Schweizer Familie / Childhood Fears

In February I illustrated another article for Schweizer Familie magazine, I've been lucky to draw such fun things for them! This article was about childhood fears - obviously fears are not fun, but drawing these illustrations definitely was!

I love seeing other artists' process so here's another behind the scenes peek. Here are some sketchbook drawings I did for my initial research, the roughs I sent to the art director, my inked drawing (I ink all my illustrations on paper) and the digitally coloured versions - as well as how it looked in the final layout of the online version of the magazine.

How I made the jump to being a full-time freelance illustrator

August 28th, 2008 was my last day at my part-time retail job and since then I have been a full-time freelance illustrator. It's been more than ten years, which is crazy and weird and also awesome! While I sometimes still feel like I'm just starting out - perhaps because my sense of time is skewed or because this industry is ever changing, I also now officially have a decade's worth of experience as a full-time, self-employed illustrator (just in case you were questioning my credentials, haha!)

So how did I make the initial jump? I was recently asked this by one of my newsletter subscribers and I think this is the kind of post I would have liked to read when I was starting out so here we go! (Disclaimer: there are many ways to do things in life and this is just one of them.)

When I graduated from the BA illustration course at Kingston University in 2005, I knew I wanted to become a full-time freelance illustrator, no matter how hard I had to work or how long it would take. In hindsight, I think this was the most important decision of my career. No plan b and a lot of stubborn determination.

I found myself a job in retail 4 days a week and spent all my evenings and days off working on my illustrations. I assumed that somehow, you slowly get more and more work until one day, you have a steady income as an illustrator and can quit your job. This is also the general advice for transitioning from being employed to starting your own business: Grow your business on the side until you make enough money to live off and then quit your job.

However, at the end of 2007, two-and-a-half years after graduating I was perpetually exhausted. Working 7 days a week (something I'd done throughout uni as well), wasn't sustainable in the long run. Not knowing how much longer I would have to keep up this pace made me feel burnt-out.

By that point I had done some cool commissions - a book, magazines, t-shirts, greetings cards etc. But usually work was unpredictable. I either had loads of work on at once, or nothing for a while. It certainly didn't feel secure enough to quit my retail job. At the same time I couldn't help wondering how much more illustration work I could get if I had more time and energy to dedicate towards promotion and making more work.

So I asked myself in what situation I would feel secure enough to leave my job. I didn't want to just quit, only to have to look for a new part-time job after a few weeks or months. That didn't make sense. Thinking it through, I felt that if I had 12 months worth of living expenses saved up, I could leave my job without panicking immediately if I hit a dry patch or a client paid late. And I made a new plan: In 2008 I would save all the money from illustration commissions and save up £12,000 by the end of August and quit my part-time job. There wasn't much I could save from my retail job income - I was making £680 GBP a month, which, after rent, council tax and bills, left me about £100 for food and anything else and even in 2008 was tight to live on in London). Setting a date when I was going to quit my job renewed my focus and energy. I worked and worked and worked and squirrelled away all the money I made from illustration commissions.

I didn't quite hit my savings goal of £12,000, but I think I had about £8000 and some commissions lined up when I left my job at the end of August in 2008. (I added to these savings whenever I could and think it's always a good idea to keep 6-12 months of living expenses in case of emergencies. That way you don't have to panic when a payment is late, you can create with less stress and you don't feel pressured into signing contracts that contain unfair terms.)

Ever since then, I've been illustrating for a living and I've never had to go back to having any other job! Thank you to my younger self for coming up with this simple and effective plan. And thank you to the power of spreadsheets and being super organised with finances.

Are you planning to become a freelance illustrator? Let me know if you have any more questions. And if you've already made the jump, comment and share how you did it and if you have any advice you want to share.

Behind The Scenes / How To Make A Travel Journal

I finished my travel journal! It's called Planes, Trains & Fireworks and documents James' and my trip to Toronto, Niagara Falls, Buffalo and Rochester. (It's available here!) Fitting bigger personal projects around illustration commissions is challenge so this took some time to complete, which is why I can't quite believe it's finally done and printed. Wohoo! I thought it would be fun to share some behind the scenes of the process! So here we go:

1. THE SKETCHBOOK I KEPT ON THE TRIP

As you can see during our trip I just made very messy scribbles and notes in my sketchbook. When we're on holiday, James and I like to wake up, walk and explore all day (often 10 hours of more) and then fall into bed exhausted at the end of the day. There isn't ever much time to draw, let alone put effort into making a pretty sketchbook! This is an A5 Travelogue Handbook sketchbook, by the way.

2. PLANNING / STORYBOARD

Back home in London, I made a rough plan/storyboard for the travel journal I wanted to make. I went through the sketchbook I kept on holiday and roughly divided the content into pages. This time I used an A3 Seawhite Of Brighton sketchbook, because I needed the space!

3. SKETCHES 

Then I started to make sketches for the book. Since my original drawings were very basic, I used the photos I took on holiday as reference - for example for all the food we ate. Some things I googled as well, like images of chipmunks which I then drew a few times for practice. (This is a random A4 Leuchtturm lined notebook. The pages were perforated so I taped them with washi tape to make sure they wouldn't rip out).

4. PENCIL LAYOUTS

At this stage I drew each page layout pretty neatly with a mechanical pencil onto A4 sized layout paper. It's pretty close to the final drawings, I only tweaked small details while inking.

5. INKING & LETTERING ALL THE PAGES

The whole book is inked by hand on paper and hand-lettered, too. Ouch! This was the stage where my hand was really aching but it was also the most fun and satisfying part of the process. It's A4 Fabriano drawing paper, with a bit of texture. I love it because it makes the lines look so much nicer than smooth paper.

6. FINALISING PAGES IN PHOTOSHOP

After scanning all 40 pages, I cleaned up any smudges in Photoshop and 'coloured' the pages (i.e. I added black areas and screentone). I also tweaked the layout, corrected typos/mistakes, added a few small things...) This  stage took a lot longer than I had expected. I printed out each page and taped them up on the studio wall so I could see my progress and also see how it would all look together!

7. REPEAT PATTERN FOR ENDPAPERS

During our trip I collected a lot of tickets, bits of paper, business cards etc which I scanned and turned into a repeat pattern for the endpapers of the book.

8. THE COVER

The cover was such a nerve-wracking thing because after all this work I wanted it to be something I would be 100% happy with. No pressure, right? Sometimes things are fun and ideas come easily, but with all this pressure I had zero ideas. I made so many different sketches, none of which worked, until I came up with this one. It wasn't until I draw the elements separately and moved them around that the final version came together.

9. CHOOSING THE PERFECT PAPER

Now it was time to put everything together in InDesign and to ask the printer to send over a lot of paper samples. I wanted the paper to be perfect as well, something beautiful with some texture that would make the final product beautiful and hopefully even more fun to read!

I then asked the printer to send me two printed proofs on different papers that I liked and ended up choosing Mohawk Superfine Eggshell paper (it's so lovely!).  I also realised that the illustration wasn't centred properly on the cover, so I fixed that before sending the travel journal off to print.

10. THE FINAL PRODUCT

And that's the end of this very long story behind the making of PLANES, TRAINS & FIREWORKS. I love seeing/reading behind-the-scenes and hope you enjoyed this! There are more details and peeks inside here in my Etsy shop.