We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Laura Jones. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Laura below.

Laura, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I worked on building a community around my creative work, and worked on building up my portfolio of clients for nearly three years while working full-time as a Primary and Early Years teacher. I think there is a big misconception that if you’re ‘serious’ about making a career from your creative ideas or talents, that you should quit your job and throw everything into that from the beginning. I didn’t take that route, instead I worked for a long time to build up experience and connects with the security of a full-time job – I think building a creative career and business is a challenging and often stressful undertaking so it really helped to take the ‘money pressure’ off my work for a few years and just focus on building my skill, connections and systems and also figuring out slowly with room for failure how to actually make money from it.
In 2021 I reach a point where I felt I couldn’t expand or grow my work anymore than I had unless I made that leap of leaving my job and focusing on it full time. My first year of full-time freelancing as an illustrator and digital creator was TERRIFYING though; I was so afraid of failing and undoing what I’d built that I didn’t take any risks at all or trying anything new, which ironically put me in a position in the summer of 2022 (just a year after leaving full time teaching) where I was making no money at all from my work. But that ‘rock bottom’ was when I had my biggest mindset shift, because I realised that at that point the worst that could come from trying something new, taking risks or pitching myself for work was the same results I was getting now but the difference being I’d know I was going it my all.
I enrolled in every free webinar I could get a link for to fill the gaps in my own knowledge about freelancing, running a business, vectorising my artwork – anything that would help me ‘move the needle’. More than that, I stopped looking at my work and the opportunity to make money from my art as some kind of childish fantasy that I was living out and instead started to take it and myself more seriously. Yes, my work is bright and colourful and sure I out smiley faces on rainbows and letter cute quotes but that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth taking seriously.
I’ve built my creative business so that it no longer solely depends on how creative I feel in that moment or whether I can get a client booked it, but to utilise things like art licensing, passive and semi passive revenue streams, community memberships and even going back to my ‘roots’ so to speak and teaching other creatives how to do it too! I’m still growing and expanding my creative ’empire’ and I’ve discovered I actually really love the business side of things and the satisfaction of setting goals, making action plans and seeing it play out.
I think we believe that creative people can’t be strategic or even that they shouldn’t but you can be strategic about how you earn money from your work and be creative and playful too!

Laura, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Laura, the creator of @laurajaneillustrations, which started as an instagram account just for me to share my ‘digital doodles’ but has grown into this incredible community and allowed me to turn my creative passions and ideas into my full time job. I find it hard to put one label on what I do, I definitely subscribe to the Emma Gannon ‘multi-hyphenate’ way of thinking about my work, but if I had to sum up what I do I would say that I am a digital creator and surface pattern designer.
I’m a self-taught digital illustrator and artist; before doing this full-time I worked as a Primary and Early Teacher. But creating and being creative have always been a part of me, it just took me a while to admit to myself that you don’t ‘grow out of’ the things you really love and also that you can have a more fulfilling life when you step into your passions.
My illustrations have touched hearts across the globe, and I have had the opportunity to collaborate with fantastic clients like CASETiFY, Born This Way Foundation, Penguin Random House, Mind UK, and The Teaching Tools, just to name a few. My artwork is bright, colourful and full of JOY because I love the idea of putting a smile on someone else’s face or making them feel a little less alone on a tough day.
I’m also the author of “The Magic of You” a whimsical book of happiness that will take you on a journey of self-discovery and joy (it’s like a burst of confetti for your soul) and the host of “Create Your Way”, a podcast where I share behind-the-scenes of how I run my creative business & interview other creators in the industry who are doing AMAZING things, to motivate and inspire you to follow your own dreams and create YOUR way!
I currently live by the seaside on the sunny Italian island of Sardinia, with my loving partner and two mischievous dogs, creating feel-GOOD artwork, illustrations and content daily from my colourful home studio!

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Every day when I wake up and ‘go to work’, I’m choosing ME. Being an artist and following my creative passions feels like the opposite of the people pleasing I did for so long; of course building and growing my business is super rewarding, but for me personally the most rewarding aspect is choosing something that really deeply fulfils me everyday!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

When I started @laurajaneillustrations it was just a space for me to share my work as I was learning to illustrate digitally, it was only ever meant to be a space for me, in fact at the time I had a lifestyle blog and account and that was the space I was banking on growing. But I think because I never planned to grow @laurajaneillustrations and because I was just posting there without any growth strategy, it allowed me to show up really authentically and I genuinely believe that’s why it started to grab peoples attention and hearts (and pretty quickly too).
I’ve always tried to maintain that authenticity in my work and what I share, showing up as myself, showing my personality and sharing my thoughts whether that’s on a chatty IG story or in a long post caption. So, the advice I always give to people when they ask me about building social media is don’t focus on building a following, instead focus on sharing authentically and building connections with those who show up and interact with what you post.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.laurajaneillustrations.com
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/laurajaneillustrations
• Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/laurajaneillustrations
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@laurajaneillustrations
• Other: Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/laurajaneillustrations
  Tiktok: https://tiktok.com/laurajaneillustrations
  Patreon: https://patreon.com/LauraJaneIllustrations

Image Credits

artwork and images all artist’s own.
Credit: Laura Jane Illustrations