as part of your end of year project. And I was like, oh, I can't write. Like, I'm not an author. Why have they made me do this project? I'm an illustrator. Anyway, I did lots of complicated ideas, but they were rubbish.

 

Then my lecturer said to me, look, just strip it back, just like the simpler the better, it's fine. I went back to my childhood and in an afternoon, I wrote Goose and it's just basically repetition.

 

Goose goes to the park, sorry, Sophie goes to the park with her mum, Sophie meets a Goose, Sophie goes home next day, Sophie meets the goose again, they go on the slide, they go home, the next day, Sophie goes, he's not there anymore. And he's like, oh my god, where's he gone? And so that's just the simplicity of it. He's flying away south. He comes back, and then the end of the story is there's goose.

 

But there's a lot of really bold colours within the stories. And it's all based on shapes. In the books Sophie is like a circle for the head, a triangle for the dress, Goose is just a white character, really simplified, which I'll show you more in a minute, but basically the simplicity was what the lecturers really liked, and consequently what the publishers also really liked.

 

So, what I'm saying is you don't have to have these overzealous, detailed ideas, sometimes the simpler the better, really does work, and that whole story was simply based on my childhood. I had a sister to play with and I thought to myself, well, if I didn't have my sister, what would I like to play with? And for some reason, a goose came into my head. So that's where the whole story just began. And I thought, well, that'd be quite fun to have a little girl and a goose as a best friend.

 

So anyway, I graduated university, and I got a job straight away in TV, which sounded really fun and cool. And my family were really pleased about it and everyone else around me was pleased about it.

I was like, I was meant to be an artist, you know, this wasn't what I was meant to do. And it was really cool to get a job straight away, but I was like, I didn't even have a gap year. I was like, I might travel a bit or, you know, do more painting and art and then become this artist that I had in my head.

 

So, I worked many night shifts. I worked on shows like I used to be a ten-year-old, you probably never heard of it, but it was at the time quite popular, and it was one of those jobs where I started off as a runner making tea for all the editors and there were 16 edit suites. My first job was literally just going around every edit suite with a cup of tea.

 

Now, I can't explain to you the importance of these mundane tasks. If you're going to start at the bottom level of whatever job you're going to go into, make it count.

So, I make my tea and I made sure that when I went into every edit suite I would smile at the editor, I would introduce myself and say over time because I was doing this every day, I'd then say “wow, I like what you're doing” then “what is this?”

You know, start a conversation and before I knew it, they were looking forward to me coming in, they say, “come sit down for 10 minutes”. So, then suddenly you're creating all these relationships.

 

And now the importance of that is three years down the line, I didn't even know that I would need this contact, but one of the sound technicians put me in contact with an animation company that then made Goose into an animation. So, you don't know who you're talking to here and how important those conversations are.

 

So basically, the moral of this story is if you're going to be starting out in something and you think, oh my god, what I'm doing is making tea for people. It's okay, I actually make that count. That's my words of advice. And make anything count, even if you're working in a cafe, you don't know who the person you're serving is, the CEO of something who might then offer you a free lunch job to design their brand. You know, these are the things, these are the encounters that are really actually fundamental.

 

Anyway, after three years, I had this light bulb moment. I was going to one of the edit suites and the editor in there was so passionate about this program he was making it was called make ‘my body younger’ it was riveting stuff and I was like oh my gosh and I can't get passionate about this, this is not me, I'm meant to be an artist, and anyway that night I wrote my resignation letter, handed it in, and I remember my boss was like, “I didn't even know you could paint” and I was like, no, no one knows I can paint, I've lost who I am, and I'm meant to be an artist. I am going to be an artist.

 

People were like, oh my god, what have you done? And I remember my mom and dad saying, don't worry, there's a new Aldi that's just opened up down the road so you can work there if it all fails. My dad was like, there's also a job at the council you can do. And that's all fine, but I was like, I'm going to make this work. I will make this work. So, I basically locked myself in my studio, which was just my spare room. I took the bed out of it. I put a desk in there. I took it very, very seriously, and I turned up to work in my spare room at 9 o'clock every day.

 

I was like, right, I'm going to get into a routine, make a cup tea, go into the spare room, and I painted, and I painted, and I created a portfolio in a month, and then with that, I thought, I now need to sell this, and I was so hungry for it because I did have a mortgage at this point. I had a lot of riding on this because I'd just given up this shiny job in TV, which I had been there for three years at this point and worked my way right up and had a fairly decent wage.

 

So, the first thing I did, I drove to a town, I took Dartmouth as an example because there's a lot of art galleries in Dartmouth. I walked around the town and I selected some galleries that I thought might work for me as an artist. And I basically walked in there and I took this massive breath, I was so nervous like ridiculously nervous my legs were shaking nervous, and walked into this gallery was like are you the owner of this gallery and they're like yes, I am, I was like oh that's a good thing, and I was like well I'm Laura, I'm an artist and I would absolutely love it if you could look at my portfolio. And he was like “well, actually, yeah, I have got five minutes, do you want to go get it?”

 

A side note here, I didn't have this portfolio with me at the time, because that's a bit intimidating to walk in somewhere. You immediately get the eye roll, it's not great.

I think what's really important when I walked into these places, I would look around, I'd show engagement, talk to the person and then I went back and got the portfolio. So then showed him the portfolio. He was going through it all and he said, well this is good, this is good. It was all technically good stuff, like lots of oils and landscapes, a few portraits in there.

 

But anyway, the one thing he picked out was that little pen of water colour scene that you saw earlier. And it was much simpler back then. This was like 16 years ago. And he said, “well, could you paint my town in this style?” And I was like, “yeah, I could paint Dartmouth in this style”. And then Eureka, there was this business idea. I suddenly thought, I can go around all these different towns now and paint them in this style so that day I think that was I think I did manage to get the first gallery to take on the work. However, it's worth noting I had a one in five success rate so I visited a hundred galleries in the first year and twenty of them took me on.

That's twenty out of a hundred at the moment. You will get five nos to every yes you get and that is okay. It's not everyone's cup of tea and I can't stress it enough that whatever path you choose in life, whether it's art or not, it's okay to get the nos, that is just part and parcel of it. It's not a personal thing, it's just not going to be for everyone. And so, for me, dusting myself off and just trying and trying again was absolutely crucial and because I was so hungry for it, I was like I am going to be an artist, I wasn't going to stop until I had a few galleries take me on.

 

The other thing that I did that really helped massively was get work experience.

So, I did get a part-time job at a gallery as well. So, I was working a lot at this point. But working in an art gallery was such good experience for me because ultimately, you're learning, you're learning what wall space costs to a gallery. I understand now why they take 50%, you know, they take quite a big commission of your artwork, but it makes sense, they have all these bills to pay, they're showing your work to everybody, I also learnt how to run an art gallery and all the things that are important to it.

And I started having ideas and they were listening to them and so these are the things that, when you're young you can really give all these ideas to them, and they were taking them on, it was really exciting. So meanwhile in the background I'm also trying to submit my little goose book that I've written at university.

 

My lecturer said to me, it's really worth showing us the publishers. And so, I hadn't done anything whilst I was working in TV, but at this point I thought, yeah, you know, I'll start showing it to people, but I was actually getting nowhere with it.

I emailed it to so many different people and kept getting brick walls.

 

So, in 2011, after doing lots of phone calls and emails, I was getting so frustrated with not getting anything back from anybody, so, I thought, alright, that's enough, I'm taking matters into my own hands here. It's like I need to show this book to people. There's a show called the London Book Fair. Now, it's not really for illustrators or authors, if I'm totally honest. It's for publishers from around the world. They come to London, Olympia, and they sell the rights to books. And they're making multi-million-pound deals. When I was there, the author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid was there. You know, like the Gruffalo was there. All these different crazy, Axel Scheffler, all these incredible people. I was like, ah, this is incredible.

 

Anyway, so just to show you, is a copy from my home printer. Right, this is what I have. It's a bit home-made, however it was something to show. This is what it ended up being published like and this was the original so it's not too far from it.

 

My point being that I went to this London Book Fair with just this, and I was like okay let's do this, I'm going to go up to these stands and see if anyone will look at this book.

And again, a bit like the gallery experience, I was having a whole set of nerves but I was like, now I need to really show people these books.

 

And it was quite lucky because it was that year, there was a volcanic ash cloud that went over the whole of Europe. So, there wasn't as many flights as usual. So, the show was a little bit quieter than what it would probably be every year, which worked in my favour. There was an opportunity here. So, I went on to every stand. Some of them have these big reception bits and the woman was like, “what's your name?” And I'm like, my name's Laura Wall and I'm an illustrator, and I would really love the opportunity to talk to one of your publishers today if they're willing to look at my submission. And they were like, “well, this isn't the place for that.”

 

And I'm like, I know, but if you have five minutes, I'm sure you're a little bit quiet today, I'll come back at any time. They said, yeah, that's fine. But then there were other stands as well, where the just the publishers and not this big wall, and I just walked on, I would look around and then I would say, well actually, I'm an illustrator, I would love it if I could just show you, my book. I've got it here, you know, if you've got five minutes. And I kind of like be like, is that okay? You know, just smile, like chance it. What have you got to lose? nothing. And anyway, I probably talked about 30 publishers at that show, and I showed them this, that was it.

I had business cards and I left a business card with everybody, but most importantly, I came away with business cards. So suddenly, I wasn't just sending blind submissions to a receptionist or, you know, the general submissions. I was sending it to Steve @ whatever the place was. It was an actual name, the person who I had pitched to.

 

Therefore, suddenly there was this personal connection, so then what I did, I left it a couple of months because they were always, very busy after these shows, and then I emailed all of them and I said hey do you remember me I'm the girl that walked in about a goose you know and I haven't published yet, so just to let you know I'm here, and I did send a PDF of Goose, which I probably wouldn't recommend doing because they could rip off your idea. However, I was just at this point, I just wanted people to see it.

And it was a year later, I was painting a mural. I took on every work I could at this point, and I was six foot up a scissor lift painting a mural of Noah's Ark in Plymouth.

And I got a phone call and it was from one of the publishers of that book and they said, that book that you showed us a year ago, have you got it published yet?

And I was like, no, no I haven't. They said, we'd like to offer you a four-part book deal. I swear down, I thought I'd won the lottery. I was just like amazed. I nearly fell off the sizzle and I was like, oh my god, I can't believe it. I was trying to be really cool as a cucumber around the phone. I was like, oh, that's marvellous and lovely. And afterwards I was just like, holy moly, that actually just happened.

And it paid off all that work. And I cried a lot. I'm just going to be totally honest with you. Going around those stands at times was so destroying. There were some not very nice receptionists and there were some really lovely people. And likewise, going around the galleries, it does take away some of your energy when you're walking in.

 

It's not easy, I'm not going to say it was, but how wonderful when it actually came off because 1% of authors get published, so 1% of illustrators will get published, but that just means you've got to go around 100 publishers, that's it.

It's not that bad. When you really put it into maths, until you've visited 100 publishers, don't stop, and that was my ethos.

 

So, I think, with all the email submissions, the phone calls, the visiting everything, I think I visited around 50 to 60 publishers. So that's where I got to before I got the book published. I think it's just a really nice thing for you to know that it doesn't happen overnight. I have people come into the gallery saying, I can't get this book published. And I'm like, how many have you shown it to? And they're like, two. And I'm like, come back when you've shown it to 60. It's just like, you know, it takes a long time. But if you've got the motivation.

 

I think the other key thing is, for me, I was also working on my fine art series at the same time so I didn't just solely rely on this. I was like, this would be great if it pays off but meanwhile, I was really developing the fine art, and so at that point I had my galleries that were also selling the paintings and that was creating an income for me. Things started to pay off by 2013, I'm three years into my art career at that point and Goose had just got the publishing deal, but it wasn't out at that point, and meanwhile all those galleries that were selling my artwork voted for me and I won Britain's Best Up and Coming Artist and that was a real moment for me where things had started to kind of pay off a little bit.

 

So, if we go to the next slide and then 2014 was a real changing year for me.

The reason why I'm mentioning this is you don't need to know I got married, but actually in terms of personal life, when you're work, work, work, it was fundamental that suddenly there was this moment where we did have enough money that I could then stop for a minute, I got married, and I had my gap year, so I had two months off, and we travelled around Borneo backpacking, and we saw the orangutans and all these things, and so for me, that funny scratch and itch where I didn't get the gap year, so I felt like we did it then.

 

However, my husband, Dave, he was a social worker, and at this point got made redundant and I was like that's fantastic you can come work with me now and he was like what I can't do, I don't know what do you want me to do and I was like; you think in such a different way. And he does, he is someone that thinks in very black and white, he can see straight to it. Where I'm up here, he's down there. And he's always saying to me, oh, you have the practicality of this. Have you thought about that? Like, when I was at London Book Fair to be fair, he was my wingman, if you ever do anything like that, bring a wing person, whoever that is, because there will be tears, and he would just be like, don't worry about it, go back on, and he pushed me onto another stand.

 

So, at this point, I was like, right, I really think you should come and work with me and he was like oh, I don't know about this and anyway I said just give it three months it'll be worth trialling it out, and he managed to triple the turnover in that first year and it was simply because suddenly I had the ability to paint and paint and paint. I wasn't then managing the galleries and all the admin. You've probably noticed, but when you're an artist or a freelancer, there is so much admin.

 

Now you've got things like social media which takes such a long time, you've only got to post three reels a week and that is a lot of work to make a video. So even now I don't stop working. If I'm at home, I can't just sit and watch telly. I am making a reel, or I'm working out my social media plan for next week. There's never really any rest. You can never take your foot off the pedal even now. If I take that foot off the pedal, everything, it won't all stop, but it does certainly slow down.

 

But what this found by having Dave on board with me, ultimately, it just meant that he could take care of the admin side of everything and help with the management and all of that stuff. However, they got to a point where after all this excitement of getting married, travelling, oh, it's all lovely, and we got to use galleries, brilliant.

We got to January and was like, what do we do now? I don't know. And I was like, I'm actually a bit lost, like, the books are published, the galleries are kind of doing their thing. And we were twiddling our thumbs a bit and I was like, oh, I don't know.

So, we looked up, going to France for a month and you can get some flights over in France, really cheap. I recommend it to anyone. And for like 400 quid, we packed the bags, put the dog in the back of the car and we just drove to the south of France and we spent February in France.

 

So, I just painted, and we walked and we ate a lot of cheese and drank a lot of wine, and it was really good just to come down and like let your brain relax a bit and work out maybe the next plan. Anyway, we came up with an idea and it was a game changer. We opened our first gallery. So, this little trip to France, we were talking and all these creative ideas were coming up and we were like, look, why have we not got our own art gallery? We know how to run one. We've worked with enough of them. And there was a little gallery in Teignmouth. It was like 300 pounds a month, which is peanuts. And I was like, it's well worth giving it a go. So, I took it on. I think I only had the lease for a year, so there wasn't too much commitment.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend going straight into a five-year lease or something, because that is quite stressful. But at this point in my career, I was like, let's just give it a go. It's an office space, there's nothing else. Because really, I can just sit there and paint and if people come along that's great if they don’t, they don't. So that was my first gallery. We had a big opening party and this was really fun because I just invited all of the local businesses that I could find. I got the local bakery to sponsor us and they supplied some food, we got some wine.

 

One thing I meant to mention way back along, when I first started in 2010, I worked in that gallery, but it was in Prince Town, which is right on the moors. I saw an opportunity there when I worked at that art gallery, because they don't ever rent it out in January or February because they say the snow, no one will come up there. It's a place where not many people can always get to. So, I said to my manager, well look, will you give me the space then, can I use it? and she was like, you'll not get anyone and I was like, no I'd really like to do an event and she was like really?

 

So yeah, have it, don't pay for the space, just give me a commission at the end of it.

And so again I painted ten paintings to put up in that studio. This was like back in the beginning and I invited every single business owner locally, like all the galleries in Devon, and then I put on an event, and I got the local pub to sponsor it. So, they donated a crate of wine. And I got a singer to sing it at who just wanted some experience. So, I basically spent no money putting on this event apart from the money I spent framing up my artwork. And anyway, people did come. It was a booming success. It kind of launched me. And from that event, I managed to get lots and lots of email addresses.

 

And this is another thing that's really important, is to capture emails where you can.

If people enjoy your work, social media is great, but email lists are really good because that's when you can have those really special events. So, I have a mailing list that I'll email out those special collectors and say, we are having an event on this date. It's exclusive, invite only. That doesn't even go out on social media and it creates a much more special atmosphere because it's not out in the whole world, it's much tighter really.

 

So anyway, the reason why I'm bringing that up is because here I then had all of these experiences, and I could put on my own event and so we had a booming start to our gallery, and in 2016, this time I had 30 originals in the gallery, and they all sold, it'd been two hours, the doors opening. And we had bids from around the world. So, we had people from Switzerland calling up saying, oh, we want to buy this picture, we saw back you back in 2010 when I had that exhibition on Prince Town. I think I sold two paintings at 300 pounds and now they were selling for 3,000 pounds and a lot more.

So that was such an affirming event for me, but all this hard work over the years and trying to get those people to come in and see what we're about, it all kind of came into fruition here. So, between this period there are a lot of things going on here. I don't know if you've ever heard of Bill Oddy. It's quite an old school name, but he narrated my book series for me for the audiobooks.

 

So, I wrote him a letter and sent that to him, and he responded to that, and then come and did an audio for us. We had other galleries still representing us at the time. I won National Entrepreneur of the Year, which was for me a massive highlight because that was acknowledging my approach to business. It wasn't just about the art, and I think of the art world at that time, people often say that artists are like herding cats. Don't ever be a cat. Be that person that turns up, be professional, even if you're a cat at home and you're messy or whatever it is, just if you are talking to a professional, let them know that you are reliable, you're not the cat. 

So, for me, being told that I just won this national award because of this approach was like, oh it was so nice, you know, to actually get a pat on the back. And fundamentally at this time in 2017, Goose as a brand was signed up to Fluid World, and Fluid World were in charge of Hello Kitty. Yeah, so that was very exciting because they took on Goose, and they were going to make it into a brand which means selling licenses. Do you know about licenses? So, this is a really good term to understand in that world.

 

If you have a brand, you are the licensor, and the company are the licensee of a design. And basically, they will buy the license to your artwork. So, like those umbrellas, for instance at the start, I licensed those designs to that company. I did not sell the copyright, I still own the copyright, I'll never let that go.

 

However, they now own the license to print that onto those umbrellas, and there's key things to think about like territory, so that's only in the UK they can do that. I don't want to see them in China or anywhere around the world, unless they tell me otherwise because that's another deal and that's more money to make down the line.

 

So, you think about territory in time, like usually five years is a good amount of time for a company to have the rights to license your artwork for. So, this company, we're purely in charge of selling the rights to goose, to different products like stationery and all sorts of things.

 

Do you remember I said about when I was a runner making tea? and one of the people that I made tea for was a sound engineer, and he saw that Goose was getting a bit of traction and he said to me, I know someone in the industry, King Rollo Films, they're an animation company, do you want me to put you in touch with them?

 

And I was like, yeah, I'd love you to. And so, this animation company who were based in Tiverton, saw Goose and absolutely loved it and they said, we'd like to make an animated trailer for you of Goose. Now this costs around 20,000 pounds. It's not a cheap exercise, so he got his team of animators to make Goose.

 

I'll show you at the end the trailer for it. And we just made a one-minute pilot of Goose. Meanwhile, I wrote a letter to Dawn French and said we'd love it if you could narrate Goose, I love you so much, please will you maybe work with us and blow me she wrote back and said yes okay, and came to Plymouth and narrated it. She gave me some amazing bits of advice.

 

One of them being, when you're in your creative space, one thing that she said to me, and I'll always remember this, is she writes books, and she said, see your creative practice like going to the airport. She said, so if you imagine you've got to pack a bag, then you drive to the airport, you've got a park up, you've got a go through security, it takes bloody ages, doesn't it? then you get onto the plane, and then your plane starts taking off. It goes up and up, and then she said, then you're there. She said, when you are there, you stay there for as long as you can. You stay there all day if you can. And what she meant by that was to put the phone away. Don't think about the washing. Don't think about other people. Stay there as long as you can, because that is when it's all flowing out of you. And tell your partner, whoever it is, not to interrupt you in that moment.

 

And that could be two hours, it could be all day, it could be half an hour.

But the moment that's broken and the phone rings or a text message pings off or, you know, someone interrupts you, back down again you go. You've got to do this whole process again and it takes so long. And we're creators, you don't have time for that, we're trying to make money. So basically, stay up there as long as you can and see that practice and that time is really, really important.

 

Just don't get distracted, that is the main thing. We live in this world and it is so upsetting where we have this noise constantly. I feel so sorry for you all because you've grown up with phones. I didn't really have them. I had a Nokia, you know, and then it went to a smartphone when I went to university. Ping ping, just turn it off even for an hour. It doesn't matter if you don't see that message straight away, just get in your creative flow because that flow is fundamental and you'll get your focus and your focus is what will get the jobs and you'll do really.

So, Dawn French did the Goose trailer for me. It was amazing and that then got pitched to different channels all around the world so if you got the next spread there, and poor old Goose, it didn't quite pull through and this is an example of something that didn't happen. So, I had a meeting up in London with Channel 5, Milkshake. The head commissioner met with me, and she said, yeah, we want to take you on, we're going to animate a 50-part series of seven-minute programs it was a 2.4-million-pound deal. I was like oh my god this is it for me, you get a fraction of that, but the point is that's what it costs to do it and they were going for it. The ink was wet on the contract and I went up there and the commissioner had left, but in this world it is ruthless.

 

So, a new commissioner came in, they shook it all up, they dropped a load of TV series and they just wanted new stuff and also at that time, it was when we had Brexit, so a lot of funding for animation does come from the EU. So I've no doubt these opportunities will come back round again once we've sought out all of our funding and things like that, but at that point in time, I felt like I just fallen off the edge of the earth, because when you reach this level and you think this is what my whole life has been coming to, this moment you know Goose is going to make it to TV, I was so excited, but overnight it was gone and then I tried again and we went to Sony, but they said it's not the right fit. And with that I lost the deal for the licensing, the Hello Kitty people weren't interested any more. And so, it's funny how all at once your world goes like that.

 

The reason I'm telling you this is because not everything's always going to pull off, and the thing is, I actually have this quiet faith that this will come back round again at some point. When I have the energy for it, I will start pitching it again. It just requires so much of yourself to pitch to people. But what Goose has given me in the meantime is opportunity to travel.

 

So, there's actually agencies which send you around the world to go visit schools. So, I've been to Saudi Arabia, China, Thailand, which was very nice, Indonesia, the UAE. And I go to these schools. I read my Goose books to international schools. I do book signings and then I go lay on the beach afterwards. It's amazing. This ability to travel and see the world, Because Goose is in different languages, the schools invite you over and they want to see it and they want you to inspire the children. And it is really hard work when you're there, but the point is once you're there you can then travel. And you basically get everything paid for, your flights, your accommodation, your food, the lot, for that time that you're there. And then if you want to put a holiday onto the end of it you can so it's a really wonderful way of seeing the world if you wanted to.

 

We did a party for Goose because we've got these mascots of Goose that was one of the licenses they made a Goose mascot character but then we got to keep them afterwards. So that was quite cool. And it's lovely when you see children dressing up as your characters from your books. That never gets old.

 

And then we've got corporate collaborations. But there's so many avenues that Goose has taken me down. So, Principality Building Society is a Welsh building society. There's a lot of financial education needed in Wales.

There's a lot of poverty there in the younger years. So, they commissioned a book called Goose's Cake Bake and it's about pocket money and it's about fundraising for a book sale, and they vacated cakes to raise money in order to buy books for the school. It's a very simple story, but basically this book was then read to schools all around Wales to educate them about financial education, but in a really fun, gentle way. But it was just really lovely that it used my character and again, its awareness of that character.

 

So meanwhile whilst all this was going on with Goose, one thing that I can say is I really then focused back onto the art side of things, and I just really kept on pushing the pen and watercolour series and in 2019 we opened a much bigger gallery in Teignmouth, and that recently won National Art Gallery of the Year which was awesome. So, in 2019 we won the Devons Best Art Gallery but we started creating lots of new product ranges and collaborations.

 

So, we've got this boat desk and everything for us is about trying to make it fun. So, there's a little porthole in that desk, and there's chocolate coins in there, and a little candle with a battery in it, so kids come in and they get a little chocolate coin out of the boat. Now I know that sounds really daft and silly, but actually what that creates is a bit of magic, and families that come in here, a lot of people feel like galleries are stuffy places but it's like no, it's a bit of fun, so this is quite a fun way of doing it.

 

The council also commissioned my artwork to put on the ‘Welcome to Teignmouth’ sign so, that was a major one for me because that's massive advertising. But also, it really made me feel accepted as Teignmouth 's artist.

And my artwork's actually been put on an awful lot of things around the town of Teignmouth. That's naturally kind of happened over time, I think, because I do a lot in the town and in the community. So, it's really lovely when I see my art being put everywhere and it just keeps my artwork in mind for people I think, when they're thinking of a piece of artwork about Teignmouth, they think of me, and I think the more niche you can be sometimes it’s really helpful.

 

So, because I am very much a Teignmouth artist, you wouldn't think there'd be that many people that want artwork of Teignmouth, but actually really there are. There are a lot of holiday makers and people that come to the area, as well as the locals. It still blows my mind that people still want artwork of Teignmouth.

You sort of think you've saturated the market. I also do different places as well, but I do just find sometimes when you are niche, it's never a bad thing if you do specialise in one thing.

 

From that, it’s amazing what companies have come to us, we've got a paddle board, a company licensed my artwork to put onto a paddle board, a watch company, a Devon watch company made limited edition watch with my clowns and seagulls on it and that for me was a really magical moment, because you see this watch in very spunky places and I thought I'd never seen my artwork on a watch or a bottle of rum.

 

So, it's been really fun to create those collaborations with people.

And basically, the world's your oyster. I think it would be a miss of me not to mention lockdown, because that was a time where you had to really think outside the box a bit.

 

So, where my business is very face-to-face with the gallery, we had to really think about what we were doing at the time actually, when all this was kicking off. I had just done a book tour near Cambodia, so we were in Cambodia at the time, and we just literally got back before the whole world went into lockdown. However, it was a really strange moment for us because you suddenly don't really know how on earth are we going to keep making money now.

 

Our gallery is closed. At the time we didn't have any commerce site, so it was very much like, right, we need to really sort out our commerce and get that so people can easily buy stuff from us. We started doing free delivery so we turned into delivery drivers. We were literally between nine and five every day just delivering to Dawlish, Teignmouth, Exeter. It was gruelling but it kept us going as a business. And ultimately, we brought out loads of new products.

 

So, one thing that did really go in our favour was that I painted a picture of Teignmouth which had the cruise ships in the bay. It was really unusual for the Bay to have these cruise ships. We'd never seen them before. But because of lockdown, they all moored up there. So, I did this painting, and I've never made anything like it in my life. I did 400 prints of this little picture, and they all sold out in like six weeks. So that was an injection to our business, which we then were delivering this painting all around Devon. Lastly we had a government grant and we used obviously a lot of that to live off of, but also to invest in our business so that when people come back to the gallery they had something to come back for, because I was terrified that after lockdown are people actually going to want to come to a shop again? people might be way too scared, they might not want to come out, so we just made sure we had lots and lots of lovely new things that would then bring those people back through the door.

 

So, lastly, the pinnacle for us was after all this hard work, last year we won National Art Retailer of the Year, which for me was the biggest accolade.

We had to go through this really rigorous judging process with the trade guild and they looked at everything to do with our business and what we're moving forward towards.

 

But also with Goose, although the TV never pulled off, we have just signed a deal for a stage show. So that's going to be launching next year and it's going to be going all around the UK. So, I feel like with Goose that's kind of coming back again, and I think it's these things like stage shows that puts it back in people's minds and that might then ignite a TV contract.

 

It's been published 10 years now and it took the Gruffalo 20 years to become what it is, so I kind of feel like you know, if it keeps getting out there it might one day make it to the telly. Here is the goose trailer, so this is what they made, the one-minute pilot.

 

Questions:

 

The fair route isn’t something I would recommend; I Highly recommend getting an agent if you can. I'm going to get a publisher now and sometimes I think I wish I had the agent first, but I think it would illustrate to you that you can get yourself in front of people and it's really important to try and do that if you can.

 

Where do you get your prints from, like, to do a design? How do you process that? So once I've finished the painting, I take it to a place called Haddon Fine Art, and they will scan your artwork for you, and correct it, then you get what's called an artist proof, where you can check that you like the colour compared to the original, they will do up to ten artist proof checks for you, and then once you've okayed it, they print the picture. You do the editions as you want them from there.

 

So you have to buy them upfront? No, interestingly, when you get your artwork scanned, yes, you have to buy the artist's proof, but you usually get it right in one or two. But when I do an edition of, say, 400 prints, I would just buy them 10 at a time. You could even just buy it one at a time. So, I then just numbered them as I go along, but I had to make a catalogue of the numbers. It would be really bad if someone ended up with the same number, so you have got to be quite organised with that.

 

When I first started, I actually just did laser prints. So, just to get myself into the ground, because I had very small investment, I think I had £200 to invest in my business, so I basically ordered some prints, got mounts from the range, and just packaged them up like that. That's not really the way to do it because the mounts from the range are acidic and so I'm now fine Art Guild which basically means that it's not acidic so it won't go yellow, they're all hand signed and they've got numbers on each one but if you're just starting out, I had a store at the market in Tavistock for years and I would sell these little prints for 20 quid and at that price, no one's that bothered if it's not fine art trade quality, but because I'm selling these prints now at £300 a print now so that's where they've got to be really top notch. But I've only been able to get to that point by making these small investments to start off with. And once I started getting some money, I would then re-invest that immediately straight back into the business. So that was how I kind of started out.

 

Were there any other like product-based questions because I appreciate you are all doing different things? if there's anything helpful product wise or in the industry freelance wise? Do you have any horror stories of product printing?

 

Last year I got some melamine place mats that are made from a company in the UK, and they arrived and half of them had misprints on them and they were wonky and upside down. I was like, how is this even possible to be that rubbish? And I sent them back and then they reprinted them again and they were still awful. And it's a shame because when they printed them well, they were perfect. And they flew out the door, they would sell really, really well.

 

But I've now just got rid of that manufacturer because I actually can't cope with the stress of going through 800 placemats and checking them all! That's the other thing, you really have limited energy and I found that sometimes it's just worth saying no because it just drains you like when you're trying to sort something out. So yeah, I mean it's not a horror story but you know it was annoying at the time.

 

When choosing manufacturing, you need to check; would you do a possible digital test print? Would you just take one of these? So, with my manufacturers I always try to make it UK based if I can. And obviously price point has a lot to play with it. So, I always ask, what are your minimum quantities? What are your price points? And then I'm like, is that your best price? You know, because they're always going to try and pull one over you and sometimes, I might even say well actually I got it at this price from another manufacturer and that can sometimes bring it down as well.

But ultimately, I would check the prices. Time scales are important as well because the other thing is, you might get a really cheap product but it takes three months because it's coming from China. So, it's really important to check where they're made because you might have a UK source company but actually, they're just a source of China products. So, for me, that is a really hard time-consuming bit.

 

I really recommend going to Spring Fair at the NEC or Autumn Fair. That's where I found most of my manufacturers. So, when you walk around the show, they've got lots of stands with different products on so they might sell rugs, they might sell lamps, for example, and then I went up to those stands and said, I'm an artist, I know you're selling other people's work here but do you take licenses for artwork or do you sell? Would you manufacture these for us to buy from you? And most of them are like, yeah, we can tag you on the end of our order. If you just want a hundred of this, we can do that. So, because they're really putting in big quantities for their own artists, they don't mind adding them on to it, because it's just going to make them money at the end of the day as well.

 

So, there's quite a few ways of finding them, say I'd like to see the quality of the product first, then I approach them, do you have manufacturing that you've used for other products? Rather than exploring and looking for a new source, and then obviously having these uncertainties.

 

Oh yeah, manufacturing is a nightmare to be fair. Usually when you find one really good one, they then recommend you, oh you know actually I know someone that does this and so it does get easier with time. There's just a few stupid points like for me I cannot for love the money find beach towels or melamine placemats, it's really weird. You think that would be two things that would be really easy to find in the UK, but they're not. But then other things like mugs and coasters you can find really easy.

 

So, for us, everything we do, we want it to be ever so slightly different to what you find on the core market. So, when we do a mug, we do the extra tall mugs, not just the standard one. When we do a lampshade it's with linen and it's got something uniquely different about it compared to mass market stuff.

So, then you can hopefully ask for that higher end price as well with it. But because it is smaller runs it is actually more expensive anyway. But people are willing to pay that when they know it's handmade, especially within the UK.

 

When you were let down with Goose animation, how did you find the motivation to be yourself, to continue? That's a killer question there. I think you feel really bruised from it, and it took me a really long time, I always felt really stupid. Oh, look, we've got this deal coming and then this big fall from grace.

And I was like, oh no, why did I go and tell everybody? But you know what, when that happened, nobody made me feel like that. And actually, they really could have done, they really could have gone, oh, you idiot, tell everybody that, you didn't even get it. I think they could see that I was quite hurt by it and all I can say is, weirdly, I've only just realised this, literally this week, that I find my comfort in painting and creating and so I think that time, I then just went back into my studio and I started painting for my gallery and I was like, well, sod it then if I can't do Goose, I'm going to make this work instead and I will make this the best gallery it can possibly be which is why for me that award was so important at the end because I was like, okay, I did what I set out to do. And this week I was having a really low week for whatever reason and last night I went and sat in my studio and painted and honestly, I woke up a new person so I think you need to go to that thing that's your passion, whatever that is you know for me it's painting, but for you it could be music, it could be whatever and then if you can return to that, find that equilibrium again. I think it does help heal it a bit, but yeah, you just got to get back on it again. It's a bit like if you crash a car, get back in the car and drive it. I think it is just painful. But I think the point is that we all feel it, and you will have these horrible knockbacks, but just try and pick yourself up if you can and generally, people are quite nice, I think we're in a nicer kind of world than we were years ago.

 

What social media do you use? I use Facebook and Instagram. I think that's quite outdated now, isn't it? For me, for my customer base, Facebook is the number one thing, but it's because my audience, and this is the other thing, know your audience, my audience is middle-aged women, and those middle-aged women tend to be more on Facebook than other platforms.

Twitter, I tried, it was rubbish, it didn't work for me. Instagram is slowly getting up there but it's definitely the 30-year-olds that seem to be on that one, which is good because those are people that I want to stop liking my stuff as well. I really should just go on tik-tock but I just haven't had the energy to do it.

 

And how do you, can you see sales? You can track it. So, I found on Facebook, I do put money behind posts. You can put a direct link to that item on it if you pay for that. You don't have to put a lot on that. I sometimes put £10 on for four days or something, and so then that makes it an advert that runs for a bit, and then people can click on it immediately. I know there is a way you can track if that has come straight from Facebook, however I just know because I think, well, I put that post out, and I've sold 12 jugs, so it's got to be from that but I think you can probably be more specific.

 

I did try and get a social media person in, because you can do what's called pixels but I didn't really understand it if I'm totally honest with you. So yeah, we just use it more as a visual tool, but we do link everything back to the website where we can, but it works out quite expensive. When you're putting out a post a day and then you're tagging a product a day, suddenly that's £70 a week and just trying to get people to look at a website. It's hard, but it's quite important as well. I know one artist spends £50,000 a year just on Facebook or something.

 

But the more you put in the more you get back. Anyway, the best thing to do is go viral, because then you haven't got a pay for that. I don't know how you do that though. If you work it out let me know.

 

My Response

I feel like Laura Walls talk and chat in the classroom before was so beneficial and interesting to me. I felt inspired, like what I want to do is possible, and the ways I can help myself if ingenious advice from someone who has been there. I will be referring back tot this advice regularly in my own career.

I have started a print on demand website, printing my designs onto products, and I am also writing a children’s book as well.