Mimi's Newsletter - Starting A New Chapter (Patreon)

What a busy month it's been! Since I went to Bologna Book Fair early last month I spent an extra couple of weeks in Italy and have been in England since the last week of March. I was in Windsor for nearly two weeks catching up on some work, and then Dan flew over from Australia to join me (he had been busy hiking in New Zealand while I was eating gelato in Italy).

We spent a bit of time with my family earlier in the month so I took about a week off over Easter, and now we are spending some time in Kent in the countryside. If you didn't already know, I grew up in England until I was about 11 and we moved to Australia so most of my family lives here and I'm a dual citizen, and this is kind of a second home for me so it's nice to be back!

Dan and I are planning to spend the rest of this year in the UK, mostly working but also taking little trips around Europe, and I'm excited because I've always loved to travel and explore new places. I've been working towards being able to travel with my job for a few years now since I started illustrating properly in 2020 and I'm so happy that we get to try this lifestyle out for a little while.

^ I love working from different places, especially if I have a garden view and can watch the squirrels!

The challenge is now adjusting to this new lifestyle and making sure that we travel slowly enough to still be able to have a routine and get our work done. I'll still be working mostly full-time, and Dan works part-time, but in the afternoons and on weekends we can explore the area we're in. We'll also take a bit of time off over summer so that we can go on some small trips!

As we've been getting back into the swing of things these past couple of weeks I've been enjoying working on some fun projects:

I've almost finished my second brush pack! I kind of made it by accident because I was making myself some pencil and crayon style brushes and realised that I should share them as a digital brush pack. I've been converting them to Procreate this week so hopefully they'll be ready soon.

I'm making a creativity workbook with activities and drawing ideas to help boost your creativity and come up with drawing ideas which is fun to make, I think that'll be released in May.

I'm illustrating some draft sketches for another picture book and I think it'll be an extra cute one!

After having a little break in Italy I'm feeling extra motivated to make things again because I really do love making art resources and videos to share, and I have to pinch myself that I get to do this full-time!

🥰🌷✨