Happy New Year' 24

A re-introduction

Hello! I have been rambling on here for quite a while now but I don’t think I have introduced myself recently so this feels like a good time to do that alongside the other members of the Illoguild Collective. I’ll also be signposting to some previous articles I have written about my experience getting to where I am, in case you want to read more.

Illoguild are a global collective all pursuing careers as illustrators. Every month we decide a topic and collectively answer it. This month the topic is INTRODUCE YOURSELF. It is always really interesting hearing from the different members of the collective, so I would encourage you to have a browse through the Illoguild page.

“If you want to climb a tree, don’t be afraid to lose a shoe or two along the way” Jen, 1994

So, in case I haven’t mentioned this before, my name is Jen. I grew up in Minehead, a cute little seaside town in the South West of England. You’ve probably been to the Butlins there. And I probably served you pizza. To use a high school movie stereotype, I was the ‘arty kid’. I made excuses to get out of gym so I could hide in the art room to paint and people would queue at my desk so I could draw them horses and what not to help illustrate their assignments (don’t think I ever quite mastered the ‘horse’ though, its a hard thing to draw!). I would write and illustrate my own stories. Queue visual evidence:

This one is a murder mystery starring Humpty Dumpty. I won’t give away the ending just in case it gets picked up… if any editors reading this fancy the full MS please contact my agent..!

I wanted to study art after school, but unfortunately the foundation college course I chose did not suit me and I had a change of heart. I decided to go to university and study my second favourite subject: Biology! I actually think the life sciences go really well with art and design. You need a creative, problem-solving mind and understanding the processes in a visual way makes them much easier to learn. I spent a year of the degree working at the Millennium Seed Bank project as a researcher. Parts of the job were really cool: I worked on posters and experiments for school visits and appeared on the TV show a ‘Year at Kew’ for successfully germinating 200 year old seeds that were discovered in the National Archives after being seized from a Persian vessel many, many years ago (again editors, this story is almost as cool as the Humpty Dumpty murder mystery so please contact my agents if you want to know more…!). But other parts were… not as fun. And I realised very soon that life in a lab was not for me. And that’s how I finally decided I needed to work in the creative industries afterall.

So what happened next. Well, I have written about this, so feel free to read about how I learned that my art has financial value and that is IS possible to make a living off a creative life here. I spent a couple decades working as a graphic designer, which was brilliant. But it’s never too late to change your mind if you’re willing to put in the work and make sacrifices. In 2020 I decided to pursue a career as an illustrator. You can read about how I found my agent here. But of course, getting an agent is just the beginning, here’s how I developed my portfolio and actually started getting jobs.

And now here I am, having working in the children’s book industry for nearly 3 years. I have 13 books published with some of my favourite publishers and many more due to come out later this year. And it is time for me to think about the goals I want to set myself for this coming year. But I’ll save that for another Substack to please check back very soon. I hope to have it published in time for the next Illoguid Live, where members of Illoguild join a virtual, live get-together to discuss a chosen topic - this time its goal setting and will be at 8pm GMT on Monday 8th January.

As I mentioned, all members of Illoguild are invited to talk about the chosen topic. As of writing this I am able to link you to Rose Lihou, who has posted her first Substack, woohoo! Please give her a follow as she will have some extremely exciting updates this year. Carla has also written an introduction so please keep an eye on this link for when it publishes. You can find more articles and Illoguild news by keeping in touch with us here.

Thanks so much for reading everyone! And Happy New Year!