Thankyou for the pointers Aislynn – I will take those into consideration!

Hi Dina – I am hoping to score some work from my creative exploits – I am an illustrator, I mostly focus on hand-drawn hand-painted hand-rendered illustrations but I am capable of working with Photoshop as well. I also write about my work through frequent blog updates and soon I hope to launch a YouTube video where I show time-lapses of my work or review art supplies. I also run an Etsy shop where I make handmade crafts, ceramic pieces and hand-bound books and journals. I don’t rule out the possibility of freelance writing.

I haven’t managed to score any illustration gigs yet but I’m trying to carry on with my artworks – trying to produce art in series to keep things consistent (i.e using only certain colours throughout the series of paintings, depicting only one subject matter, using a particular media). With my illustrations I am able to offer my services where people may hire me to produce similar artworks to the ones they have seen, offer prints or the original for sale as well as having my work available on a variety of different products through print-on-demand sites such as RedBubble and Society6. I am 24 and still live at home with my parents – they don’t expect or ask for me to make a financial contribution so in that regard I’m lucky (I still feel guilty about this).

I have managed to make a few sales on my Etsy shop – I currently receive a start-up allowance (they have this as a scheme here in UK, helping people out financially to start a business) but my funding will run out in March. I feel that I am barely scratching the surface and I feel that if I pushed myself harder I would be able to start earning my own money. I also feel that I am multi-faceted, have different interests and ideas and I don’t want to place all of my eggs into just one venture, so to speak.

Hope this helps 🙂