New Sheffield Prints

Here are some of my latest new prints for my Sheffield Pick & Mix range. Thought I would introduce them here and share why I chose to draw them.

I originally wanted to make a print of Endcliffe Park Cafe after I drew it for my Sheffield Colouring Book, but in the end I decided instead to draw it again from scratch. The park is one of my favourite places to be on a sunny day. Not only is it a perfect picnic spot, but there's the delights of Ecclesall Road and Sharrow Vale Road nearby for fun shops and lovely snacks!

The Rutland is a favourite place of ours to meet friends before going to a gig at The Leadmill. I love the cosy atmosphere, the juke box (with accompanying list of songs banned from the jukebox) and their gorgeous food!

Red Deer because it's another pub I'm very fond of in Sheffield city centre. It feels hidden away, does a good Sunday lunch, and they have board games to play while you wait. What more could you want?

Speaking of food, The Riverside in Kelham Island is another favourite for a Sunday dinner (sensing a theme here?). I love the quote on the sign of the building and seeing it lit up in red, when arriving back from somewhere far away, telling me I'm back in lovely Sheffield.

The Brother's Arms beer garden is a super special spot and well worth walking up a hill for! Lots of space with nice views and lovely dogs whenever I go :)

The Winter Garden print has been on my list for a while - The Makers Shop there was my first proper Sheffield stockist and I'm very proud to still sell there. A walk through the beautiful garden and visit to the Millennium Gallery is a top choice to take Sheffield visitors!

Another for Sharrow Vale Roadies, the Lescar was a fun one to draw. The architecture style is more modern than most pubs I've illustrated, I especially like the font for the name.

I first drew The Bessemer Converter as part of a bigger illustration of Kelham Island Museum. I've isolated it here and reworked it to neaten it up a little... and incase you're wondering what a bessemer converter is, it's a machine which (in my super simple terms) removes impurities from pig iron and converts it into useful steel. Nifty! 

As a piece of art, it refers to Sheffield's proud history of steel production and sits well alongside my other landmarks or Kelham Island icons in the range.

STOCKIST NEWS - Curated Makers opens it's own shop in Meadowhall

I’m SO HAPPY and excited to announce today’s opening of Curated Makers pop up shop (an entire shop!) at Sheffield's Meadowhall shopping centre. It’s quite surreal to see my stock in Meadowhall - I know the place like the back of my hand after spending many a shopping trip there in my youth and beyond! 

As ever, I am amazed by the hard work of Megan and her supportive team to transform this space (previously a menswear store) into a bright and beautiful shop dedicated to showcasing local, independent makers. I’m very proud indeed to have my stock there and urge you all to go have a look!

Being in this beautiful new store along with my other amazing stockists in Sheffield has spurred me on to create new products this Autumn, so please follow along on Instagram to keep an eye out for new delights on their way to the shop shelves soon!

Hello, I have some workshop news! As part of my week in Winter Gardens Pop Up Shop, I’ll be holding a Make Your Own House Portrait workshop! 

You’ll get to use housey themed patterns and elements that I’ve drawn and prepared to make your own collage combination. You’ll come away with your unique creation, ready to frame - for yourself or as a homemade gift for someone you love. 

The workshop takes place in the Pop Up Shop, Sheffield Winter Gardens on the 8th December at 10.30am. Ticket prices are £15 and include a free gift. Read on to find out more or click here to book your place.

The workshop also times with the launch on my new House Collage Pack on the way to my shop this Christmas - a smaller version of some of the materials in the workshop. I’ve wanted to add this to my shop for ages and finally decided now was the time! I’ll let you know when it’s ready… and if you’re coming along to the workshop on the 8th, you’ll get a pack free to take home after.

It’s still in the making, so for now here are a few more examples by me and workshop participants.

As you can see, last time I decided to create my perfect fantasy cafe - the Yorkshire Pud Cafe! I also made a doughnut shop… because I clearly love all things batter based! 

I’m always drawn to the bright coloured papers - they would make lovely pieces for a child’s bedroom! But I also bring along lots of natural colours too, so people can create something cool to match their home (or someone else’s) Click here to visit the Facebook event page for the Create Your Own House Portrait workshop!

The pop up shop is now on Facebook, which has made it all seem extra real! I want to say a massive thankyou to all who liked, commented or showed otherwise their positivity for it - you’ve no idea how much it helped! 

It had been so long since booking it at the start of the year and I have to admit my positivity started to wobble as it finally got closer and I still had so much to do. Posting it on here made me feel like it was definitely happening for real so I might as well enjoy it! 

I would love it if you can continue the support by simply spreading the word - please tell a friend who might be interested and go to the event on Facebook to see updates - more info coming soon on some lovely workshop activities I have planned!

Hello! 

I have some news to share! It’s very big and exciting (and a little bit scary) for me… this year I will be doing no Christmas markets! Instead, I will be setting up my own proper little shop in Sheffield city centre for one week in December, eek!!!

I have lots of plans for how I want to make the space lively and fun, and I’ll be sending out more detail in my newsletter soon, so be sure to sign up here if you want to keep updated!

P.S the image is from my sketchbook when I was at Sheffield Winter Gardens Pop Up Shop with the Handmade Collective earlier in the year! Not a true representation of what to expect 😂

2018 Review: A look back at my first year of full time freelance

Hello!

I hope you are having a lovely shiny new year so far. I had a quiet start back after new year - I was under the weather for a few weeks and then had my head down with a big deadline. So it's a little later than I planned, but I felt I should acknowledge that I've just completed my first year of running my business full time - and reflect and share some of what I've learnt.

To fill you in up to the start of 2018, I'd been illustrating and designing greetings cards for almost seven years, the last five of those years was as a permanent employee (I was freelance before that but mostly for cards still). I worked four days a week, which allowed me time to complete my MA and then, eventually, start my own business. It was hard and I'm so grateful I don't have to juggle both any more. I am much more chilled and happy, feeling like my future is in my own hands.

I'm a big believer in simply 'doing things and putting it out there'. Whether I've posted a picture to my Instagram or made a new industry contact, the little things can all lead to something else. So I like to think that every time I put something out there, I am planting seeds. Some could be magic beans and some might never sprout. So you have to plant a lot of them and spread them far and wide! Having lots of little sprouts that you need to nurture might have much more longevity than one magic beanstalk with a pot of gold at the top.

So, on to looking at my previous year. I definitely don't want to sound like I'm boasting about all my achievements but a.) it's good to look back at all the hard work you've done and where it's got you and b.) I'm not sure who actually reads my blog, so I doubt I need to worry. It's good for me to think about what went well and what I'll do differently and I hope it's interesting or helpful to others who are starting out.

Some big things I've done or learnt in 2018...

Exciting Collaborations

Sharing my work, on Instagram especially, has lead to some lovely collaborations and features on blogs and in magazines in the last year. A job I got through using hashtags on Instagram was illustrating The Strong Girls Colouring Book for Scout - the super strong girl behind Barbells Before Boys. Scout is based in Australia and messaged me after spotting me through hashtags I was using while illustrating A Very Sheffield Colouring Book.

So my tip here is: use hashtags to get your work seen further! A long list of tags might look spammy to some people, but maybe those people work for a company where someone else takes care of the marketing. As a freelance artist, it's your job to promote your own work - and getting it seen by more eyes is way more important than looking cool (in my opinion).

Book Illustrations

This year, I worked on two more books (including a cover - yay!) for Hodder & Stoughton and Little, Brown Book Group. I had a good few meetings to show my portfolio and got lots of feedback from publishers I made contact with. One of the jobs came to me three or four months after a meeting, so it was great to see results long after I had worked to get my work noticed.

I find that sending a physical sample in the post and following up with a phone call is much more effective than sending out a PDF/link to lots of publishers and waiting to see who replies. They get LOTS of emails like that and they are very easy to delete! So you really do have to stand out.

A Very Sheffield Colouring Book

After listening to customer requests at markets (one of the benefits of selling at markets!), I illustrated a colouring book that was all about Sheffield. A new thing for me was that I took pre-orders before it was finished, which funded the first print run! It went down really well and I've had a couple more print runs made since.

See more of A Very Sheffield Colouring Book here

It took a while to find a reliable printers to execute it to the standard it deserved after the hours I'd lovingly put in. I recommend not putting all your eggs in one printer's basket! Get samples and test prints, allow time for things to go wrong and when they do, be a moaning minnie and get it put right. In the end, I found a really good printers, but on one print run, they did have a technical issue which resulted in 300 copies not good enough for me to sell. I donated them to Sheffield Children's Hospital at Christmas, so I hope that lots of poorly children got to enjoy my colouring book over the festive season!

Back to Screenprinting

My move to Sheffield from Barnsley meant that getting to West Yorkshire Print Workshop (where I made my screen prints) would take twice as long. Trying out a new place fell down the priority list and before I knew it, it had suddenly been a year since I'd made any screen prints.

I finally joined Sheffield Print Club late last year and got used to working in a different space. I made a new print of my Tower Bridge, London illustration. Maybe it was because of some of the materials were slightly different to those I'd used previously, but my fine line work wasn't coming out as well at first. I had to take some of the detail away and thicken up some bits. It made a healthy change for me to have to adapt the design as I went and it not come out as I'd originally intended. The most creative things happen when you have to relinquish control!

See more of the London Tower Bridge prints here

It was good to get back to screen printing. I don't go very often, but it's therapeutic to do something so tangible and process driven. And finding new places to work and belong make me feel extra settled and part of the wonderful creative community here, in my new home of Sheffield.

New Stockists

Putting a real effort into approaching new stockists is not one of my strengths and something I could do with addressing this year. So I think I did well considering, to get my pieces into a few new places!

I currently have a small selection in The Cooper Gallery, Walkley Press and Stopwatch Gallery. I was delighted to be accepted to show my work in the Millennium Gallery this Christmas, in their Handmade for Christmas shop. I am very proud to have work in these lovely shops and spaces and maybe this year I will extend the list!

Personal Projects

I had gotten sick of hearing myself say 'I need to draw in my sketchbook more', so last year, I decided I would draw something each day in my sketchbook. I always hear how important it is to practice and that all the amazing illustrators draw every day, but drawing every day isn't easy when you also have admin, emails and quotes that eat up your time.

 

Though I didn't succeed in making it a daily thing, so much good came from what I did. Drawing 'off brief' regularly has made a huge difference to my confidence, speed and skill when I'm illustrating for clients. My personal work got referred to, by clients when briefing me, and helped influence the types of work I got asked to do.

If you're an illustrator/designer who doesn't feel like you're getting the type of briefs you want, doing personal work and getting it seen is a great way to gear the right kind of client work towards you. It may sound obvious, but getting 'pigeonholed' for the wrong kind of work can be a common frustration for commercial artists - but something you can equally use to your advantage if you turn it around and keep projecting what you want.

As well as keeping up off brief work, I have set out to have another go at my sketchbook diary this year. I hope to make it easier to achieve by doing the following:

• Give myself less time to decide what to draw and to draw it (more thinking time = more pressure!).
• Think of the multiple drawings as a whole, so I can easily post a photo or scan of the whole page on my blog (rather than having to assemble them digitally from multiple scans, making it a bigger task to make time for).
• Be less precious. Simply reminding myself that it doesn't have to be perfect or consistent. I have got so much better at this over time, but it has taken training. Sounds obvious I know, but practice really is the best way to overcome this!

What's next

The fact that I mostly have no idea is one of my favourite things about my job. I really enjoy that the year ahead is totally flexible and could go in different directions, depending mostly on what I do, with a sprinkle of chance.

Some things I can already predict for 2019 is that I'm showing my work at London Book Fair in March, in their Illustrator's Gallery - which is really exciting! It's my first time and I'm looking forward to meeting lots of publishers there. I have also made a big, bold move and booked my very own pop up shop for a whole week - more info to come later in the year! I am also going to blog more. I've said it before and it's never been my forte, but I have to blog more! So I'm saying it here and I will try my best.

Other than that, just lots more drawing, sharing what I do and seeing what grows!

Thankyou for reading. Happy 2019!

Sheffield Creative Guild Collage Workshop

On the 22nd June, it was Sheffield Creative Guild's second birthday party - at Yellow Arch Studios in Kelham Island - and I was asked to set up a workshop activity at the same time as having my stall.

I had been thinking about this idea for a while, so it was a great excuse to materialise the idea and give me a starting point for future workshops. Keeping it related to my collection of architectural prints, I knew I wanted to make use of the brick patterns I draw, different house features I like to spot and my enthusiasm for different coloured papers.

I designed various patterns for the collage workshop, as well as printing my black line drawings on to coloured papers. I went out and took photos of bricks and drew different types of doors and windows. I brought along a section of textured papers and card too, making use of a hoard I've stored over the years of bits that were 'too nice to throw away'.

It was so nice to see the variety of styles in the way people put together the textures and images and I received some really good feedback. I was told it was a good activity for an event where people go alone - it made it easy for them to chat to people while making something. Another person said she loved how self explanatory it was - it was very free and social, with no right or wrong ways.

Here are some of the wonderfully unique results that came out of the session...

Dellow's Diary! (...of an Illustrator) Week 1

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hello! I'm sorry I've been quiet for a while (and I'm sorry I've said that before!) but loads of stuff has been happening... apologising for not posting lately is (after today) a thing of the past for me. The last few months of 2017 in particular were a whirlwind of busy-ness, lots of exciting stuff, but it was also exhausting and it was lovely to have a much needed break over Christmas.

I had some really exciting commissions that popped up, including illustrations for a card game and spot illustrations for a humorous non-fiction title. I can't share the artwork just yet, but have other commission work I will share soon.

For now, I'm sharing a new little project I've set for myself. As you may have seen on my Instagram or Facebook, I recently took the leap to full time freelance after working at UK Greetings for the last five years. Aside from live brief work, I knew it would do me good to get into the daily habit of drawing something about my day in my sketchbook. I might share bits as I go along on instagram, but this is more of a blog thing - I'll post a round up here every week.

So, here is my first week of Dellow's Diary! I hope you enjoy!