My guide to live fashion illustration at events - Part 1
Really just a massive pep talk......
Soooo many followers have come my way due to
kindly recommending me via her Illustrators Job Board. And so whilst this isn’t really an advice page for illustrators, I thought I’d do a useful guide to my style of live illustration - fashion illustration at events.So far this year I’ve taken £22k from live illustration alone, it’s been my best first 6 months ever. This hasn’t happened by accident, it’s taken hard work and many years of it too. I’m seeing lots of people try and break in to the area and I want to be helpful to those people, but also I want to protect the industry so that prices don’t go backwards due to people undercharging.
This is part 1, please add any further questions in the comments (not via DM ideally as I lose track) and I’ll come back with part 2.
WHAT IS LIVE ILLUSTRATION?
My version of live illustration is creating 10 minute illustrations of people at events. Mostly full length fashion illustrations, sometimes portraits, sometimes drawings of dogs or customisation. I’ve worked at Selfridges, St. Pauls Cathedral, V&A Museum, and at some dazzling private parties. I’m currently Artist in Residence at The Kensington Hotel and at Emma Festival at Jane Austen’s House.
HOW DID YOU GET IN TO IT?
In 2011 ish I was featured in Grazia & Look Magazine as I’d been watching what editors were sharing on Twitter from catwalk shows and doing quick drawings that I then shared publicly (this was before this stuff was happening on Instagram). Arieta (
) and Melissa from River Island Press department got in touch and asked if I thought I could do these quick drawings of editors and bloggers (they weren’t called influencers at that point) live at their press launch. I gave it a go, it went really well and I started getting similar bookings.HOW DID YOU FIND YOUR STYLE?
My style has evolved naturally over the years, but my previous job as a fashion designer means I’m always drawn to an outfit - silhouette, pattern, colour and accessories. I get a fairly good likeness of people in 10 minutes but lots of that comes down to me being good at capturing someone’s stance and mannerisms.
HOW CAN I FIND MY OWN STYLE?
When you are drawing a different person every 10 minutes for 4 hours non stop then there is no way of being consistent unless you really are working in your own style. There is room for everyone - brands are always looking for something new / people are getting married every year - so I urge you not to get hung up on what other artists are doing or what materials they use. Get 12 photos of people who look different to each other ready on your phone or 12 friends happy to stand and pose, set a timer and get drawing each one within 10 minutes without stopping. Try different art materials and approaches, try portraits and full length, try limited colours and different ways to draw faces (please draw faces). Look at these 12 pieces and work out which look good, then do the whole exercise again. There is no short cut to this. I’m not holding back on the magic potion recipe that will make you a successful live illustrator, you just have to get messy and find your own way. Once you find what you like using at speed, then do more of this work and call yourself an illustrator who specialises in eg. realistic profile portraits of people in metallic pens, or full length stylised illustrations using collage etc. Don’t do a mash up in style of the work of two illustrators that you like, we have AI for that crap now….
WHY IS IT 10 MINUTES?
I have brands come to me frequently saying things like, ‘can you do do 3 hours at our event and cover all 180 guests?’. And I go back and explain that no, that’s one drawing every 60 seconds. I just stick firm with what I know I can achieve well, which is 10 minutes. Really this is probably 7 minutes of drawing time, then there’s the time that’s spent taking the picture, chatting to guests, dropping and picking up my pen, sipping water, moving my table when my location becomes a dance floor, popping to the loo, explaining to someone that I’m not in charge of the cloakroom, pretending to re-draw a bit whilst someone takes a video for social media etc. I know that still alongside all interruptions I can always average 10 minutes. If you can go faster and your style lends to it then great! If you need 15 minutes or more then say that (I ask for this for watercolour dogs, for example).
HOW DO I GET IN TO LIVE ILLUSTRATION?
I think it’s useful to work out which area your personality and work is a good fit for before doing anything, as live illustration is a mixture of those two things. I have a commercial fashion background so understand the aims of an event, how to ensure my illustrations are on brand, and feel confident interacting with the general public as well as famous people. I prefer to work by taking photos of guests, sitting out of the way if I can and working on the artworks. I’m really happy to have people look over my shoulder, take videos, ask questions but I’m not an entertainer as such. I don’t really enjoy doing weddings unless they are quite tame, have a wedding planner or it’s at a venue I know.
But would you prefer to be right in the middle of all of the fun, moving around the venue as the evening unfolds? Is the thing that makes you tick capturing people drinking champagne posing with their friends, chatting to you whilst you paint? Are you able to work lots of summer weekends and travel a lot and are happy to be booking dates in 2 years time? Then maybe wedding and private parties could be your match. Make sure your portfolio shows drawings of couples, groups, people dancing and looking glamorous!
Would you prefer to sit in peace and quiet during the day time and spend a little longer on a sophisticated pared back portrait? Then maybe luxury retail could be for you. Perhaps show you can do some portraits in black and white, but also full colour, one could highlight a diamond earring or silk neck scarf, or perhaps the person could hold a perfume bottle.
Once you’ve worked on what your best work looks like and who you think it would be a good fit for then it’s time to be strategic with how you contact people.
HOW DO I FIND CLIENTS?
Firstly make it clear on your website and on social media that you’re a live illustrator specialising in eg. cartoon illustrations of shoes using neon pens, write it in your bio and pin relevant work. If you want to work with brands then consider which brands might hire you. Follow them on instagram if you want (but a lot of brand accounts are run by agencies so it’s not a great way in to be honest), look up that company on Linked In, see which people work there, and follow those in marketing and events. If it’s weddings you fancy then look up venues local to you first. If you can find email addresses then send them some of your work. Direct people to your website, keep improving your work, keep posting on social media, keep approaching new people, try different things, repeat, and repeat again, and again. This is what freelance life is like.
I don’t get on with spreadsheets & routines and can’t take information in I hear on podcasts, but other people might suggest those things are the backbone of their business - there is no one size fits all.
Make other friends in the industry & genuinely encourage them, recommend other people you think are great when you can’t do a job (please feel free to put my name forward for jobs!), say thanks to the client after an event, don’t actively go after someone else’s clients or emulate how they present themselves online, be a good person, do a good job.
HOW MUCH SHOULD I CHARGE WHEN I HAVEN’T DONE IT BEFORE?
I urge you not to take an event with your fingers crossed, hoping that you can pull it off. As above, practice loads beforehand with friends or with images you find online. Be really confident with the drawing part before you get there, the new thing on the night should be the interactions with people you don’t know & unexpected things that might happen (oh the stories I could tell).
Once you are confident with your work and have got yourself event ready, then consider the time this has taken, maybe you’ve studied illustration, what have you paid out on materials, do you hire a studio, do you need new equipment for the event like pens or a lamp or an easel, how many back and forth emails (from your expensive laptop) did it take to get the event confirmed, how long did it take you to write a deposit invoice, did you write a booking agreement, were you asked for proof of public liability insurance? The event is only 3 hours but how long will it take to travel to the event, what time will you get there to set up, what happens if it runs over a bit, will you miss your train? If you get sick last minute could your best friend step in for you, or your Dad? No, you’d need to recommend someone who is really excellent at drawing who is also good at working with people and thinking on the spot. A person deserves to be paid well for that level of skill. That person is you.
I started at around £150 per hour over 10 years ago, which works out at £25 for a completely unique bespoke hand painted artwork. I now charge double that plus travel costs. I sometimes do private commissions from my studio that cost £250 for an A5 artwork, so £50 at an event is very reasonable. Some illustrators charge more than that, some less, I can only share my rates. The only person that is ever going to give you a pay rise is you, as a freelancer you set your rates. And with illustration sometimes your younger years are your best ones for income, things might slow down due to family commitments or illness. So charge now what you feel your drawings are worth. People like me are earning well from being artists and that’s not been an easy thing to make happen, so don’t pull the value of live work down by undercutting or doing events for free. Price what your work is worth, turn down work that isn’t fair, if you do give a discount for some reason then show that on the invoice.
So, hard hitting stern pep talk over - I think that’s it for part 1. Any burning questions then please post those below and I’ll return with part 2.
This has been free for all to read, but I do put some posts behind the paywall. Coming soon to my paid subscribers is my very open quarterly earnings round up, so if you are keen to see how much I’ve taken this past 3 months and where that’s come from then please sign up for a month, you can cancel whenever you like. Here’s my last quarterly earnings update, this was a cracker.
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Niki
Absolutely stunning work, and stunning advice too - thank you!
Fabulous illustrations and tips. You are so right to add in time for all those micro actions they add up and are necessary!