The life of a freelance illustrator is akin to being on a permanent job hunt. My cottage industry, started on a whim, is a proverbial revolving door, with projects and new clients flying in and out, delivering a query, a challenge, some inspiration, plenty of enthusiasm and eventually, a check in the mail.
Whimsy, luck, contacts, networking, word of mouth: who knows how anyone finds me, but find me they do. The result? A fabulously creative life amidst once little, now grown children, a consortium of odd dogs and cats, and a history of warm, wonderful clients & work achievements that would make anyone sit up and think I was cooler than I really am.
I mull over my cache of original art, organized in a system that is hardly even a system: it’s one that only I understand. Stumbling now and again over a newly discovered bundle of sketch treasures, each triggers a memory of a moment in time when the phone rang, a neighbor stopped by, the mailman delivered, a fax arrived, an email request pinged “You’ve Got Mail”: all the clarion calls of beautiful and much appreciated new collaborations, and the assurance that yes, I could swing it as a freelance artist & illustrator, make a living and raise three adorables from home.
Call me a conductor. Like a maestro wildly waving a pen in the air, tossing lines on paper, reaching instinctively and methodically for color markers, bold watercolors, paints, inks, brushes, fine point drafting tech pencils over scads of pads, rolls, tablets and books of blank paper, my little orchestra, each held in my hand in a cacophony of lines, hues, patterns and pochés, pop magically from nowhere, into a something, that takes me, and my happy clients, precisely where we’d dreamt of going.
Yes, I’m open for business. Books, Magazines, Travel Sections of adored newspapers, Stationery, Logos, Letterhead, Bedding, Household Goods, Calling Cards, Gift Wrap, Table Top, Travel Themes, Architecture, Patterns & Framed Art Prints. You name it, I’ll draw it. I’ve got itchy fingers, an imagination that shows no sign of quitting, fat stacks of archival paper ready for the tip of a pen, and the creative soul that feeds on new, new, new!
Don’t be shy: I’d love to hear from you.
M.
m wood pen 