March Meet the Maker Day 2: How You Started

 I very tentatively started VictoriaDraws in 2015 (??!!!!!!) but was called something different. After getting some artwork printed on a whim, I signed up for Spitalfields Art Market, also on a whim, and had the most amazing weekend selling my illustrations for the first time ever. I was completely blown away by all the love, but I didn’t really know what I was about or what I was doing. I just wanted to draw stuff and hope other people liked it. This lack of clarity meant that I was offering prints featuring anything from sea life to pandas; literally painting the first thing that came into my head and putting it out there.

If you look closely at the photos you might spot my Sperm Whales, Narwhals and Tiny Ocptopuses illustrations. It gladdens me that I still sell some of these early illustrations, but lots of others have fallen by the wayside. There has been a lot of trial and error, and a LOT of money and time spent on things that proved to be not at all worth it. But I guess that’s part and parcel of trying to run a business and not being especially business minded. I am first an foremost an artist, a creative, a maker; not a business mogul.

It has taken me this long to work out what VictoriaDraws is about and what I want it to be. The direction I’m going in feels right, for now, and I’m excited about what the future might hold. I’ll leave you with an image of my Party Prawn card which is one of the very first illustrations I created for my business, the first Etsy listing I ever created and it is still a best seller. People love prawns 🦐🦐🦐