2010 Review

I did not blog as I said I would in 2010. I was busy getting use to the schedule of the freelance Illustrator.

My sleep schedule is that of a vampires and there are friends I haven't seen in a year, but I still love what I do. I feel like after a year of freelance work I have this life/work scheduling balance more in control .

In 2010 I worked on 3 full length pictures books. That's about all I could have tackled in that first year. These books are, "No more Bullies", "Eat Your Breakfast or Else", and "A Daddy's Dream". All completed in different mediums and styles that seemed to best fit the books. I am versatile, which helps get me jobs for now, but I've been refining my own voice as a illustrator to have a more distinguishable/sell able style.

I'm still working with very small publishing houses. Theses houses release 1-3 children's books per year, so they are tiny. The good thing about being the reliable person at a tiny publishing house, is sometimes you illustrate all of their books for the year. That produces solid work for me.

2010 also found me applying my illustration style to larger format canvas's for galleries. I ended up with one show and one painting sale. I hope 2011 will find me in more gallery group shows, leading to an eventual solo show.

In 2010 I made about $15,000 from my art. Granted this is a $50,000 per year pay cut for now, but I loved the past year. It really tested if I could do this, and I really think I can. My goal this year is to surpass my earnings from last year and have a little more of a liveable wage so I can rebuild my savings again. Remember Slow and Steady wins the race!