February 25 Retro
Starting a novel, improving my sales funnel with Sumup and climbing towards my goals one rejection at a time…
February, that bothersome short month that always leaves me feeling robbed of time. Well it’s not been all that bad actually, I’ve had a pretty productive month and while it’s been a slow start to the year in my illustration business financially, it’s given me the breathing space after the New Year and my January honeymoon to set a lot up for the rest of 2025.
Last year in July I wrote a post talking about my feelings on June and my plans for July, I knew I wanted to create a regular space to look back on my months and plan for the ones to come, share what I’d enjoyed and learned, and muddle through my thoughts on it all through the written word like a true Gilmore Girl. The post I created was heavily inspired by another creator who’s monthly retros I really enjoy, but it didn’t feel authentic to me. Rather than force it I took a step back from the idea and now I’m here to have another go, with a new format that feels a lot more ‘me’. So lets get to it…
This is my ‘Map Of The Month’ and is an illustrated jumble of what I got up to over February.
I keep a spreadsheet where I tab big and small wins in my illustration journey, February did well for such a shortie!
I got accepted into 5 springtime markets I’d applied for (and a few more have come in in the first few days of March). I’m super excited to share my work with more people in person, and hosting at more markets and fairs was one of my new years resolutions so we’re killing it in that area.
My work joined the Creative Howl directory (I talk about that more in this post here about directories)
I updated my portfolio to include 4 new projects, including a book cover project I’d been sitting on for a long time because I couldn’t get it ‘perfect’. Eventually I decided finished was better than perfect and as soon as I uploaded it I felt better immediately. Sometimes perfection gets in the way of progress, especially as a creative when the work you do never really feels ‘finished’. You can always do more but that doesn’t mean you should I guess! (How am I 30 and only just realising this?)
I moved my desk! This sounds so small but it’s been something I’ve been meaning to invest in for a long long time. While I was away on my honeymoon in January, workmen came to my house and built a fitted shelving unit with a desk around my kitchen door, creating a dedicated workspace for me in the dining room of our house with so much storage space and most importantly created a zone just for my art. Before this I’d been working on a dual purpose surface in the living room, the lighting was much worse and the storage situation was apocalyptic (and no I’m not being dramatic). When we returned from our honeymoon there were a few things for this woodwork build I had to finish off myself plus lots of painting to do, so I committed a whole week and viewed it as an investment in my business. It defiantly has been as since I’ve been working in this new space, I’ve been SO much more focused and in a flow state with my creative work I can’t even tell you. the surface space of the desk is actually smaller than my old desk, but the whole of it is committed just to my creative practice and business and that’s been incredible for my headspace.
I registered with Sumup to take card payments at my market stalls, this seemed intimidating at first but it was actually really easy and I wish I’d done it ages ago!
I started building a new services page for my website, plus began working on some new promotional ideas to collaborate with small businesses in my hometown.
My book group for ‘The Artists Way’ reached week 9! The pages so far have actually been transformative to my creative practice (sounds corny but I swear the gushing outpour of love for this book is SO REAL). I also don’t have the best track record of finishing such lengthy self led programs or courses so to reach week 9 is awesome and I’ll pat myself on the back for that.
I’ve been really focused and much better at prioritisation this month, which is something I’m consciously working to improve from last year.
Lastly, my public liability insurance kicked in this month, so I’m now insured for public events and should my artwork combust and burn the building down someone will help me pay for the bricks to rebuild it and get my customers therapy for the emotional trauma of witnessing combusting artwork. (I HATE paperwork and this dramatic joke is my coping mechanism, but I avoided this one for a whole year in 2024, my pledge to get involved in more markets this year meant I had to finally tackle this particular paperwork demon.)
To tackle this yucky dry topic, I doodled up this fun little title animation (okay I was procrastinating, you caught me).
Every month I try and set myself some targets which are INPUT focused, meaning they’re based on things I can do rather than outcomes that aren’t 100% within my control. The idea being that if I put in enough INPUT the outcome will come.
Here are some of the targets I’ve been focused on though February:
100 Rejections project (this is essentially direct outreach): 23 (23/100)
Instagram posts: 1 (yikes)
Pieces added to portfolio: 4 (not bad at all)
Sketchbook pages: 25 (this includes pages of very rough sketches and pages of full finished painting and everything in between, if one drawing covers a spread, so 2 pages, I count it as 1)
In person events (this includes creative social events but also markets, in person talks, anything merging art and touching the outside world): 5
Overall not a bad month, with the one glaringly subpar area of performance being my absolute avoidance of posting anything on social media. This is something that really intimidates and overwhelms me, and I don’t feel like I quite know how to tackle it without it taking up my whole week, there’s obviously a balance to be found somewhere, but it’s currently hiding from me like Wally. I guess that goes on the list of things to focus on improving over March, and that’s kind of the whole point of these monthly retros.
I’m really pleased with my progress with my 100 rejections project. If you haven’t heard of this idea, it’s the concept that it takes 100 job applications, 100 competition entries ect. to get a call back, and that every time you apply for something and are rejected, you are 1 rejection closer to that callback. I first heard about it from a fellow illustrator who was taking a course with the Good Ship Illustration, and I love the concept of turning rejections into a goal. How deliciously toxically positive. Sign me up. I have a spreadsheet where I catalogue all my applications for anything illustration related, this includes art submissions to agencies, competitions and even art markets. If I get success from an application I remove it from the spreadsheet, but I count things I don’t hear back from as rejections since most art directors and agencies are too busy to respond to every art submission. The underlying goal is really to track your outreach and to put a positive twist on a potentially devastating earth shattering ‘I’m quitting art to go and work in Tescos’ blow.
My artwork output has also been quite high for me this month, with a good number of sketchbook experiments and portfolio pieces. Some months I get so bogged down in admin and social media and overthinking I hardly make time to make any art at all (it feels), so while I have neglected socials this month, it feels like I’ve spent the energy elsewhere wisely.
Outside of work I’ve had an amazing month, with plenty of wonderful experiences to fill my creative well.
For valentines weekend my amazing husband took me to spend the weekend at the dreamy Gladstone Library in Wales. We slept in the dorm rooms above the library and I did nothing but read, write and do jigsaw puzzles by a log fire for two days. It was such a unique place and it really inspired me creatively.
While I was at the library I began a new creative writing project that’s pretty much the first long-form creative writing work I’ve done since high school, and I’m really enjoying it. I joined the London Writers Salon so I can work on this during their hour long morning sessions which has been such a nice way to start my days.
To top off the month I finally got to visit Norway and spend time with two of my amazing friends. We tried ice climbing for the first time, did some painting over a DIY paint and sip run by me (and it didn’t turn out ugly, huzah!), cooked cannelloni in giant pasta shells, ate pastries with almost every meal, drifted on icy roads and survived, and spent time in my friends brand new apartment which is lovely and cosy and green.
Ah books, my great love and inspiration
This month has been a weak one for me in reading, but there’s a few books I’d like to talk about.
I touched 3 fiction books in February. I started Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros in January and it took me much longer than usual to finish it. I didn’t love where the story was going and kind of knew I’d be finishing the book with more questions than answers, with a long wait until book four, so I didn’t feel super motivated to read and the closer I got to the end the less pages per day I read. I did finally finish it mid February and while I’m salty I’ll have to wait so long to find out how things resolve, I will admit I’ve been dreaming about painting dragons ever since, so call me inspired. I’m bitter about it but thanks Rebecca.
After this I wanted to take a break from fantasy and read something different, so I picked up ‘If On A Winters Night A Traveller’ by Italo Calvino. This book was a rare DNF for me as I just really couldn’t get into it, and I dropped off around page 180.
Following this I started reading ‘One Dark Window’ by Rachel Gillig which I’ve been really enjoying. My husband recommended it to me and the e-book is currently available on kindle unlimited, which was perfect for my trip to Norway as I wanted to pack light to fit all my climbing gear in my luggage.
I started 2 new non-fiction books; ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear was the book of the month in one of my working groups, and I started listening to the audiobook on Spotify before picking up a physical copy because I find it hard to digest non fiction in an impactful way through listening alone. I finished the audio book and then re read the bits I found most relevant to me in the physical book.
I also, mostly based on the amazing cover design, picked up a copy of ‘Community Is Your Currency’ by Daisy Morris. Since social media is something I find scary as hell and far too intimidating for a mere mortal like me, this is an area I really need some advice in. So far I’ve found the writing in this book to be a lot more entertaining than my first non-fiction of the month and I’m really enjoying it! Would recommend, if for nothing other than the cute cover alone.
Lastly, I tried some new things
In the spirit of filling my artists well as Julia Cameron tells us, I’m making a conscious effort to try new things this year. This is something I do a lot of in the activities department (hello ariel hoop, ice skating and skateboarding) but, I hadn’t really realised, is something I don’t do much of in the creative area of my life. Maybe this is because as someone who’s always been labelled as a creative person, I’m more apprehensive to been seen being ‘bad at’ a new creative endeavour?
February brought opportunities to try a few new things, I visited an art gallery for the first time in a while, I spent time in an old historic library of theology, did my first jigsaw puzzle since childhood, started writing a novel, watched the cult classic movie ‘Mulholland Drive’ at a mini independent cinema and dove into the postmodern metafiction that is ‘If On A Winters Night A Traveller’ as an attempt to submerge myself in some more high brow literature. Some of these things I enjoyed more than others, but they gave my brain a lot more diversity to digest and I think that can only be a good thing for my creativity.
