It’s Official!

Last summer I had the privilege of hosting a workshop at an illustration conference, ICON 12. ICON is the only illustration-focused conference in the nation and is full of inspiring artists, speakers, and events. On the last morning I ran into Salli Swindell, whom I know from the wonderful instagram page @theydrawandcook. We had never met in person before, but knew each other’s work. We talked a bit and continued our conversation after the event.

As co-founders of Illustrators For Hire, a curated directory of Illustrators, Salli and her brother Nate had a great talk at ICON 12 about embracing the business side of art. It was the perfect conversation for me to hear since I had just started thinking about building my website and trying my hand at freelance illustration. I found it super helpful to hear their tips & tricks. Later, I took one of their Pro Series courses about search engine optimization and learned a few things that were instrumental during my website building. Salli encouraged me to join IFH and get my personal work out there. So here we are. I am now a member of Illustrators For Hire! This is one of many steps I will need to take to promote the type of work I want to do, but I am excited for this new adventure.

Why do I want to do freelance? Though I am still happily employed at Hallmark, I now have a little more time to work on my own visual style guide and personal projects. Over the last few years I have been painting more and more in my free-time. I am grateful that it began without any sort of agenda, project, or goal in mind. This freedom gave me a lot of time to develop a body of work that truly comes form my own point of view. You can read a bit more about my goal with freelance illustration in my artist statement or scroll down to the Q&A on my IFH page. I am grateful and happy to take these first steps into the freelance world.