It's all new

New Year

The start of a new year immediately makes you look at the past one. It's not very pretty this year though is it? Personally it was ok for us. Australia hasn't been hard it by Covid 19 like other countries. But then we were in lockdown for what seemed like an eternity, so we can have empathy for those that are still going through that. Like many other 2020 made me learn and grow in areas I really wasn't expecting and which was at times painful and despairing. The incredibly steep learning curve I went on to teach high school students online for just one term will stay with me. I have no idea how teachers have done it for most of the year. On reflection though it's given me a really good kick up the a***. So 'm making plans to create a series of online classes around illustration and pattern design. I loved creating this one for Skillshare. If you have any suggestions or you'd particularly like to learn something about illustration, please let me know through my contact page.

New Projects

I have been thrilled to take on new clients recently for exciting illustration projects. I really love that first faze of a project where you're not really sure where the ideas might come from. It's an absolute gift as an illustrator to be given a project without parameters. You can sketch, look up other examples of work and go for dreamy walks, thinking about what you can achieve. And then come the deadlines and the overwhelm and self doubt. Fortunately there's less of this as the years go on but it's always there to some degree.

New Processes and Tools

I've probably mentioned it before but my absolute favourite thing this year was investing in an iPad pro. I continue to learn about all the gorgeous ways to draw and design using it. Procreate has been a revelation. I was worried about how to use my drawings in Procreate for pattern designing. I use Illustrator for pattern designs which is vector based. There are always solutions and classes online to help witness technical issues though. I loved learning from the gorgeous Lisa Glanz on Skillshare.

I also started really loving searching for colour palettes, either developing my own using Pinterest photos, or picking out from fabulous collections like those on Bardot Brush.