I went to a gig the other night, not the one this video shows, (Yukimi at Southbank Center for Little Simz’ Meltdown Festival, it was amazing) and as I often do when listening to beautiful soulful music play live, I was so inspired, and I wanted to draw it. However, I’m currently trying to resist any urges to work on personal and unpaid projects right now, as much as I love it and recognise the importance of it, my priority for the time being is paid illustration opportunities only. So instead here’s a time-lapse of the last live music performance I saw and drew (Jordan Rakei at Bristol Beacon) to hopefully encourage more music related commissions!
I've been shortlisted for Illustrofest's competition!
My last blog post I was talking all about applying to opportunities as often as you can, and recently I entered my personal project ‘Through My Eyes’ into Ilustrofest competition ‘Ideas are the Currency of the Future’ and I was very pleased to see I’ve been shortlisted for the awards and my work is going to be exhibited at the Ilustrofest opening ceremony on July 11th and Belgrade Fortress in Serbia!! 🇷🇸 🏰 🎨
A record 1,088 artists from all over the world applied for the competition to participate in this year's Ilustrofest, and the expert jury, which consisted of last year's laureates Yael Frankel, Sviatlana Dzemidovich, Sunna Rebecca Choi, Eva Mlinar and Irina Vinnik, selected 219 authors from 49 countries whose works will be presented at the large International Exhibition of the best illustrations at the Belgrade Fortress from July 11 to 18, and who are in the running for the festival prizes... and I’m one of them!
This project is based all around travel, so I’m super glad its getting recognition from a European institution from a worldwide selection!
Creative Freelancer Tips I'm Not Gatekeeping: Where and How to Find Opportunities
I’ve been freelancing for just over 5 years now, and whilst to me my stream of work feels far from consistent, the most common question I get asked is where and how do I find work, so in the art of not gatekeeping, here’s a comprehensive explanation of how I do it.
From the get go, I’ve applied to basically every opportunity I can find (if fitting obviously), whether thats competitions or job applications, because in my opinion, surely there’s no harm in getting your name as far and wide as possible. This also includes sharing my work as much as I can, whether it’s online on different platforms, via reach-out emails, or in person amongst creative communities.
A decent amount of my commissioners come directly to me, so I assume my marketing push throughout the years is doing something! My thinking is even if I don’t get this opportunity that I’m applying to right now, I get someones eyes on my work, and then later down the line it often pays off! - A couple years ago, I heard of the marketing principle ‘The Rule of 7’, which suggests that customers need to see a brand at least 7 times before making a purchase decision.
I see most of these opportunities on Instagram, which is annoying as I hate how much time I already give into this platform… however, I’ve found my algorithm has adjusted to giving me an endless supply of opportunities every-time I visit the explore page! I’ve also found a couple through Linked In, not necessarily direct job listings, but call-outs from companies and art directors for one-off projects. Once you give a little bit of time towards it, again you’ll find the algorithm working for you.
Also here are a bunch of links to creative job websites, none of which I’ve personally had crazy level of success from, however I would definitely recommend keeping an eye on them and applying to ones that seem like a decent fit! Run the Check, The Dots, If You Could Jobs, Creative Access, Creative Lives in Progress, Art Jobs, Starving Artists, and Behance.
The most successful way I find work is through reach-out emails. Whilst this method is very tedious, (for about every 100 emails you send, you get 10 replies, and 1 job…) it does work, and it’s how I got some of my biggest returning clients such as Elle Decoration! The easiest way to find reach-out email addresses from my experience is paying for a directory, I’d recommend the AOI, but you can also find them for free if you’re willing to do some rummaging like searching through Instagram, Linked-In, and the contact section on clients company websites!
Want some tips on how to write a good email? Creative Lives and It’s Nice That’s Associate Editor, Olivia Hingley made a great post all about it, read it here.
