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.

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2018

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you're having the most wonderful, the coziest and the most relaxing Christmas ever. I know I can definitely use a good break before diving into work again. Even though I know I say this every year, this year went by SO fast! It feels like it was Christmas 2017 just five minutes ago. What is time?! I plan to be sharing more on my blog again in 2019 and I'll be sending out a newsletter, too! Sign up here if you like. Happy Holidays! Lots of love, Anke.

Cincinnati Gives / Raising Generous Kids

I love doing editorial illustrations, and I think this is one of the sweetest ones I got to draw so far! Cincinnati Gives is an annual magazine produced by Cincinnati magazine and the article is about getting children involved in helping with charity work. Here's a peek into my process: As you can see, I initially submitted two different pencil sketches for the art director to choose from. Then I inked the illustration on paper, scanned it and coloured it digitally. (The last image is a screenshot from the article on the Cincinnati Magazine website , you can read it here!). Cincinnati Gives  is out now.

Shop / Spies Print

I've added a new print called Spies  to my Etsy Shop, just in time for Christmas Shopping! This is an updated illustration of a screenprint I made back at university. A lovely lady called Alison saw this print in a cafe in Edinburgh and asked if I had any more available since it reminded her of her daughter. Since the screenprints were made back in 2005 they're long gone, but it inspired me to make an updated version and turn it into a giclee print. It was so strange and interesting to return to work I made a long time ago and so nice to 'fix' some things and make them better. Do you ever re-visit older work of yours?

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.

Schweizer Familie / Kids Protest

Another really fun editorial illustration for Schweizer Familie magazine. I love that commissions get me to draw things I may have never drawn otherwise - like this fun children's demonstration/protest!
Here's another peek into my process as well, showing the pencil sketch that I sent off for approval, the ink-on-paper illustration, and the final version (digitally coloured in Photoshop). The image at the bottom shows what the final illustration looks like in the layout. If you're interested in reading the whole article, there's an option to subscribe to the e-paper version of the magazine here: https://www.schweizerfamilie.ch/e-paper-lesen/

Arlington Magazine / The Thing About CSAs

Hello & happy Monday! If you know me, you know that I LOVE vegetables, so drawing this illustration for the current issue of Arlington Magazine made me feel so lucky to be doing this as a job. My illustration is accompanying an article about the advantages and disadvantages of CSAs (weekly veg boxes), written by Holly Scudero.

The first image is the finished illustration, followed by the initial pencil rough I sent off to the art director. There was only one change I was asked to make, which was to change the cucumbers in my sketch to okras. I definitely think it's much better with the okras! All my illustrations are inked by hand on paper and I work pretty neatly, so the third image is just a scan of my ink drawing. Once the drawing is scanned, I colour it digitally and in this case I also added some hand-made watercolour texture to the big lettuce leaf. Finally, at the bottom you can see how the illustration looks in the layout of the magazine. Here's a link to the article as well, if you're curious!

I've already shared the illustration on my Instagram, but a blog is such a nice platform to share a bit about the process behind it and since I am determined to get back into blogging, this is one thing I am planning to share more of. Do you enjoy this kind of post? Suggestions are always welcome!

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2017

Merry Christmas, everyone! 2017 has been one of the busiest, if not the busiest years I've ever had - I need to catch up on sharing my work on this blog! Maybe it will be better in 2018? I have a feeling that I always plan that for the coming year... well, fingers crossed. If you want to keep up with more new drawings, check out my Instagram. How was your year? (Is anybody still reading blogs?)

Schweizer Familie / Questions Age

I recently drew this illustration for Schweizer Familie magazine, about the age when kids start asking lots of questions. I got to draw a talking cat and so many fun details - what could be better?

Sketchbook / Mini Twin Portraits

During the past few months I filled a small-sized sketchbook (A6) with what I call 'Twin Portraits'. They're not really portraits and not quite twins, since they're imaginary and intentionally different. I'm obsessed with sketchbooks for just messing around and having fun. Usually they're not themed at all, so this was new for me. I drew most of this in the evenings while watching episodes of Gilmore Girls with James. If you're interested in seeing the whole sketchbook, click on the YouTube video I made:

Cincinnati Magazine Baby Guide / The A to Z Guide

Here are some illustrations I drew for The Baby Guide Cincinnati. You can read it online here. My favourite to draw was the scared pregnant lady with the giant calendar. I didn't know that parental leave is so different from country to county. That's one of the things I love about being an illustrator, you learn new things and interesting facts all the time while getting to draw all sorts of cute things!

Good Magazine / Christmas Cover 2016

At the end of last year I illustrated my 4th Christmas cover for Good Magazine!  It's been a while since Christmas now, but Christmas illustrations are among my favourites to draw, whatever the time of year. There are many things I don't like about real-life Christmas, but I've always loved story-world Christmas. It's always so perfect and cozy! When I was little, I always re-read the Christmas chapters from my favourite books over and over at all times throughout the year. Astrid Lindgren, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Laura Ingalls Wilder - they always write about perfectly snowy, cozy Christmases. I still love it.
This cover illustration is picturing a scene of carol singers in front of the Dubai skyline. I added some of the roughs/sketches so you can see a bit of how it came together.

Frankie Magazine / Calendar 2017

I'm so thrilled to be part of this year's Frankie Magazine calendar! Above is a photo of the calendar, as usual it's huge and gorgeous and printed on wonderful paper. Underneath is a picture of my ink illustration which originally appeared in my colouring book and the coloured version I created especially for the Frankie Calendar.
The other wonderful artists in this calendar are: Esther Sandler, Joel Penkman, Miju Lee, Janet Hill, Monica Ramos, Cornelia Li, Sandra Eterovic, Ashley Ronning, Choi Mi-Kyung, Daniela Dahf and Alessandra De Cristofaro.

227 Plus Magazine / Die Geschichte eines Weihnachtsgeschenks

At the end of last year I drew this illustration for Sal. Oppenheim's 227 Plus magazine. It's always a joy to work with them and their magazine is beautifully designed! This was for a story about a tablefootball game given to refugees as a Christmas present.