A Little Update

It's been a long time since my last blog post so thought I'd let you all know what's been happening - Well I've started my new job - certainly a lot more stressful than I expected so most evenings by the time I get home and the kids have all been fed I don't have the energy to do a lot. Despite not working full time it's still a struggle to find enough hours in the day.

I'm still hoping that one day I'll get myself an agent who is going to offer me my dream illustration job but in the meantime I'm enjoying drawing all these funny little creatures. I still believe that creating all these characters has to be the best job in the world!

If you pop along to my FACEBOOK PAGE there is currently a giveaway for prints as well as a funny caption competition!

A New Chapter

Lots of big changes happening here at the moment - When I started down the illustration route I knew that I only had a limited time to be able to earn a living from it before I would have to give up and get a job that paid regular wages and as no agents or publishers are banging on my door  I have now reached that point - a while ago I applied for a job teaching kids that have been excluded from mainstream schools and I found out yesterday that I got the job and start on Monday - I must admit I'm rather looking forward to it and it will certainly be a challenge! But this means that much of the art and illustration will take a back burner for now - I am now frantically trying to get all my commissions completed before Monday! - I will still be taking on a few illustration jobs if I get any and I have a couple of pet portraits to do but my days of drawing and doodling will be limited. I will also be teaching a few art classes for Straightcurves Crafts in Chesterfield - I will link those here as soon as I know the details!

A few pictures that I've done this week

Bobbin Winner and Other Stuff

I drew out the winners for the Bobbin competition at the weekend and had a very excited winner who requested a Bobbin in a witches hat with a cauldron so this was her prize

I'm going to be doing my next prize draw when my facebook page reaches 500 likes so pop along and press that button! Not far to go now 

MY FACEBOOK PAGE!! 

I've also been working on a comic strip this week - this is something new to me - I've been doing them as part of the Crazy Cartoon Experiment - lots of comic artists are given a theme and then we see what they all come up with - The theme I've been working on is 'Helium Filled Dog Approaches A Cactus' 

These are a couple of pictures I've done for it so far - they are still more like illustrations than a comic strip but I can play around with them in photoshop when they are all done and make them more comic-strip-like. 

Check out Jon's blog for more details CRAZY CARTOON EXPERIMENT

and I'll leave you with a couple of cute critters that have appeared from my pencil this week!!

A Funny Old Week

Had a busy week of doing nothing really - I've managed to turn out lots of new drawings - I'm having so much fun doing my latest style of pictures and there is always a queue of them waiting to escape from my pencil so it's never really 'hard' work I suppose - but my full time illustrating days are nearly over - another few weeks and I'll be working full time again either supply teaching or doing the other job I've applied for (fingers crossed please) - It's going to be a big change to my life - I've not worked in a proper job for years and it's like giving up on my dream - but the reality is that bills have to be paid and unless you are very good or very lucky then to make a living out of illustrating as well as raising a large family all by yourself is never really going to happen - So soon my drawing will take place at weekends only (if I'm not too busy recovering from a week of working with kids) Hopefully I'll still keep trying to  find a way to live my dream (either find a very nice agent or a very rich husband) - In the meantime though  I'm going to turn out as many creations as possible while I can - Here's a few to be going on with :)

A Change of Direction

I have decided it's finally time to change the way I work - over the last 30 years or so I have done animal portraits as commissions and it's always been pretty successful so I tried to apply the same rules to illustration - I would do illustrated commissions on the same basis i.e. you tell me what you want - I paint it - if you don't like it you don't buy it - this worked well with the pet portraits - the clients knew pretty much what they would be getting (an accurate painting of their dog's head) and were happy. However more and more I've found that this isn't possible with illustrations - to reproduce exactly what is in someone elses head with what is often a quite abstract or quirky concept just leaves the client disappointed and me frustrated. And because it's often a whimsical picture rather than a 'real painting' it's difficult to justify my prices despite it often taking as much work and a lot more thought.

So I am no longer taking commissions for individual illustrations - all my illustrations will be available to buy either through me or my Society6 page HERE - I will happily take suggestions for illustrations that, if done, I will put on my FACEBOOK PAGE and offer for sale - this way no one feels an obligation to buy them and I can do them in such a way that suits my style.

Am I cutting off my nose to spite my face? Possibly - I may lose a bit of work this way but out of the last 10 commissions - 4 or 5 have wanted major changes and 2 totally rejected them - whereas 30 years of painting pet portraits I have never had a rejection.

Customer satisfaction is of extreme importance to me and if I think someone isn't happy with what I've done for them then I feel bad as well as demoralised.

Well that was a rather serious blog post and to cheer us all up I will end with a jolly picture and a reminder to enter my competition HERE

Bobbins Competition

I'm running a competition through Facebook to win your very own Bobbins Picture - It will be totally original and you get to choose what your Bobbin is getting up to - I usually run all my competitions on Facebook and people just do a like and a share and then I use a Random Picker to pick out a winner - I've been advised that it's a bit risky doing this and Facebook aren't too keen and can close down the page so I'm doing it through here this time - so if you would like to enter to win then all you have to do is leave a comment on here - I would still appreciate you liking my page or sharing this competition (the more this happens the more likely I am to run loads more giveaways)

1st Prize - An original Bobbin picture doing whatever mischief you can think of (nothing rude)

2 x Runners-up A Bobbins print 

Just comment below with what you would have your Bobbin doing - the winner will be drawn out on 18th August 2013 at 8pm

my facebook page is HERE 

Bobbins

Bobbins are my latest creation. They came about after a discussion with a family member, she always calls her children Bobbins and it's always made me smile. She then asked if I could turn a Bobbin into a creature as she always wondered what they would look like. Now I love a challenge so set about drawing them - as I was working it occurred to me that although they should be cute it would be fun to have them as a bit mischievous and that maybe they should be the ones that do all the bad things that happen around the home - the broken electrical items or the broken eggs in the egg box and also from that there were other suggestions that maybe these were the ones that hid all the socks! Well I'm on a roll now and can't stop thinking about the little mites that are hiding under our beds and behind our wardrobes. These are the first few....I suspect there will be many many more!