Katie Chappell: Legend of Live Illustration

Season Two Episode Nine

Introducing Illustrator Katie Chappell a virtual scribe and live event illustrator best known for her fresh wobbly illustration and giant live window paintings. She has created live illustrations for global clients including Apple, Facebook, Google, Chromebook, BT, Dove and Nespresso among many others.

"My drawings are there so that everybody can understand what’s going on straight away without having to sit through hours of Zoom conferences.

It all started with some graphic recording at a sustainability event for Edinburgh University in 2016, and now I specialise in online virtual illustration, from my studio in the UK.

I’m here so that people don’t die of Zoom fatigue or boredom. I consider myself a spoon-feeder of boring information, bringing people back from the ledge of ‘OMG NOT ANOTHER ZOOM MEETING"

Trigger warning - we touch on pregnancy loss and eating disorders

Katie and I belong to the same coaching group around money mindset and I became instantly curious about her hilarious posts (you’ll see - she has a wicked sense of humour), about how her business was building and thriving, how generous and open she was about sharing what she was doing, earning and working on and how unafraid she is. That does not mean she doesn’t have boundaries - oh no, she has excellent boundaries, but she is also not scared to share intimate parts of her life journey, her income story, within the group, how she does therapy to help her to stay focussed on business. I find these are the people with a lot of growth - they move through their fear, or are unafraid yet also have great boundaries and are incredibly creative.

Katie’s story is a brilliant example of Planned Happenstance - that mixture of curiosity, persistence, flexibility, optimism and readiness.

In fact it’s quite the roller coaster ride that takes us from Scotland to England, Berlin, Italy, SE Asia, Cornwall and from Nannying, working for her Dad and finally this illustration entrepreneur, the Captain of the Good Ship Illustration and Bullet Journal Gang Leader. Not to mention in-demand live illustrator (I’ve just hired her to do some work with my 1-year clients next year and I am incredibly excited).

In this conversation we touch on:

• The nuances of being from both England and Scotland
• Open mics at aged 13 and her original career dream!
• What motivated her to recover from a serious eating disorder and the ongoing work on that (Quote: Fat is not an emotion).
• Being kicked out of her nannying family, immediately after she tendered her notice, in a new city with a bag of wet washing and how she dealt with that.
• Being taught cheeky entrepreneurship as a young woman
• How her brain cracked open to therapy
• What her greatest learning and takeaway was from her Art degree and her Masters (it may not be what you assume actually!)

One of the great things about Katie is her unfettered yet unpretentious optimism.

And she is hilarious as you will and as her website will confirm.

Find her here

The Good Ship Illustration https://www.thegoodshipillustration.com/

Podcast https://www.thegoodshipillustration.com/pod

Her website https://www.katiechappell.com/ (Which I notice has just had an adorable makeover)

And these are her resources because, you know, you should get into the Katie Imaginary Gang!  https://www.katiechappell.com/resources

@katiedraws on Instagram