Doodle Life - February 2025
An intense and interesting month, which I survived
First of all, I decided to call my monthly newsletter “Doodle Life” instead of “Recap” but it’s basically the same thing in spirit. Second of all, I posted January Recap very early in the month so this one actually covers the past seven weeks, which were challenging but very exciting.
#HandsOffOurCopyright
I have always been vocal about my political views on social media but I’ve never been an activist-type. I admire people who actually do something, like organising a charity fundraiser or going to protests and marches. I see myself more of a follower than a leader (and I can’t stand loud and crowded places). However, for my new year resolution being a little less conversation, a little more action, I felt I had to do something when I heard about the UK government’s AI and copyright consultation.
I have been wary of generative AI for years and I’ve been using AI-disruptive filters such as Glaze and Nightshade on my images I post online since the last summer. But it was when I heard about the government’s consultation as a passing comment in a WhatsApp group chat in mid December that I got really worried. In a nutshell, it’s not good news for artists - the government was trying to throw our creative industry under the bus in the name of AI Opportunity Action Plan. The more I learned about what they were proposing (a copyright exemption for AI companies and an impractical “out-out” system), the more anxious and angry I became, and so did my fellow illustrators - Ged Adamson and Simona Ciraolo.
Over the Christmas and New Year, three of us realised that almost nobody knew about the consultation, not to mention talking about it. (The sneaky government didn’t really advertise the consultation, did they? Bustards.) So we started telling people to respond to the consultation and/or write to their MPs, but soon we realised we just didn’t have big enough voices. So we hatched a plan - Operation #HandsOffOurCopyright.
Here are what we have done:
Got in touch with the AOI and together we got the author of History of Information, Chris Haughton to write an opinion piece on generative AI and copyright, and he did brilliantly.
Asked fellow artists to create social media posts to raise awareness and encourage people to respond to the consultation. Some made engaging videos and others made eye-catching images. Here are a few of them:
Wrote an open letter to express our concerns and objection to the government’s plan and we collected over 6950 signatures (at the time of writing).
Got in touch with The Guardian editors and convinced them to write an article about the consultation. The article came out in The Observer. Our open letter was published there too!
I must say it was very stressful seven weeks mostly because of the unfortunately timing. As if some kind of evil force was at play, the consultation closing date was looming when my day job became hectic and two project deadlines were chasing after me. Also, probably we annoyed quite a few people along the way, asking to do many things. But I think it was all worth it. Together with the impressive #MakeItFair campaign organised by Creative Rights in AI Coalition, I think we made a splash!
I just want to say MASSIVE thanks to those who responded to our call to action and took part in our campaign in one way or another. Now the consultation is closed. We don’t know if the government will listen to us over tech giants. Hope they will. They’d better. Who knows? But at least we can take pride in knowing we took action. We didn’t sit on the fence nor bury our head in sand, hoping for the best. We roared, waving our creative tools in the air (metaphorically).
Never ending search for a perfect “style”
While juggling my day job and the copyright campaign, somehow I managed to finish two projects - one big and one small. The big one was a picture book for an US publisher and overall this project was the smoothest sailing I’ve ever had in my seven years of making picture books.
They gave me a lot of creative freedom and they liked my ideas, character designs, colour palette etc from the beginning to the end (hope I didn’t speak too soon). I’ll share more about this book when the time is right, but I can tell you that I used a vibrant and bold colour palette combined with dramatic compositions - a style I have been developing for years.
The small project was also a dream. I was asked to take part in this year’s BBC 500 Words, a creative writing competition for children aged 5-11, and I had the honour of illustrating one of the six winning stories. I can’t share my artwork until next month but I was told that I could illustrate the story however I like. So I took the liberty of trying something new and I was massively inspired by What Makes an Orchestra by Jan Balet (1959). I’m very pleased with the end result. It’s different from what I usually do. I saw the possibility of a new direction…
Then I was invited to a face-to-face meeting with my UK publisher. Prior to the meeting, they emailed me “We’d also like to talk to you about your art palette and how the more recent books have been received.” Uh-oh, it didn’t sound good…
In the meeting, they told me the last three books I had illustrated for them hadn’t been doing well on the co-edition front.1 We put our heads together and tried to figure out what’s working and what’s not working. We identified some possible culprits (certain colours and textures) but overall we couldn’t quite figure out why these books weren’t appealing to other markets… My editor said my recent palette might be “too sophisticated”. Well…what could I say to that?!
Ahhhh, my search for the perfect “style” (i.e. something that works for me and others) continues… Or am I chasing a ghost??
An Afternoon at the Palace
This month ended with a bang! I attended the BBC 500 Words final hosted at the Buckingham Palace with my fellow illustrators. I can’t tell you anything about it until World Book Day (6th March) when the final will be broadcasted on the BBC One Show. But I can tell you that the final (and the afternoon) was fantastic! Watch the final to find out the winners and their amazing stories (and have glimpses of our illustrations). You might spot me ;)
Thank you for reading.
Momo x
p.s. I’m going to write some “behind the book” posts to celebrate the publication of Dotty Doughnut (see below). Drop me a line if you have any questions you want to ask.
p.p.s. my friends, Aileen Crossley (an award-winning animator and living BCBF success story) and Sibba Hartunian (a risograph zine genius and graphic designer) and I (a cat and picture book lover) are going to this year’s Bologna Children’s Book Fair. If you fancy meeting up with us for a chat over gelato or cheese, let me know!
My next authored picture book, Dotty Doughnut (Orchard Books) will be out on the 27th of March. It’s now available for pre-order
Also, my next collaboration picture book, It’s Behind You! (Andersen Press) written by Jeanne Willis will be out on the 3rd of April. It’s also available for pre-order.
For UK publishers, unlike US counterparts who have a huge domestic market, securing co-editions (foreign editions) is very important. The number of co-editions is a kind of measure of success.
You and Simona and Ged are absolute HEROES!! Three hundred cheers for you for getting the campaign started on AI and copyright - and let's home the UK government sees sense. That orchestra book looks beautiful, I can't wait to see what you made that was inspired by it. And congrats on the Palace visit! XX