I fell into live event illustration over 13 years ago when I replied to a random Twitter call out, and since then I’ve been lucky enough to work with some of the biggest brands in the fashion industry, travelled to various countries to illustrate live and to make a living from doing it.

But you don’t get this long in the tooth without making a few mistakes.

I’ve been doing live events since 2013, I’ve had great events, good events, brilliant events, shite events, events where I’ve even teared up a lil on the way home…

So safe to say I’ve had my fair share of experiences, reactions and even critiques, and I wanted to sum them all up into 5 golden rules for live event illustration.

2021 was my biggest year for illustration earning yet, but there’s still quite a gap between my illustration earning and what I was needing to earn to stay afloat, London’s expensive…

Yet I decided to take the leap and go full-time as a Fashion Illustrator, 2022 was finally the year I could focus 100% on illustration

I’ve been trying to monetise my drawing ever since I can remember… I used to go round my classroom signing friends up for £3 commissions paid in 50p weekly instalments.

An artistic klarna if you will.

This year marks the 13th year since I began doing live events, how I was doing live events at 10 years old is unreal really xoxo

But over the years you pick up things, you notice patterns, you learn stuff and I wanted to share the 6 most common mistakes I see Event Illustrators making.

When people think of an artist, they picture someone at an easel, palette in hand, spending hours pacing to and from the canvas perfecting that single brush stroke that ties everything together.

That’s a luxury rarely afforded to us in the fashion illustration biz.

I’m a weirdo that always finds January exciting, I plan my year and sit in a lil delulu bubble and dream up everything I want to achieve over the next 12 months.

But I know it’s easy to sit here and just bark at people saying they should be charging more… but pricing in the creative industry is a tough one.

It’s something few people are transparent about it, not many people’s prices are available publicly and there’s a million and one things that can impact someones rate such as followers, representation, previous clients, style, location.