Behind the Scenes: Part 3

 (Click HERE for Part 2)

Part 3

...In the following few years life took an upward turn when I met the love of my life online, and then in person. We soon moved in together and one day while I was spending time with his then 5 year old daughter who loved books, I decided to write and illustrate a book for her that included her favourite teddy, a dog called 'Floppy Dog'. It was a treat to return to cartooning again even if my drawings were crude at that stage, and she was delighted to have her own personalised story. The following year, we had a new addition to our family in the form of a crazy cockerspaniel called Jasper, and he inevitably gained the star role in the next year’s book.

     

A short time later whilst talking to my (now) husband about wanting to find something that I could do for work from home, he reminded me of cartooning with my Dad, and of the book, and suggested cartooning. I was horrified at the thought, as my cartoons were far from good enough to sell. He simply said with a smile “so get good enough to sell them then.” He, and the rest of my family, had the confidence in me that I lacked, and with other options so limited, I decided to give it some serious consideration. The stories for his daughter had taken me a very long time to complete because it required sitting up, so it looked like this might become a repeat of ‘Silver Linings’, but thankfully I was about to discover something that would eliminate that problem…

I began an online cartooning course, tutored by American professional cartoonist Franklin Bishop, and his enthusiasm for my work went a long way in helping to build my confidence. In August 2008 I was delighted to receive a diploma with distinction in cartooning, and during the year-long course I was even more delighted to discover drawing tablets. By plugging a drawing tablet into my laptop, I could draw directly onto the computer. The benefit of this is that over time and with adaptations, I gradually taught myself how to draw laying down (with a few frustrated temper tantrums along the way 😄 ). Finally I had found something that I absolutely loved doing, and that enabled me to do whilst being horizontal. Now the only tricky problem was getting good enough to be able to sell my work!

I joined an online forum for cartoonists, and met some wonderful professional cartoonists who were a huge support to me and gave me lots of tips along the way. The best advice I was given was to keep at it, keep practicing, develop a critical eye for your own work and to keep trying to improve. It was a road full of frustrations and wobbly confidence, but I eventually reached a point where I was ready to launch “Scotty’s Cartoons”.

Two years on, I had enough regular work to be able to make the decision to specialise in my preferred area by becoming ‘The Dog Cartoonist’, and my passion for cartooning grew in leaps and bounds. Now, a decade on from doing the cartooning course, I can’t imagine that I would have been any happier in my original career choice all those years ago than I am now. After all, I get to look at cute dogs every day, anthropomorphise their characters into cartoons, and delight their owners!

(Click HERE for Part 4)

Behind the Scenes: Part 2

(Click HERE for Part 1) 

Part 2...

…Life inevitably got in the way, and our cartooning sessions became less frequent. When it came to taking my options at school, I would have loved to have taken art but didn’t feel that my artwork was up to the required standard, so dropped it at the age of 14 to pursue other subjects.

 By the time I left school, my future plans were firm in my mind: I wanted to study to become a Child Behavioural Therapist. I studied Sociology and Psychology at sixth form, and started to do work experience in the Child Behavioural field, which I absolutely loved, and I applied to go to University to study Child Psychology.

I unexpectedly became ill at the age of 17 with Dysautonomia, and to cut a very long story short, it became apparent that this was a long term problem that couldn’t be ignored. I eventually reluctantly accepted that I would need to make a different career choice, and so began the next stage, finding something that I could do from home that would enable me to work.

Looking for a new direction with fresh optimism, I started to set up a business that I called “Silver Linings” and made my own handmade jewellery, which expanded to making gem trees. Unfortunately, two of the symptoms of my illness were firstly that I found I couldn’t sit up for long, and secondly that my skin had become sensitive to things that I hadn’t had sensitivity to before, including various metals! I got around the second problem by wearing gloves, and hoped that the first problem would somehow fix itself.

 I approached The Princes Trust who were very supportive and enthusiastic about Silver Linings. Very quickly though, we realised that it wasn’t going to work when I couldn’t manage the meetings that were required for the Princes Trust to fund me. Unsurprisingly, the problem of needing to sit up to make things for Silver Linings didn’t fix itself either, and I gradually accepted that this wasn’t the right route for me after all.

 It was time for a rethink again, onwards and upwards…

Click HERE for the final part, Part 3....