6 Mistakes You’ll Make As A Live Event Illustrator

Forgetting You’re an entertainer first and an artist second

This is advice an illustrator on my course got from a caricaturist ‘you’re an entertainer first and an artist second’, and even for us live event fashion illustrators it’s absolutely true. When you’re being booked for an event, especially private events such as Weddings, birthday parties, launch parties, it’s to provide some form of entertainment or something for the guests to do and keep them occupied and happy at an event.

So this saying is a great reminder for 2 crucial things, 1, you’re there to entertain people, you’re not there to be the moody struggling artist who is fighting the canvas to capture the true essence of the sitter, you’re there to be happy, smiley and a pleasure to be around. You need to make sure the process of sitting for an illustration is as joyful as receiving the finished sketch. So you need to be able to communicate with people whilst you draw, otherwise it’s a very awkward 10 minutes of silence and staring.

The second thing it’s a great reminder for is that the purpose of you illustrating these guests is for them to walk away with a portrait they’re happy with, not for you to create something that’s creatively fulfilling. Those don’t always have to be separate, but what will make a good painting or portrait isn’t always what makes a flattering depiction of the sitter.

Francis Bacon, Giacometti, Modigliani all might have produced incredible expressive portraits that capture the personality of the person, but they’re not flattering for the sitter. No one gets dolled up for a party or wedding just for an artist to spend 2 minutes drawing in all their wrinkles because they think it’ll make a ‘distinguished portrait’.

Only focusing on getting new clients

Depending on where your focus is on live events, if you’re wedding focused then it might seem obvious that you constantly need to look for new clients unless you’re hoping every bride does a Britney or a Kim and gets divorced a few days later so you can then illustrate at their second or third wedding.

But a lot of live event artists are focused on always generating new clients, forgetting about all the existing clients you have. Even if you illustrated at their wedding it doesn’t mean the job has to be one and done.

Think baby showers, birthday parties, Christmas do’s… or even think outside of event work and think commissions, stationary etc, if someone had you at the biggest day of their lives, they might want to keep it a running theme and have you create an illustration for all their milestones; babies, getting a house, 40th birthday… that client can be a recurring commissioner.

It’s much easier to market/pitch to an existing client than it is to always scramble to find new ones, so think of emailing any brands you’ve previously worked with. Also think of ways to extend your product offering so there’s a reason for older clients to book you again. Careers are established around gaining a decent amount of repeat clients, so don’t pass up these potential opportunities.

Taking anything to heart

I mostly mean this for any harsher comments you might hear from people at an event, but I also mean it for the compliments to. First off, the harsh comments…

Any live event you do, you’re basically drawing 40 strangers who have never heard of you or seen your work. The chances of all 40 people absolutely loving everything you do are small, the same way if I played everyone at that party what song was currently no.1 in the charts, it’s doubtful that all 40 will love it, everyone has different tastes and that’s normal. So any comments you hear that aren’t all that favourable about your work, don’t let it bother you.

Most of the time we’re illustrating the general public, and a lot of the general publics way of gauging whether something is good or not is by how realistic it is. If you showed them a hyperrealistic drawing, they’d think you’re a genius, however if you showed them Picasso’s work, they’d think their 4 year old could have done it.

So when your work is stylised and different, don’t be too worried if not everyone adores it. The world’s most popular ice cream flavour is vanilla, does it mean vanilla’s the best flavour? No. Does it mean vanilla is more palatable for the most people? Yes, there’s a difference!

Now onto the other side of the coin… don’t take too many compliments to heart either.

I know I’m sounding a lil scrooge like and I don’t want to piss on anyone’s bonfire, but most people you draw and see at a live event cannot draw, so anything they see is going to be a certain level of magic to it, which is great! But that also means if everyone’s calling you a genius, incredible, talented, a godsend, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.

There’s nothing wrong with taking a compliment, the issues come in when you start believing the hype. Ego will be the death of your business, so don’t get too big a head but vice versa, don’t cry on the way home if someone didn’t like their sketch.

Undercharging

This is a big one! I’ve done a whole post about it which you can read here, but the main thing is; if you charge a low rate to a client, it’s incredibly hard to then increase that rate in future, and if that client gives you new clients via word of mouth, they’ll probably want the same rate as you gave to the first client. So you’ll be caught up in a spiral of undercharging that’s very tricky to get out of.

So value your time, your talent and your business. Drawing at live events doesn’t have to solely pay your bills straight away, it took me 7 years of balancing live events and a 9-5 to then have enough work coming in to live off. Taking that 6 hour event for £200 might seem like a great idea when your rents due next week, but if you already have a job that pays your rent, then you can be more confident in charging your worth and not underselling yourself until you build up enough clients.

From someone that used to undercharge, and tried making a living from doing £40 commissions after moving to London, trust it’s much easier to charge the correct amount and wait until the clients build up, than it is to scramble to find 50 people each and every month that want a £40 drawing.

Being too routine

Doing live events you’ll get a lot of curve balls thrown at you, I think this is less common in Weddings but brand events it’s a definite. People will ask you to draw their dog into the drawing, to draw them in a different outfit than the one they’re wearing, to draw a background, to draw them in a different pose, to draw their partner next to them, to draw in the bag they’ve just bought.

All these things can and will pop up, so if you’re live illustration is built too rigidly around a routine or a template e.g. same pose for every person, same process every time, same template you use, then these requests are going to really push you over the edge and you might even turn down the person asking. Which is in the luxury brand world is a huge no no.

So to be the best live illustrator you can be, you need to be prepared for anything and everything that might be thrown at you, so you need to be fundamentally a good artist.

If you can only draw hands in one way but someone wants to be holding their drink in their drawing, you might just panic and spiral. Whereas if you’re a good artist and not just creating work that’s good for a 10 minute sketch, then not a lot will phase you.

I cover all these situations and scenarios in my Live Event Masterclass, a lot of illustrators have taken that course before doing their first event, then messaged me after doing their first event telling me how well it prepared them for it, so if you wanna get ready, there’s one space left here

Focusing too much not the business and not enough on your art

This leads me onto this topic. When you’re self employed / freelance it’s very easy to get caught up in the business side of things you can spend a whole day just updating the website, replying to people and dealing with invoices. You can also focus fully on the marketing, so only thinking about posting on social media, emailing pitches and things like that.

But something that it all comes back to is illustration, the physical drawing that someone gets, that is your product. And we’ve all bought from a business that goes all in on marketing, only to receive the product and be disappointed. So what you don’t want to do is be so focused on the business side of things that you forget about your craft.

It’s funny because I’m normally moaning at people for focusing too much on the art and not on marketing, but what I’ve noticed with a lot of live event illustrators is that the marketing will be the focus but they’ll forget to hone their craft.

The better at drawing you are the more likely you are to get hired, simple as. So you must focus on improving your product and skills because the worst thing you can do is stagnate, you’ll get bored, your clients will get bored and your followers will get bored.

Focusing solely on marketing will get you jobs in the meantime but quality is what stands the test of time, so hone the craft!

And that’s me done!

So I did mention my Live Event Masterclass above, it begins Monday, there’s space for one more illustrator to join, have a read about the course by clicking here

If you want more help on live event illustration have a look below to see what course can help you out:

Career Course - Reopening 27th Feb, this course covers everything you need to action as a fashion illustrator to begin getting work and establishing your career.

Wedding Masterclass - This course is designed to broaden your horizons with illustrating bride, groom, couples, families, backgrounds, all within a smaller timeframe to suit illustrating on the day at someone’s wedding.