Towards something bigger...

A quiet shift

There are moments in an artist’s life when something begins to move quietly.

Not with a big announcement.
Not with drama.
Just a slow feeling that the way you have been working no longer fits quite right.

This is where I am at the moment.

Over the past months, I have been learning a lot about how to sell my art so I can keep doing this for a living.
Marketing, strategy, ads, emails, analytics, social media : all the machinery around creative work now.

And honestly, part of me loved it.

I loved understanding how things work.
I loved the idea of building something more sustainable around my art.

But little by little, my studio life started turning into screen life.

My days became videos, ads, newsletters, content plans, numbers.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, I stopped painting.

Not suddenly.
Just gradually.

That has been one of the hardest things to admit.

Because none of it was pointless.
I was learning important things.

But I could also feel the balance had gone too far.

And with that came the uncomfortable questions.

Should I get a job on the side?
Should art become something I do more quietly, next to a more sensible life?

I sat in that space for a while.

Then, through another project, something became clearer.

For the past two years, I have been working on something deeply personal : a book around my dragons.
A project full of storytelling, imagination, and pieces of a world that feels very close to me.

And through that process, I realised what I had been missing most :

the feeling of disappearing into creation.

Making without immediately thinking about results.
Without asking whether it will sell, perform, or fit into a strategy.

Just making.

Just being inside the work.

So when this book is finished, I want to give myself six months to make art for myself.

No pressure to perform.
No strategy attached to it.
No expectation of outcome.

Just this :

exploration : experimentation : research : play

I want to follow curiosity again.
Try new gestures, new tools, new mediums.
Let instinct lead a little more.

Even my studio will need to change with me.
I want more room.
For bigger work.
For freer movement.
For something less contained.

Because lately, watercolour has started to feel… small.

Not without love.
Never that.
But maybe too controlled. Too small, the size of the paper.

After fifteen years with this medium, I know it so well.
I have loved it deeply.
But I can also feel a quiet voice telling me it may be time to step somewhere else.

Towards something bigger.
More physical.
More instinctive.

Maybe this is the moment where I stop seeing myself only as an illustrator, and start allowing myself to become something wider than that.

Simply an artist.

If you have been here for a while, don’t worry.

The soul of my work is not disappearing.
Everything I love is still here : colour, women, emotion, play, boldness, intensity.

It may just arrive differently.

And yes, that feels a little frightening.

But it also feels deeply alive.