interview

In my research into book illustration I had to conduct an interview with an artist within the field I've been researching; I managed to have a phone call interview with the amazing artist Jamie Green and hear their thoughts on their work life and being a book illustrator.

After I graduated my agency reached out to me, and the jobs kind of started flowing in from there. I don’t know if the clients find me through me, or if they find me through my agency or my agencies website. I know that my agency will send out emails occasionally featuring out art to a bunch of different publishers on an email list they have – so it could have come from that. I post a lot on Instagram as well, I gained a lot of following during college so I got work immediately after leaving.

I never intended to be a book artist, I fully anticipated to be full time on Etsy and Patreon and work really hard to make a living. But what happened was I was approached by all these different people to do book art for them and because I wanted the experience and the wages I just agreed to everything. I signed contract after contract without really thinking – I mean, some of these weren’t even due for release until 2022 or 2023. It was a really difficult change of pace too, because at college I was so used to working with a really active community who I could share ideas with and post content all the time, but now it’s like: okay, I’ll work on this alone for a year. It was a really jarring change going from the independent artist route to the freelance artist route.

How did you find work after graduation?:

How did you start your journey to being a book artist?

I used to do a lot of observational drawing if I felt lack of ideas. I’m a very active person and like to go for walks and hikes so I like to take my sketchbooks and some paints with me and draw along the way. I find a lot of inspiration in nature in particular, I’m a huge mushroom weirdo and love mycology – I based my thesis around it.

How do you find inspiration?:

I love fall and Halloween too, so I always tend to fall back on anything around that if I can’t think of anything to draw. Basically anything I find interesting.

It has certainly been a journey. I love being able to work the way I do and do what I love. I’m also really grateful for all the work I get – there’s definitely never really a break for me. I’m also always learning in what I do, whether it’s with business or my technique. I have a lot of time to explore my style quite freely a lot of the time which is really great.

What do you enjoy most about freelance work?

Freelancing can be very isolating. You work alone almost all of the time and often have no one other than your client to share ideas with, so it can be difficult to be alone for so long. Because some projects can take so long, I’m not able to share ideas or work for maybe up to a year, and it’s easy to lose sight during that,

and that’s something I’ve learned about the nature of my job. I don’t think I was emotionally prepared for that. It’s also frustrating that I don’t have time at the moment to work on my own personal art because I have so much work this year. I’ve highlighted and planned every box on my calendar and its jam packed with work and plans, so I can’t really work on personal work.