Tuesday, November 11, 2008

The "easy" life of a freelance artist...

"Yes, that's me, I work from home".

"Oh aren't you lucky!" people generally say, but what they fail to understand is that while yes, I can work around Rosie's school hours and be there to drop her off and pick her up from school, I have no social life, I don't sit down at the end of a long long day and relax in front of the TV. I work the 6 hours Rosie is in school. Then once she's gone to bed, I work until late and collapse into bed, then wake in the night panicking about all the work I still have to do. I can honestly say I work harder now, and much longer hours than when I worked nine to five. There's no sick pay or holiday pay either! But I'd much rather do this than anything else.

And occasionally on a Saturday evening, when I watch Merlin as a treat, or even more rarely, go out for a meal with John or friends, I really appreciate it!

My current projects to be completed before Christmas are a canvas portrait, three family portraits, some new Christmas card designs and a big pile of sketch cards! I'm fairly sure there are one or two other things too...I usually have two or more projects in the go at once.

Bad management? You might say that, but it does keep the adrenaline going; all this hanging on by the skin of your teeth and when each project is completed... it's a great feeling of achievement. I'm a hard taskmaster and a strict boss, but an appreciative one!

A couple of weeks ago, I completed 116 sketch cards for Topps. I'm still waiting to see if they've received them(fingers crossed). It was a long, hard slog and I put a lot of effort into making the cards some of my best work. I'm praying they have arrived and will be approved by LucasFilm. As soon as I get the nod, I'll post them up here.
Meantime, here's a shot of my messy desk to be going along with.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, nice to see where the magic happens!! xx

Brian Edward Gorman said...

It's tidier than my desk!!! x

Ric said...

Hahah, I have a similar work pattern! LOL

I'm following your blog so I can see the art you've done on Doctor Who cards etc. Looks very exciting! :D

Carolyn Edwards said...

Thanks for all your comments, guys.
Brian, that shot of my desk was taken on a Tidy Day, when I could actually get 'to' my desk 'and' find space to work on it, tee hee!

Welcome 'PuttyCAD'. Are you a sketch card artist too then?

Barnaby, as ever, the kindest comments from you. XX

Ric said...

Hi Carolyn, thanks for the warm welcome! I'm a freelance games artist but I really fancy having a go at sketch cards as a lot of the people I know on Deviantart do them for Marvel etc. It's something I plan to try out in the new year. Feel free to check out my deviantart gallery to see the sort of things I do at the moment. ;)

http://puttycad.deviantart.com/