2024 looks like it will be huge for me!

Last year I accepted a place on the part-time route at ARU in Cambridge to study for my Masters in Children's Book Illustration. 

The masters is taught and led by some leading names in the industry and spawned illustrators and writers such as Nadia Shireen and Mariajo Ilustrajo (to name but a few). 

This is exciting for me in several ways.  Firstly, seven-year-old me was desperate to become a full-time illustrator or writer.  Specifically, back then, I wanted to write comics for Marvel or DC.  However, I found art in school didn't offer me what I wanted, so by age 16 and following a difficult GCSE art course, I gave up.  Not a little bit, I properly gave up.  I went from drawing and inking obsessively to not picking up a pencil at all.  This wasn't a short break either.  I didn't pick up a pencil and draw anything again until I was 39. I was actually during lockdown in the UK when I wanted to break up the boredom between work and going home. 

It wasn't hard to fall back into good habits and I quickly found the love for it again.  When I submitted my first book to publishers, I also submitted some character drawings with a hopeful plea that I might be able to illustrate the book as well.  Never expecting a 'yes' I was astonished when one came. I didn't know what I was doing back then and I look upon the work as a bit 'hit and miss' in places but I'm proud of that book and the subsequent sequel that I also illustrated.  

I'm largely self-taught but I realized that I needed more direction, so I began taking online courses where I could. Not just on art techniques but I was interested in how pictures were composed and why some very simple designs can be so captivating.   So I studied animation, cinematography, and framing as well as illustration.  

But once again I found that this could only take me so far, what I needed (I concluded) was direction from an expert.  Mentoring, however, is expensive.  I was lucky enough to receive a grant from the Arts Council to support my career change and this led me to work with Pam Smy.  Pam is someone I had long admired, I loved reading Thornhill and The Hideaway so getting the chance to meet her when I joined Dog Eared Creatives in Suffolk and then be mentored by her was quite a revelation for me. 

I still have a long way to go, I am sure but under the guidance of an expert I have improved my illustration work, gaining a better understanding of perspective and tone.  I've switched to digital artwork, which wasn't something I thought I would ever do, but it has been allowing me to get a better understanding of layering and structure.  

At 43 this year I will be starting the Masters with that nagging voice 'you're too old for this!' ringing in my ears but the way I see it, I'll be 45 when I finish and I can either be 45 or 45 with a Masters in Children's book Illustration.  So I think I know what I'm choosing.