2017 was such a big year for my work – I wanted to make a note for myself for some of the new illustration projects that really made my year…

1. Birds – I loved creating little watercolours for sale on Instagram, and this lead to new things like prints and bird pins (more on those later)
2. Books – I finished FIVE PICTURE BOOKS!! It’s pretty amazing how much I cranked out considering I only had two official days a week to work (but kind of made up hours double that – nights, naps, weekends etc)
3. Markets – due to babies, I had a few years off markets but it was really fun and rewarding to do Finders Keepers again and meet online clients and friends face to face, and just chat and sell my work. Super fun.
4. New opportunities – I started working with a card agent who works with overseas companies and I am going to begin a range with a UK client, who are awesome.
5. iPad – this wasn’t exactly a project but I was nervous spending the money on one late 2016, and it has become invaluable in my work practice.
6. Pins! I was thinking about doing one for ages, but was too nervous to invest in a run which only really works with 100 or more. But since then, I’ve done something like 8 designs and they’ve all sold out! So much fun creating new bird pin designs and sharing online, and of course wearing.

Pin Design

Finally, While my poor little bloggy crawled to the finished line in 2017, I was busy loading all my recent projects and busy bits and bobs on INSTAGRAM – its such a happy little place for artists to share! My page is https://www.instagram.com/jessesmess/ and you can see all my latest work there. In the mean time, here was my “top nine” Insta posts for 2017. 

Big thanks for reading, now I have to start musing on 2018…. Hmm, next blog post.