February Round-up

Where we worked on our portfolios, celebrated the signs of spring and took a colour challenge

Hello! And if this is the first post you’re reading, welcome! This community is growing into something very special, and it means a lot to me that you’re here.

Just to recap, this month's theme was based on Putting Together a Creative Portfolio. More details about why I focused on this topic in my Welcome to February post, but essentially, I decided to add this practical element to the membership this month as I'm in the process of refining my portfolio to submit to agents and thought it would be useful for anyone doing the same. 

If you’re not working on your portfolio now but plan to in the future, don’t worry as all the posts and videos from this month are in the archive so if you’re a paid member, you can come back to them at any time. 

This month I shared my portfolio development across two posts, each including a video where I explain the processes I went through.

Part 1 featured lots of portfolio advice, from me and three special guest contributors, @rajkaurartist @sarahdyer_illustrator and @davidbarrowillustration

I’m so grateful to them for sharing their words of wisdom! 🤩

I feel I’ve made good progress on ‘polishing up’ my portfolio, sharing it with you here has been a huge help and has kept me motivated.

I’m now at the stage where I’ve identified gaps and made a list of new work to complete and the next task is to make myself a (loose) schedule over the coming months to get these pieces completed. I look forward to sharing this work with you along the way!

Did you work on your portfolio this month? If so, how’s it going?

I had planned to run a co-working session this month to work on portfolios but I’ve run out of time. However, as I’ll be working on my new pieces over the coming weeks/months, I’ll set one up in March if there’s enough interest:

Celebrating a milestone 🥳 

Time has flown since I launched this membership, it’s been 6 months since I put The Creative Flock out in the world and it feels like a second home to me now. I’ve learnt so much in this time, through sharing here and collaborating with others my creative work has come on leaps and bounds.

A huge thank you to everyone who is here and contributing to this community. Whether that’s as a free subscriber, paid subscriber, a follower or if you’ve liked or commented on any of these posts or in our chat threads, it all helps bring this space to life and I couldn’t do it without you.

As an extension of my thanks, I would like to offer you 25% off The Creative Flock membership for a whole year.

Highlights from this month:

I’ve always believed that collaboration is essential as a creative, but it can be tough to do when you’re a freelancer, in a company of one. Opportunities aren’t always easy to come by, but on Substack, I’ve been thrilled to find so many people who are open to working together.

This creative challenge with @RAJ KAUR is the second collaboration since establishing The Creative Flock 6 months ago and it’s been a fantastic experience.

We set ourselves a challenge to get out of our ‘comfort palettes’ and here we share our results with an invite for subscribers to take part too.

This collaboration has taught me new ways of approaching my creative work and Raj has inspired me with her passion for colour. Specifically, I came away with a newfound love of fuchsia pink!

If you would like to share work created during this challenge, please tag me on Instagram @emmaillustrates or Raj @rajkaurartist

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‘Signs of Spring’ drawing session

Our Signs of Spring drawing session was one of this month's highlights and I thoroughly enjoyed using some brighter, spring colours in my sketchbook.

Signs of Spring drawing session - replay

If you caught up on the replay and would like to share your work, use this chat thread or you can share on Instagram by tagging me @emmaillustrates or using hashtag #thecreativeflock and I’ll share to my stories.

This sketch was created during the session using inks and pencils in a Pith sketchbook.

By supporting The Creative Flock, you allow me to devote more time and energy to the membership and to my own creative practice. Thank you for your support ❤️

From my sketchbooks..

Here’s a few drawings from my sketchbooks this month.

‘Woman with Bethlehem in the background’. From the replay of Sarah Dyer’s 2nd Palestine fundraiser drawing session.

‘Palestinian Sunbird’. From Sarah Dyer’s 3rd Palestine fundraiser drawing session.

‘Shepherd.’ From Sarah Dyer’s 3rd Palestine fundraising drawing session.

Location drawing at Castle Ashby Gardens.

When i’m not drawing i’m..

Reading:

Lia Leendertz Almanac - always a treat to dive into at the beginning of each month, along with the podcast version.

Bitterthorn by Kat Dunn. I picked up this book at last year’s FCBG conference but only just got around to reading it. To my delight, I found I struggled to put it down! It’s a dark fairytale/gothic romance YA novel, ages 12+ but pretty scary and saucy at times.

Listening to:

Chris Hedges Substack - Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and best-selling author who served as a war correspondent for two decades and witnessed first-hand the atrocities of conflicts in the Middle East and Balkans.

Hedges came to Substack as a way to report truthfully and independently about global issues and raise awareness of injustices.

I started to follow his work to get a broader understanding of the situation in Palestine. His substack has a lot of video and audio content and he will create audio versions of his written posts. I often listen whilst drawing from Sarah Dyer’s Palestine drawing session replays.

I’ve also been listening a lot to this Playlist I created last month.

Watching:

Vintage Top of the Pops - Nostalgia to the max!

Poirot - Watching this show makes me feel like I’m heavily medicated. Bliss..

Our Flag Means Death, season 2 - This show has it all - pirates in love, grusome injuries, comedy, brilliant casting, acting, writing and costumes. And Taika Waititi as Blackbeard. Perfection!

And that’s a wrap for this month! I’d love to know what your highlights have been and what you’re most looking forward to in March. For me, it’s longer days, more signs of spring and finally getting a decent, working kitchen 🙌

As always, thank you for your support here, i’ll be back in touch soon with what’s in store for March.