We recently connected with Sara Filanti Fandrey and have shared our conversation below.

Sara, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I have always drawn, like most illustrators, since I was a little girl. As a self taught artist, I never studied art in school and I certainly never thought I could turn my passion into a career. I only took a break from making art after giving birth to my first child.
Everything was new and overwhelming. My focus shifted completely. But I knew something was missing.
I realised it when I picked up the brush a year later, a voice inside me said “you are home now”.
And then the pandemic struck.
So, locked in the house like the rest of the world, I started googling illustration courses and I stumbled upon the Picture Book Academy “Ars in Fabula” in Macerata, Italy (I myself am Italian but at the time I was living in Germany, so it was the perfect and only chance for me to attend).
Due to the pandemic, the school was offering an online entry-level course on Editorial Illustration, where the students were given a text to illustrate in a period of 6 months, under the guidance of one tutor and several meetings with different artists and experts of the field (including the final feedback from a publisher).
It is not an art school, they don’t teach students how to draw, instead they teach you a profession, they give you the skills and tools to illustrate a picture book.
However, by drawing constantly every day while working on my project, I can say with confidence that my drawing skills got better and better.
After the first 6 months, the following year I signed up for the Advanced Level Course at the same School.
It is here (though remotely and through a screen) that I have learned everything I know about how to make picture books, and it is thanks to this school that I got to meet some of the most talented picture book illustrators of our time.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Sara, I am a 30 *something* year old illustrator from Italy. When I am not drawing I am usually running after my two kids, wild and loud, often source of inspiration. After studying for 2 years how to make and draw a whole picture book, and after having purchased many, many, many more (in all languages and size), I have recently signed my first contract with a German illustration agency and I am ready to take on the editorial world with my brush.
I draw mainly digitally on my iPad, from the couch, but when I have the time I like to play with watercolours and gouache too. I collect art supplies as if they were seashells.
There is not one single day that goes by that I am not drawing. Even for just 5 minutes.
It is my mental yoga, my biggest passion, it keeps me up until late at night (art, and my baby) and it gives me purpose.
I love to put down on paper all the little imaginary worlds I have in my head, from little bugs and elves to bigger and older characters.
Through my art and illustrations I hope to bring a smile on people’s face. I always strive to put a little irony in all my drawings, and I love to get lost drawing the smallest of details.
I have a vintage soul, which reflects in my colour choice. So to sum it up, I consider myself a visual storyteller.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Social Media is tricky. It gets trickier with every update, especially Instagram, the evil Algorithm seems to have been created solely to destroy small artists’ confidence. It sucks, I know that.
BUT! Do not let numbers get to you. Concentrate your energies on creating a community, a group of people who support you, connect with them, you have the same passions! I can say with a smile on my face that I have made so many friends, I look forward to meeting some of them in person in Bologna at the Children Book Fair next year.
I started my IG account in 2020 and today I have over 11K followers.
It took a looooong time to get where I am, it took a lot of work, a lot of failed posts, a few breaks, but most of all, it took consistency.
If you really want to grow on Instagram you must be consistent, it’s a game of being active, commenting, sharing (but not spamming) other fellow artists. Try to create a posting schedule, try to be active, to post reels (I know, we are artists and not content creators but they are actually kind of fun to make!), share your friends’ work, join drawing challenges, host drawing challenges – that is a wonderful way to grow and meet new people too!
Have fun, and remember, your worth is not dictated by a number, your skills as an artist have nothing to do with how many people see your posts. Do you, keep creating.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I don’t know if this is a lesson I had to unlearn, but it is certainly one I had to learn, the harsh way. When I was in school I would usually get good feedback from our tutor, and from other professional illustrators, who would come once a month and review our projects with us.
One month we had the privilege of meeting the publishers of a pretty famous picture book publishing house in Italy who, it hurst to say it still, just did not like my illustration style.
He was not mean or rude. He was just frank, he called it as he saw it. “We would never publish anything drawn by you, your style is too “disney” and it just doesn’t fit in our catalogue”.
Boy, was that a slap in the face.
He then went on and said that there would be a thousand other publishing houses in the world who would have loved my work, he just was’t one of them.
Was I hurt? You bet.
I take things very personally, unfortunately, and after a good cry and a talk to my mom (you are never too old to get reassured by your mom) I realised that rejection is a part, a BIG part, of the creative world.
This was probably going to be just the first of many.
Would I let that stop me from drawing?
Nope. I did some adjustments to my style, for sure. I took in the critique, accepted it and saw it as a learning opportunity.
I dwelled on it for a while, surely, and then I went back to my desk.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sarafandreyillustrations.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarafandrey_illustrations/