In March 2024 I received funding from the Arts Council from the Developing Your Creative Practice fund.
My intention was ‘to recalibrate my picturebook process, to immerse myself in original creative making, written process/flow & risk-taking’. (Pedler, C, DYCP application Dec 2023). To essentially become Author and Illustrator after 24 years of illustrating other peoples characters and stories.
Today is the first day working on the project, development and I am totally winging it! I am trusting that whatever I choose to do is authentic, a natural part of my process, while being progressive. I have chosen to document and share the process throughout. With no real knowledge of how yet, other than buying a set of 3 Moleskine plain journals, writing this blog and sharing on the usual socials. The rest will evolve naturally.
Why can’t you write your own books without the funding? Well, working two days a week at University with all the very cerebral energy that takes, and working freelance the rest of the week means that there is little time or inclination to work on unpaid, personal work. Importantly I have realised that I need momentum and continuity to commit to anything of value and not sporadic moments. Meaning that fitting it into an already sporadic structure of freelance was unreliable. So the only way I felt would work was replacing my two non-consecutive uni days with two consecutive days for my project, over a year. The funding and associated support from Arts University Plymouth also makes me accountable, to build in a pressure that will drive me forward, to take it seriously and to believe that my peers believe in me and are invested in the process and the outcome. A little like working to a brief as I am used to professionally. Being successful in getting the funding validates my activity and gives me permission to fully safeguard this time from exterior and interior distractions.
Not meaning to sound cocky, but writing a successful application felt inevitable, mainly because it fitted like a glove into the trajectory I have been on since 2009, along with the feeling of it being now or never and failure was not an option. It was so important that I got this funding, to give me a break from the feeling of swimming against the stream, having only the small gaps in between paid work and life admin to make the authentic, meaningful work I craved to put out into the world. So because this funding was my only path to meaningful progression, I started writing my application 3 months before the deadline. Having ADHD meant I was able to access support and although I didn’t choose an ADHD specialist, having someone who knew the drill to check in with, was invaluable, giving me a better chance of success. Working with Tonia Lu, who I had worked it on successful Cultivator bids previously, and roping in my good friend, Sasha Dobrota who had previously written successful bids, was instrumental in my success. The doubt about my ability to complete the application surged when work got so busy and my ADHD and Dyslexia flared its ugly head, where time seemed to clam up and I had less and less time to do it. With an odd hour here and there to work on it in between freelance work and Uni commitments, nowhere near optimum conditions for me, I was adamant I would apply, so it had to work.
I created this illustrated timeline to help me and my support people to grasp and highlight where I was at and what I needed from the funding.
So to back track for a few paragraphs and put this into context, I have been on this same trajectory since August 2008, when I went to see the MA Illustration-Authorial Practice final show at Falmouth School of Art, (Falmouth Uni). It was here that I found the thing I didn’t know I wanted. To find my personal and professional visual language, to create work that meant something to me first and then the client. To have authenticity and integrity in my process and application and step away from the commercial treadmill I was on. (The same still applies but now more focused and nuanced). I applied and got in and thankfully won a bursary for my first year. It was ‘meant to be’ and the course felt as though it was made specifically for me and would later do wonderful things for me, which I am still reaping today.
So moving forward to 2016, five years after graduating, where I was a little tired of going round in circles with my personal visual language, not really getting anywhere and producing lots of different styles, so I set myself a year long project (Collage 366) that would set me on the second phase of the current trajectory. I committed to making an image a day for a year, which turned into making a collage a day around day 25. Posting to Instagram for accountability. Around day 300 onwards there was a strong continuity between the artworks, with the right energy and character that I was after. The style that evolved was a total surprise and not what I expected my work to look like, but I had finally found the methods of making that was in harmony with my love of shape and painted texture, which felt brilliant! Ureka!
How did it work I hear you say?
It worked because of the repetition, of committing to making, to practice and practise on a daily basis. I was in momentum. Only through creating on a daily basis was I able to slowly shed all my exterior influences. To exhaust my thinking brain so my creative sensibilities could show me the way. Only through paying attention to my sensitivities and sensibilities, to material, application and feeling, could I see, feel and understand my ‘true’ lines of creative inclination and decision making. Being able to recognise authentic decisions versus those influenced by others, giving me the strong foundations of creative integrity and inclination I needed.
I spent 2017 putting this new way of working into action, specifically for the Bologna Children’s Book Fair Illustrators Exhibition call out. My commercial work had been at the fair for years, but not my new work. So, looking closely at previous works of art from the exhibition as a quality benchmark to compare my work in progress to, I worked hard to match my new work to the exhibition standard. Using a series of artworks around a picturebook character I had created, I was successful on my application and in 2018 my work was part of the world renowned Illustrator’s Exhibition and world tour. This was the start of a stream of international opportunities with those picturebook artworks, exhibiting in Italy, Russia, Shanghai and back to Italy and a couple of world tours.
In 2019 I built a new studio in my garden and took 3 months away from paid work to complete the picturebook story that had done so well. (This was risky and unsustainable but I was so committed I took that risk). In 2022 the finished book was successful in the DPictus unpublished Showcase in Italy with 20 publisher votes and tons of feedback. At this point I had got as far as I could on my own and couldn’t afford to take anymore time away from my freelance work. I was tired of pushing and now needed some serious income and a meaningful amount of paid time to work on my process.
Coming back to today and remembering March 12th 2024 and that email telling me I was successful for the DYCP Fund, I am feeling elated and in full trepidation to start this project today. I feel excited that all my actions have led to this moment so far and there’s more to come. My end goal being to be a celebrated author / illustrator of my own stories that represent me fully and impact the reader positively, published by a reputable and well known publisher. To be published in my home country after 20 years of being mostly co-edition (foreign rights).
Writing about starting felt like the easiest way in, to be clear on my intentions going forward! Almost a manifesto and an act of commitment, for myself and those supporting me in my time of making, so, here I want to offer my intentions for the year ahead, in no particular order:
to slow down, to look, feel and experience
immerse myself in creative process and play
create and harness creative opportunities, connections & collaborations locally and abroad
maintain a healthy brain and body for creativity to flourish
to maintain strong boundaries and safeguard my creative project days
enhance, enrich and finesse my relationship between analogue process and digital application
weave my fine art sensibilities further into my visual language
create on a daily basis
elevate my writing within my practice and outputs with more confidence and presence
connect with and inspire a new generation to love and look at nature with wonder and curiosity.
with the help of two mentors, build on my storytelling skills and outputs
be in flow, to connect, to enjoy, to play.
Follow my progression on @cpedlerpics and on here and thanks for reading : ) Please do comment and feel free to leave any questions in the comments or message me : )