How I became an Illustrator

This is my first blog! So I thought I’d start at the beginning and tell you guys the story of how I became an Illustrator.

Around 7 years ago, I was taking my first proper steps towards a career as an advertising Creative. I had joined the Union ad agency in Edinburgh as a Junior and was looking for a way to develop my abilities as an Illustrator, alongside my role as a Junior Art Director. I figured that being able to visualise my ideas (and other peoples ideas) would be an extremely valuable skillset to bring to my agency life. It proved to be a great idea as I now use that skill on most projects with my current employer - Multiply Agency. But I thought I’d take a wee look back at how I got here, and what moments across the last 7 years led me to become an established Illustrator. The story is a real ‘fake it til you make it’ tale!

So as I mentioned, I had decided I needed to level up my drawing game, so I set myself a realistic goal of doing a drawing on Instagram each day. To achieve that, I’d needed to have a muse that I could reference each day. My muse - Pip the Dog, our new Cairn Terrier puppy was the perfect candidate. I initially planned to do one month of daily drawings, each time placing Pip or my alter ego (Oldmangrey) in a random situation, however one month quickly became 2, then 6, a year and eventually I took my first break from daily drawings 2 years later.

During this time I was lucky enough to gather a modest but engaged Instagram following. Then out of the blue around year one of daily drawing, I was featured by Instagram on their discover page for a month. My following went from a humble 1,500 followers to nearly 50K in the space of two weeks. Since then it has dropped back to a more manageable 20K, but it has undoubtedly benefited my business over the years. I started by drawing my own dog Pip, but over time I took on pet commissions, design projects and children’s book illustration to form the business I own and run today.

From no training in Illustration, I am now an Illustrator. A feel good moment for anyone who has a dream and as I said, a true ‘fake it til you make it’ story ;)