How I became an Illustrator

Completely by mistake

Hello lovely people. It’s great to see you in my little corner of the internet. I hope you are cosy and ready to listen to how I became an illustrator…completely by mistake.

The truth is, my journey is a little different from what you’d imagine. I have no childhood pictures of hours spent sketching, no folder of treasured pictures, in fact, although I enjoyed art, and took it for A Level, what I really REALLY loved was writing.

I was about six when I penned my first story. It started with ‘Once upon a time’ and continued for eleven whole pages, without a single full stop. I still remember the feeling of pride I had when I held up my certificate in assembly that week for essentially what was a very badly written sentence!

I have dipped in and out of writing ever since that moment.

As a teen I would pen short chapters and ask my teachers to read and mark them. I would always look for the most interesting concept when we were given a title in class. Once we were asked to write a story called ‘The Journey’. Whilst everyone else wrote about train journeys and holidays, I wrote about a baby’s journey as it crawled though a garden to its Mum. Of course, because babies are so small, the garden was like a wild and exciting jungle - swooping dragonflies became prehistoric creatures and the grass became wild reeds filled with exotic flowers and vines. In a way it was an introduction to thinking up creative concepts for pictures books, though I just didn’t know it at the time.

Then the writing stopped. Life sort of just got in the way.

It was probably about 10 years ago when I started up again. I went to a workshop held by Miranda Dickinson and I wrote the odd first and second chapter here or there but none of them felt like me. I loved creating a character and a setting but I just couldn’t get much further and the characters that I dreamt up just really annoyed me.

It was during covid when everything changed. My kids were little and our days were filled with Peppa Pig, splashing in puddles and playing on the floor whilst the evenings were filled with pictures books and songs. And I loved this world and the books that took up space in it. I wanted to write my own and create my own little worlds and ideas.

When Boris cancelled Christmas I wrote my first picture book. It was called Crab for Tea and was about a crab who invites some seagulls over for dinner. The crab sadly doesn’t make it to the end of the story and I’m sure that story will never see the light of day on any bookshelf ever. However, I have a real fondness for that little crab!

At the same time I also started drawing. I had a lovely book by Nicola Killen called ‘Ollie’s Magic Bunny’. I loved her style and thought that maybe I could draw too. From then on I copied all the illustrators I loved. I also drew from life, sketching my children and the activities we got up to.

I set up an instagram account in 2020. I was a little embarrassed to even use the word illustration in my handle. What would people who knew me think? I clearly wasn’t an illustrator! I changed that handle a good 5 or 6 times! And then I joined Friday Doodle Club. I got so much confidence from this group. Every Friday they shared a prompt and I would love having a go and submitting mine. And people actually liked them! they weren’t laughing at me or saying you don’t belong here!

I am a big believer in learning (I happen to be a secondary teacher so it’s probably not surprising) but I decided to take course to study illustration. The Goodship Illustration course has been so fab because you have lifetime access. I am constantly going back in a rewatching and relearning depending on where I am on my journey!

When I started trying to get an agent I approached it as a writer, it is only over the last 5 years that I have got to a point where I have the confidence to illustrate alongside my words. The game changer in all of this was my agent Millie. Ah the wonderful Millie! For the first time ever we submitted my stories with the illustrations - my illustrations - something I had never done before. But her confidence in me gave me such a boost.

So, it’s been quite a journey but I’m loving it.

I hope that my characters and illustrations now and bolder and more confident than ever before. I think they all have a little bit of me in them and so I’ve become quite fond of them!

Over and out.

Emma