What is Studio Club?
Studio Club is a daily co-working space designed to support sustained creative practice. Join me most weekdays (9.30–10.30am UK time) for a live Zoom session where we show up together and work quietly alongside one another.
These sessions are about creating space for the “engine room” work of creativity: returning to neglected projects, exploring ideas, and building momentum through regular practice. There’s no pressure to perform, just a chance to work creatively together for an hour (or catch up on admin!) and the encouragement that comes from working together.
It all started here:
Note: when I first started Studio Club I called it Accountability Club, because it felt like a does-what-it-says-in-the-tin name, but as it grew over the weeks and months, I realised Studio Club was a better name, as it encapsulates the co-creating vibes better.
And this was the post I wrote in the first flush of co-working.
How it works:
Join the live link (below for paid subscribers) at 9.30 am every day (here is a handy time-zone converter)
We say hello for 5-10 minutes chat. I’ll ask you what you’re working on, and tell you what I’m focusing on too. (If you don’t want to chat, just let me know in the chat at the beginning.)
After that, we’ll turn our mics off (but leave your camera on if you want, as it gives the nice feeling of working in a studio together) and work on creative projects together. This quickly stacks up, and I hope we’ll all start making lots of lovely creative progress!
After 50 mins or so, I let you know time is up, and we have a quick wrap-up and chat about what we did for 5-10 mins. This sometimes bleeds into lovely creative chats, which is such a lovely way to start the day! It creates a lovely feeling of working in a studio with lots of other creatives; for me personally it gives me a big boost to my day, and combats that feeling of isolation you can get as a freelance creative working by yourself all day.
I run Studio Club as often as I can, but sometimes can’t make it, of course. I post the dates in the calendar links post here. It looks something like this:
Co-working schedule w/c 16th June:
Mon,
Tues, Weds, Thurs, Fri
Why? How? What?!
I know we all have creative projects we want to develop more, but never quite get around to as often as we might want, so this is for exactly those things. The projects sitting quietly in a pile (or in your head) waiting for you to start work.
I try to resist the urge to work on my official projects during this time as much as possible; the book work will always come first for me, so I need this extra hour to carve out time for the things that are harder to prioritse - developing projects, exploring materials, playing, waffling, experimenting, going down creative rabbit holes. I know that the fantasy life of an illustrator is doing this all the time, but the reality for me is hours at my desk getting the actual commissions done. But I know I also need to have half an eye on the future too, and carving out an hour like this really does add up.
An added bonus of Studio Club is hearing what everyone is up to every day; it’s always a delightful mix. It can range from developing story ideas to doing the cleaning; eating breakfast is always on my list - ha! We have people who paint every session, other people might be working on thumbnails, writing a difficult email, making artwork for their book. There’s no right or wrong, and every day there’s also plenty of people - and I am very guilty of this - simply getting through their daily admin!
We’ve had two people celebrating new book deals recently, made extra exciting as we’ve been alongside them as they developed and pitched the ideas in Studio Club! We sometimes end up getting caught up in a chat with each other, helping problem solve creative knots, giving recommendations, or a boost of confidence to each other.
Don’t know how to start or what to work on? Much like taking a line for a walk in Art Club, I suggest you just do anything. Make a mark on a piece of paper. Write one word. Draw a box and fill it. Before long, you will find yourself making another mark/word/box…
Interested in joining Studio Club? You can upgrade for £7.50 per month or £75 for a year.
As well as unlocking our daily Studio Club you get an exclusive backstage pass to all of my live meet-ups.
🎨 You can read all about Art Club here and see all the replays here.
📚 Read all about Picture Book Club here and see all the replays here.
📽️ I also make behind-the-scenes videos, see the back catalogue here.
I hope you find what you’re looking for here! This newsletter has brought so much fun, beautiful connections and joy to me, and if you join, I hope it will bring the same to you!
Love,
