It was Lockdown 2020...
I was on maternity leave from my full time job as HR Manager, my extremely strong willed second born (lovingly nicknamed Feral Fred) was refusing to nap and I was trying to teach fractions to an 8 year old. Most days everyone was crying before 9am and by 3pm I was sat back sipping wine asking Alexa for the answers to my son's school work.
It was extremely stressful and not sustainable.
I needed a distraction...
My Dad introduced me to a drawing app called Procreate which I soon became hooked on . I hadn't sat down to draw in a good 10 years and certainly never tried digital art but I fell in love with it. It suited my lifestyle as I could pick up and put down anywhere.
I was a little uninspired as what to draw initially so I took pictures of my very wriggly baby and had fun doodling on the outtakes, creating scenes (as shown here) and sharing them with my friends online.
Animals were always my favourite subject to draw back at college though, especially monkeys which I love, so I started to draw them and I got the idea to turn some of the pictures in to cards.
With no way of printing them myself, I approached card company Thortful and was accepted as a creator in June 2020.
Whilst I researched how to print cards myself, I was approached by a friend who wanted me to draw her favourite gin bottles in this splatter style she'd seen that she liked. I gave it a go and they were a success.
I received a couple more requests from someone else and then more and more and the portfolio grew. I joined Etsy in 2021 and launched my own website at the end of the same year (www.picsandsquiggles.com)
I never returned to work at the end of my maternity leave in September 2020 for a number of reasons and that's how it all began....
Feel free to comment with any questions or anything else you'd like to see in my blogs!