Art Licensing Show - and 'The Monthly Challenge'!

Some of you may know that I'm a member of the Art Licensing Show website from my previous Christmas blog post. This is a great site where artists / designers pay a fee to host their portfolios in a completely private way. (We have to be soooo careful about posting too much publicly online as things sadly do get stolen). Art directors can sign up for free and I can then connect and share my work with any company that I feel might be a good fit for my brand. I love the fact that I have complete control over who can view my work. My portfolio is obviously also hosted by my agents, Jewel Branding, but this is an excellent additional way to strike up new art licensing relationships. The above image shows my thumbnail from the site and is all images from my 'Tea Party' collection. If you haven't discovered Art Licensing Show yet you can find out more about how it works here.

Another great aspect of the site is the other artist connections I've made. Everyone is so friendly and it's a lovely supportive community where many ideas are shared. There are a number of groups on the site where we can discuss anything from industry news and trend prediction to tabletop and greetings cards, but one of my favourites is the 'ALSC monthly art challenge.' As the name suggests most months we are given a brief to help us build our portfolios. For example, in June we were tasked with creating a new typography piece based on our favourite quotes. I chose to add to my 'Well Hello There!' art licensing collection with a new piece, 'Live Life In Full Bloom'. I love the idea of living life to the full, but also this quote meant I got to doodle some flowers, which I always enjoy! :-)

The challenge in August was to design a bookmark with a coastal theme. I absolutely love beach huts, so this was my summery entry... (I found it surprisingly difficult to illustrate within such a small space!)

Sometimes there is an added competition element where designs are judged by art directors on the site. This month's challenge is especially for surface pattern designers and will be judged by the amazing people at Robert Kaufman fabrics. I would absolutely love to license my designs onto fabric at some point in the future so the opportunity to get work in front of these very influential art directors is a must! The brief is to design something with a Valentine's theme, so I am entering some of the very girly pieces from my new range 'Something Special'. It doesn't have a traditional Valentine's colour pallet, but I hope it is suitably soft and romantic for an alternative Valentine feel. Fingers crossed they like it!

Talking of fabric, my agents have been very busy this weekend at Quilt Market in Houston showing all of my new and existing art licensing collections to potential licensing partners. I've been really busy over the last few months creating lots of lovely new designs for this, but that are also suitable for licensing across many other types of product. If you missed the show, but would like to view my portfolio please contact beth@jewelbranding.com