It has been an incredible year for me. I completed an illustration project which was a great experience. I now have experience of illustrating for black and white chapter books and colour picture books which was always my ambition. The upside to the experience was that it really taught me my limits on how much work I am able to fit in around the family. My confidence in taking on commissions grew enormously as I took all that was thrown at me and did the best I could. Realistically though I learned that full time illustration as a career isn’t appropriate for the stage in life that I’m at.  I am happy to take smaller commissions but the longer ones will have to wait a while. Working around the family meant that my average working hours were between 10pm and 2am. With my husband working from home and keen for company in the evenings I found that it didn’t give me much time to spend with him as I was poring over the computer during all my freetime. I love illustrating and I’m keen to keep the fires burning with my work but long projects simply aren’t suitable for me right now.
Aside from the illustration I have added another string to my bow - glass painting. It is a hobby which I have enjoyed on and off for years and when I began selling a few glasses to friends last December I was amused to find that several friends and family reminded me of glasses that I’d painted for them in the past. I’d painted far more than I’d remembered. A few friends had encouraged me to sell the glasses in the past but I’d still been keen to stick to focussing on the book illustrations. Having experienced the highs and lows of working in book illustration I felt incredibly fulfilled but aware that it meant a huge amount of personal sacrifice which has made me balance up other alternatives. Our children are now 2, 4, 4, 6 and 8. They are at a stage where they really enjoy sharing the children’s illustration that I do but also slightly resentful when it means they get less cuddles when they are poorly as I have a deadline to meet and can’t sit hugging a feverish child for the night and as the money comes in at the end of the project we’re no better off for a long period of time while I’m slaving away. My desire to create, paint and draw is as massive as ever but now I have found a place to be which allows me bring in lots of diverse small commissions which may keep me busy for a week but then I get a break. If things are incredibly busy I can literally shut up shop for a week or two while I catch up or get things straight. With the glassware it’s far easier to work around the family and the children really enjoy coming downstairs in the morning to eat their breakfast with an eye on the Welsh Dresser to see what creations I’ve made during the night. As the glasses are so quick to produce I’ve been able to paint a glass each for the kids and it’s a wonderful gift for their friend’s many birthday parties. It is saving me quite a lot of money!

Most of my sales come through my personal website which I have now adjusted to show both my illustration and my glassware sales:
http://www.louisepoulsom.co.uk/

Here are the glasses which I painted for my girls. I still need to paint a glass for our 4-year-old son. I had painted him a dinosaur but he saw his sister’s glasses and demanded to have a boy glass too so that will follow soon.

I smile now looking back to the days when I worked full time. When I came home in the evening I used to potter around, cooking tea, watching the television, maybe playing a computer game with my husband (then boyfriend) drawing or painting. I used to feel that I had no time. Time is so valuable and so precious. Now, with five children I have less time in many ways but I also have more time. I have to be very reactive with my time when the children are around. They need my attention and that comes on tap. When I have rare moments to myself I almost dissect time like a surgeon and ensure that each second is treasured. If I need to sleep I sleep, if I can work I’ll work. I’m unable to relax too much right now with my deadline looming but it’s fine, I’m really enjoying the work and relishing the dramas of rushing to hit that time slot.

I had an interesting contact from the publisher from my first book. They asked if I’d put in a quote for a second copy. I was pleased to be asked but I knew that once I sat and weighed up the pros and cons of considering the project the scales would tip heavily towards it not going ahead. The publisher was very clear in their message that the budget would be tight, as it had been in the first book. Aside from that they were asking for a quote for black and white and colour. In my last book they had asked me to quote colour but had then gone ahead and used a freelancer to colour the images without letting me know. When the book was published I had mixed feelings when I finally had the copy in my hands. The freelancer had not only coloured my images but had removed line, redrawn lines and even resized images. Without the line the images were very flat. Some of the pictures were okay but there were others which I cringed at and it was strange seeing a book with my name on as illustrator being so vastly altered. Thankfully the coloured cover was my work. I decided not to quote until I had at least clarified one thing to the publisher. I replied with the message that I was working on a project but that if we were going to work together again I would need a signed agreement stipulating that nobody else should modify my work in any way. To his credit the contact replied and apologised for the last project and for going ahead with the colourist without letting me know. They will be finding another illustrator as I am not free. It’s a shame in many ways because I really enjoyed the book, the story was beautifully written and the writer very kindly sent me an email to thank me for my work and told me that I’d drawn one of the characters as she had imagined her. That meant a huge amount. The publisher was good to work with too. He was incredibly demanding and there were many revisions but it was a good lesson in dealing with a publishing house and submitting digital media.

So I’m on the home straight with my current project. My client visited the publisher last week and they were encouragingly positive about the images I’ve produced. They do want revisions. I have a few things to add and alter but I’m more than happy to do that. Thankfully they haven’t asked me to ditch and redraw anything! There isn’t too much more to do but enough to keep me very busy for the next week. I really hope it can be finished in time. I’m doing all I can. I had a night off with exhaustion a few nights ago. I was worried I’d overdone things but was glad when the kids went through the same thing and realised it was a bug. I’m usually very good at pushing myself far. When the children are all at school and there are more daylight hours to work in it should be a HUGE amount easier. Our three-year-old twins are starting nursery five days a week from next Tuesday which is a blessing. The only downside is that my childminder may not be able to look after the baby from March so I’ll have to find someone else or have him pottering around my feet. He’s reaching that awkward stage where he’s pulling himself onto things and getting stuck or falling over dramatically so I think that the hunt may well be on for another childminder at least three afternoons a week so I can get something done. Evenings are so unpredictable with the teething.

Anyway, work to do. I’ve completed another black and white and I’m adding colour this evening. There, I’ve relaxed a few select minutes to share some of the experience now I’ve got to use my remaining minutes to bedtime as constructively as possible!

Ha and there lies the trouble with hitting deadlines with children. Everything is so unpredictable and to add to the interest we have had some ‘extreme’ weather here in the UK. ‘Extreme’ weather can mean literally an inch of snow here in London.  A little snow and the papers are covered with dramatic pictures of motorway queues. We Brits love to get excited about the weather.  This week’s extreme is actually a more interesting five inches of snow. It was enough to close the school for the last couple of days. The children were delighted and we spent  some quality time building snowmen and playing snowballs.  The only trouble is that the snow hasn’t yet melted and even though we have managed to get our elder daughters to school we can’t get to the preschool for the twins  and our childminder isn’t able to cope on the icy roads with baby O and the toddlers she is minding.  With a school holiday taking a further week at the end of the month I’m losing a great chunk of time that I could have been drawing with the children at school, preschool and being childminded. I’m going to have to be very selfish about ignoring demands to get work done in spare five minute gaps between feeding, clothing, watching shows, drinking pretend drinks, admiring lego creations, sorting out disputes and cuddling the baby.

If I can hit this deadline I can do anything! I can see the pictures at the end of the book being a great deal less detailed than those at the beginning! 

To compensate a little for the time loss I worked until three in the morning last night and then baby O spent the remainder of the night grumbling with his sore teeth. I’m feeling slightly drunk with tiredness right now but having finished another drawing I am at least a happy rather than a miserable drunk.

I spoke with the client during the week and we’re focussing well together now. There is the possibility that there may be more books ahead in the series should this one work out. I have learned a great deal doing this book and moving forward I will feel more confident in the processes I use. My best investments during this project were an A3 scanner and a Wacom tablet. At the outset I was gluing scans together like a jigsaw and it was almost impossible. The digital painting using a mouse is sooo much easier and looks so much better. I’m less heavy on the lasso tool now and actually feel a little more like I’m painting rather than toning now. It has given me more confidence and I’m happier using colour now.

Anyway, enjoy the pictures of our snow antics. We don’t often get snow here. The last snowfall was April last year, two days before our youngest was born and I was about as round as the snowman at that point! This time I was able to get my revenge and join in the snowball fight rather than being a waddling target. There are snow scenes in the book I’m illustrating so I suppose I can consider it fun for research purposes!