capturing holiday revelations

a creative ramble

Hello to you all!

I am writing this as soon as I can after a fabulous two weeks away. As often happens on holiday, as time progressed, and I shed the shell of the everyday - softened and relaxed into the holiday - I found thoughts popping into my head: good intentions for the future, moments of clarity about what I was doing too much of, not enough of, and how I could shift things a bit when I got back.

I wanted to capture them here, as I know that all those lovely holiday thoughts can so easily slip away with the minutiae of everyday life. Also, I love to read this sort of post, and sometimes it can even help bring a bit of that energy to me, just by the mere reading of pieces like this. So, I hope that by writing this post, I can share a bit of that post-holiday energy with you! It’s a long one, I hope you are comfy!

A preamble…

I wrote a post recently about doing the Illustration Fair at Kings Cross, and I mentioned that my word for the year was EXPLORE. I chose it as a reminder to keep exploring the terrain of life as an illustrator.

One of the things that prompted me to leave my job, back in 2019, was because I felt I was spending most of my days in the same place, same surroundings. I did my best to keep things as fresh as possible, I would go for long and exploratory walks on my lunch breaks; try different routes to work; but you can’t avoid that you are spending your days in the same box of a building for most of the week. I wanted to break free of that box - be free to plan my day my way. In my mind I would do yoga in the afternoon if I wanted; start work earlier or later than I would at work; work in different places, cafes, parks, on the sofa…

And that has partially come to be - especially when I was doing the MA (I did an MA in Children’s Book Illustration at Cambridge School of Art for 2.5 years from 2019). It was such a novelty for me to sit in the canteen with my friends and gobble the cardboard chips; explore the corridors of the campus buildings, getting lost and not worrying about time. For some of the modules, we were tasked specifically to just wander around and draw as much as possible. So I did indeed work in parks, cafes, by the river…

In fact, it was through the MA that I fell in love with drawing on location. I had already been drawing obsessively before the MA, taking my sketchbook with me everywhere I went, for the 2-3 years before I began the MA. But it was on the course that we were encouraged to broaden that outdoor practice of sketching to painting - to get messy, explore, play, and it was through that that I found a love of being on location and capturing the moment in paint and messy layers of materials. I filled many many sketchbooks with outdoor sketching and painting, and I’ve created 6 zines (and counting) of some of those sketches.

The MA was huge, in so many ways, (and perhaps I need to write another post about that) and although it was through the MA I fell in love with location drawing, of course the aim of the MA was to prepare me for life as a childrens book illustrator. And I was incredibly lucky because I got two offers of books within a year of graduating, and began working on them towards the end of 2022 and into 2023. I knew it would be a challenge to work on two books at once, but I also knew I couldn’t turn down that opportunity.

So over the next (nearly) year, I worked not only on those two books, but I also began teaching on the MA. I found that in order to get the work done, I needed to basically be in my studio most of the time! And in a way, I was back in a box. At the time, I was so grateful to have the work, and I am in no way complaining - it was a privilege and joy to be in that position. And it wasn’t really a choice anyway, it was a necessity. I had to work with intense concentration, commitment, and dedication, and not give in to too many distractions or procrastination. I had to have laser focus in order to stay on track, which, in retrospect, was a form of blinker to the rest of life. I often worked weekends, and fell into the trap that so many freelancers I have known had warned me about: I allowed the illustration work to bleed into the edges of my life, and the boundaries became completely blurred. It made sense, as I was doing something that was a passion of mine anyway, so why does it matter if I do it at the weekend? But…

Some of you may have noticed, I have been pretty quiet on Instagram for the last year or so. I have made some posts, for sure, and I always keep my Stories updated, mostly of pictures taken on my everyday walks, but on the whole, my frequency of posting has dramatically decreased. The main reason for that was because, despite the fact I was often painting for 7 hours a day, I couldn’t share any of the work online, as it was confidential (until a few months before publication). So of course, that makes sense. But the other reason was that I had stopped drawing on location. I often had the intention to, I definitely had the desire, but the deadlines of the books always trumped that desire.

Which takes me back to my holiday revelations… For the first few days of the holiday, I felt really blank and disconnected. I was enjoying the holiday, but there was a part of me that felt like I was watching myself from a distance. I slowly began to recognise how much I had shut myself off in order to meet the deadlines for the books. I had been so single task oriented, that I had almost flicked the lights out in everything else in my life.

Slowly but surely, I began to relax, everything began to soften and I began to unfurl. I brought lots of art materials with me on holiday, of course - you can see what I took with me in this video and one of the things that brought me back was sketching and painting on location. At first, it was almost an automatic thing: I am on holiday - I will paint. But as I painted, I began to remember all the things I love about it. It’s the best way to really soak up the atmosphere of a holiday; when I look back at pictures I have painted I can remember in detail how I felt, what I was thinking, and it conjours up the memories vividly. It’s also an amazing way to meditate; I find that it relaxes me like nothing else; I get completely absorbed and lose myself. It’s also something that has helped me create a body of work, and I love that there’s a sort of symbiosis to the work I make on location. I do it because I love it, and people seem to feel that and respond so positively to it, and so I have created prints and zines of the work.

some of my holiday artwork

I began to think: why did I ever stop this? I realised it is a huge source of joy for me. It helps cure my craving for exploration and variety in my day, it is calming and a balm for my anxiety, it helps stretch my body (see below) and it feels fundamental to my practice.

This takes me to my first revelation:

Trust that there is space for other things.

I have a tendency to tighten up around deadlines, and go into tunnel vision; single tasking mode. But, two things: 1. When I left work, I did it to have more variety, flexibility and adventures, and I want to do my best to ensure my illustration career has lots of exciting terrain to explore. Of course, I am dedicated to doing children’s books, and I want that to be the backbone of my practice, but I also want to have variety and space within that. 2. I think it is counterproductive. When I work like that I can very easily get tired, stressed, low, and I’m not feeding my creative soul either. One day I will write a post on the title of this Substack: Gather, Filter, Make. I wrote my dissertaion on the MA about my creative process and a revelation how much I need to filter and rest in my practice. I know this in theory, but I have lost sight of that in the last year, so I want to use my post holiday energy to shake things up and find a different way of working.

Here is a list of things I want to include in my day again:

Look after my body
I’m not getting any younger - I was 47 in March - and I know that staying healthy is crucial to a happy older age. I know how important it is to exercise and eat well, and I am determined to keep reminding myself that it’s not an option to put off exercising. That I’m not taking away from work when I to to a yoga class, or go for a run, but that it is an everyday essential, like eating breakfast.

I also want to take more time around meals. I love cooking, and it is another way that I find I can relax. It’s soothing at the end of the day to listen to a podcast and chop, sizzle and prod something delicious! And I want to give myself the gift of a lunchbreak again. I tend to eat quickly and rush back to the desk, but I really want to keep reminding myself that staying relaxed helps me make better work

Keep up the location sketching

I think this is self explainitory, after everything I have written above!

Make more original art

When we were in Trieste, we went to a Miro exhibition. I have to admit, I had slightly less Miro pass me by, but I found the exhibition really inspiring. As you may know, I love working intuitively, and his work opened up possibilities for me. It made me realise I could create abstract intuitive work as art pieces. I do it anyway, but I’m normally quite dismissive of it, and do it on cheap, terrible paper. But when I was looking around, I felt really inspired to do some intuitive work with the intention of making a collection I could put in my shop.

Here are some of the pictures I took during the exhibition Apologies for the lighting!

Maybe as a development of this, and perhaps an overspilling of enthusiasm for the location painting and sketching, but I found myself daydreaming about making original art when I go out and paint on location. So instead of painting in sketchbooks, I could paint on nice paper, and perhaps even sell it?! I’ve always let that beast imposter syndrome get in the way when it comes to selling original art. But I am quite a few years into my practice now, and I get a fair few enquiries about it these days, so I am going to be brave and go for it! I actually made my first piece yesterday, and I filmed a bit of the process. Keep you eyes peeled for that - it will be my next video.

Which reminds me of this meandering and slightly random, but also, I suspect, connected revelation:

A live lived in fear is a life half lived!

This was one of my wandering thoughts while I was away. When I first left work to become a freelance illustrator, it was very much a leap of faith. I had no idea how I would support myself, I wasn’t all that realistic or methodical about it. I knew that if I looked too closely at the logistics of it I would probably work out it was a terrible financial decision. Which is why I just closed my eyes and jumped! But 5 years down the line, it can’t be denied that although it has been hugely creatively rewarding, financially, it has been challenging. I think at some point last year I began to lose faith that I would be able to make anything but a meagre living as an illustrator. But as I rested and restored on holiday - and chatted to my fabulous friend Tor, I began to realise that I was slightly giving up, and resigning myself to being forever tight for cash. But on holiday, I found myself thinking - why am I thinking like that?! If I don’t try, I will never know!

una vida vivida con miedo es una vida vivida a medias
a life lived in fear is a life half lived

(any excuse to share this! Do I want to be a gutless wonder? No, I do not!)

So, I am going to keep going! I am going to keep being brave and trying new things, stay open to possibilities, and if I can, keep the blinkers off. I want to make illustration AND wander around and draw on location (get lost in coridoors and eat cardboard chips in the middle of the afternoon!).

I know this has been another trademark Ella creative ramble (I used to record videos I called “creative rambles” on my Patreon, maybe I should bring them back*), but if you have managed to reach the end, firstly, hello! Nice to see you here, and secondly, I hope some of my post holiday energy has been passed on to you!

Until next time…

Ella xx

* it is my intention to transfer all of my backlist of videos from Patreon over here, but it is a big job. I guess I need to just go slowly and methodically. Watxh this space!