Quaffing Champagne at my desk like Searle

📮 Final art jitters

Dear Powells,

How are you on hump-day? I am finally settling into the final artwork for my debut children’s book. Beginning final illustrations for any project I am always a nightmare for the first 24-36 hours; I oscillate between restlessness, avoidance, self-doubt and wind (an unfortunate side effect of restlessness, avoidance and self-doubt).

For my debut book I skipped being a nightmare and went straight to purgatory: I spent 3 days procrastinating, 2 days feeling overwhelmed, half a day panic buying art materials I already owned, four hours feeling nauseous (probably the wind) and on Sunday I just rocked in a corner. Thankfully, I managed to find a tonic that calmed my debut nerves long enough to sit my ass down on my hairdressers stool to do some work (if the book flops and I am forced to change career and become a hairdresser I’ll be one step ahead, as I already own the stool).

The tonic that I speak of is … champagne. Ronald Searle*, fed up with all the hullabaloo over St Trinians — of which he was the inventor — left England and buggered off to live in France, where he drank champagne every day at his desk. We happened to have some left-over from our weekend wedding anniversary celebrations, so I took to drinking a small glass or two at my desk and it worked a treat! Searle said that the bubbles helped him think; I’m not sure whether that was true for me, rather it helped me unthink which was exactly what I needed. Having no thoughts I was able to quietly get on with the task at hand, without being interrupted every nine seconds by a barrage of unsolicited, internal critiquing.

The champagne has (sadly) run out now but I hope I will be able to maintain this newfound sense of non-thinking, it really is rather peaceful.

Yours, slightly hungover,

Powell x

*Ronald Searle is one of the great illustrators of our time. If you don’t know of him, get googling.