How It Grew... (MARCH 2024)

So, it's 2020 and I’m living on the other side of the world in a lockdown. I’ve started making sales through print-on-demand websites and my confidence is slowly growing...

Late 2020 I’m asked something that feels HUGE. A company want me to create an illustration for their merchandise. I feel so over-my-head and I WAY undercharge, but someone wanted my work! I later find out they sold over 2000 items with my designs on. Absolutely insane. It was a big confidence boost, and the start of my taking professional commissions.

At this point I’m spending everyday in lockdown drawing and binge watching Netflix (think Bridgerton, Tiger King, whatever the internet was obsessed with at the time…), so my portfolio expands rapidly. Despite being stuck at home, I’m learning about the beautiful wildlife of Australia through googling and drawing. From kangaroos to kookaburras, I became fascinated with the many weird and wonderful creatures down under.  

By 2021, it's time for the next big step; physical products. I purchase some blank card stock and a cheap printer, and experiment with printing my illustrations on cards to post to family in the UK. I set up on Etsy, selling greetings cards to customers in Australia. Then I join an artists collective – a physical shop where creatives share the cost of the rent.

Over the next two years I would join several more of these collective shop spaces, and reach hundreds of Etsy sales. Constantly learning and improving. And often beating myself up if sales weren’t what I expected. I was still struggling with my health, and feeling guilty for the fact that I was jobless in a foreign country, even if my creations were starting to bring in a small income.

Come late 2022 my illustrative style was refined, and demand was high enough to justify the costs of ordering products rather than printing them at home, so the next milestone was reached: outsourcing!

I worked with a brilliant Australian company, Print Together, to get my designs printed on stationery made from entirely recycled materials. Allowing me to expand beyond just greetings cards. Soon I was stocking notebooks, bookmarks, gift tags, art prints and more. I became proud of the standard of what I was selling (yes, it took three years). I started doing markets, I registered for wholesale websites, and that’s when things started to take off…

Final part coming soon...