Hello there.

I figured it was about time I start writing a blog, to tell anyone who is interested about my profession, my projects, my progress; my philosophies, my fancies, and anything else that happens to come into my head.

Let me introduce myself. I’m a man of wealth and taste…

No, I’m kidding! (and quoting ‘Sympathy For the Devil’, in case you can’t tell ;)

I’m decidedly female. I’m almost definitely not the devil. And I may not be wealthy, but I love my work, and I bring my own innate personal taste to it.

For anyone wondering what I do, I’m an illustrator.

For anyone still wondering what I do, put simply: I draw stories.

I trained as a graphic designer, did a Masters thesis on graphic novels (ie. a fancy word for comics), and now take on freelance art commissions, as well as trying to make inroads on my own pet projects, of which I have far too many.

That’s me, in a nutshell.

Even though this is my first blog post, I have to start with a retrospective.

Last year was a strange year for me. It marked ten years (yikes!) since I started studying at university, and in so doing chose this as my career path. It’s notoriously difficult to succeed at a creative vocation, but I feel like I’ve progressed a lot over the past decade. As little as half that time ago, I didn’t have much confidence in my abilities. The work I’ve done in that time has improved me immensely as an artist. I now have the confidence to approach all sorts of projects, knowing that with the skill set I’ve got, I should be able to pull it off.

I suppose I’ve changed as a person, too – just don’t ask me what those changes were! Whatever they are, I hope they are an improvement.

I’ve done some very good work over the years, and I have so much more left to do. I honestly think that my best is yet to come, which is good; there’d be no point in continuing if I felt like I’d already peaked.

I’m one of those people who is cursed (or blessed!) with too many ideas. If I want to turn every idea I have into a reality, I could be drawing for the rest of my life. Which, to be honest, is perfectly fine with me – as long as I’m not destitute while I’m doing it!

I’d like to start writing some of those ideas down and sharing them.

I’d appreciate it if people didn’t attempt to steal my ideas; and I hope whoever is reading this can find some intelligible thread amid my ramblings. Like most creative people, I spend a lot of time up in my own head, and I find the subject matter up there endlessly fascinating; but I hope it doesn’t bore people other than myself.

Whoever’s out there reading this, you can be my motivation (if you’re even out there; I don’t really mind performing to empty stalls!) It will help to have an audience, even an imaginary one; I’ll need to keep coming up with things to show you, and I’ll get things done so much quicker.

Since it’s almost still January (in certain time zones – I’m cheating a little here!) the first thing I can show you is my New Year’s card for this year:

I’d never done a New Year’s card before, and don’t know if I ever will again. It’s actually just a hasty reworking of an old drawing I did of Sydney Harbour:

Both artworks are available on Etsy as greeting cards.

I’m not mentioning this in order to try to make a sale; but if anyone wants to throw me some small change and score themselves a nice card for their trouble, it’d be much appreciated!

So, this is my first blog post. I don’t know how often I’ll post. I don’t yet know what I’ll post about. Perhaps expect a mixture of detailed project-proposals and spontaneous stream-of-consciousness; both tend to run through my head with equal prevalence.

Will I keep naming my blog posts are David Bowie songs? I’d like to, but I might need to branch into to Crowded House, or even Keane, if appropriate titles start to run out. Considering the vastness of Bowie’s back-catalogue, I don’t know how likely that is.

I’ve got more on him planned for my next post. Stay tuned.