Gee's Storees - April '25 🌸✨
The prints, planners and interviews Newsletter
Helloo hello hello, how’s it going? It’s been a seemingly quiet start over at Gee HQ, but there’s been a lot of work going on behind the scenes. So strap yourself in with a nice cuppa and let’s dive in!
Fancy some art?
I’m starting with this because I was so proud that I managed to get all the nitty gritty technical parts sorted, Guess what … Last month I launched my online shop, which I am hoping to keep open for the foreseeable. One caveat: I still haven’t found a feasible way to work around the latest shipping restrictions outside the UK (argh!) so if you’re outside the UK and would like to purchase any physical products, drop me an email and we’ll see what we can figure out for ya! I will let you know of any product drops that will be happening for ‘outside-the-UK’ shipping. I’ve also introduced digital products you can purchase, download and print at home, so, there are no restrictions there and you can use them to your heart’s content! My latest is a printable Mushroom-themed planner! It’s un-dated, so you can start using it whenever you like, and the pack features 3 cute little shrooms!
How did my Q1 Plans go?
In a nutshell, not too bad actually, it’s been rather productive despite the many days lost due to my stellar immunity.
Apart from reopening personal commissions and the online shop, which lemme tell you, could have practically taken up most of my time this quarter, I have actually managed to make progress on my picture book and book cover work. The story for the PB and the characters are shaping up pretty nicely too! I won’t reveal too much just yet, but I’ll let you in on our main character’s name … 🌟 Stella 🌟. And she is about to embark on an insanely magical adventure! ✨ Apart from this, I’ve also been experimenting with a more graphic novel/comic style of work and illustrated 2 short stories, 1 inspired by the famous little angler fish whom I’ve named Angie and the other about a little personal moment I experienced. You can read more about Angie’s story here and I’ve got a link to a work-in-progress and story to the ‘Breathe’ comic below.
Book Covers
Unfortunately, stress has gotten the better of me again, and when it does it tends to come out in the form of achey and burning eyes and migraines, both of which are not great for productivity. They are, though, a big old reminder to TAKE A BREAK, which I had to do whether I liked it or not. I promised myself I’d make progress on my daily reading, and in turn have more book covers to illustrate for my side project but with searing eye pain I obviously couldn’t, HOWEVER, I did manage to complete a speculative book cover for the Wild Robot, so that’s something! And you can read all about the process here!
Sketchbook
My sketchbook has been serving me in different ways this month, while I’ve still carried on with my colour studies, I’ve also resorted more to it as a journal, recording my studies in more detail, colours used, dates, locations and little notes scribbled to aid my memory when revisiting the sketchbook. I’ve also been using my digital sketchbook more and am quite happy with what I’ve come up with so far!
Venturing into new socials-territory
I’ve noticed socials to be quite a distraction to my work, and I tend to get lost in the comparison and productivity game social media loves to play with us. The lack of reach some posts have been having made me feel like the work wasn’t good enough, which was not sitting right with me. There’s always room for improvement, and let’s be honest, most of what we create is a labour of love, but online metrics should not be used to measure the quality or value of our work. So I’ve been treating it as an extension of my portfolio, and at this point, posting things to experiment and see what lands and what doesn’t (mostly … it doesn’t).
Q2 Plans
To be completely honest, I have yet to sit down with myself and hash out a direction for this quarter. I definitely want to try and make the most of the Spring season, soaking up the sun and peacefully existing with the chirping of birds and rustling of trees in a slightly warmer breeze. And I’d love to do this before the tourist wave comes crashing down on the city in summer.
There are some new stories, I’ve got cooking up, so I want to make some progress with 1 of those! Apart from that, I’ve also revisited an old digital medium I loved growing up and missed so much! But more on that later …
Not much here for this quarter, mostly because I’ve clearly not followed the rules I set at the start of the year (shocker) BUT I did manage to get some quality time in by the sea and also experienced some light snow. My walks haven’t been too bad either - not daily but frequent enough.
Last month I was featured in one of Children’s Book North Network’s weekly ‘Northern Highlight’ Interviews! You can read all about it here if you’d like. I remember answering these questions during Storm Éowyn, random fact, thought you should know.
Despite not being able to read much, I have read As You Are: A guide to letting go of comparison and seeing the good stuff inside by Dept. Ltd.. This was a great book to start the year off with. I found this at a charity bookshop while doing the book rounds with my sisters earlier in the year. It was a great read to remind myself of how far I’ve come not only professionally but also personally.
I’m popping in a few links to the Online Shop which is open for business and slots for personalised commissions which are are also waiting for your magical ideas to be illustrated! If you’re interested, check out the information on the page and feel free to get in touch!
I’ll be popping in once in a while with updates and news. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the gentler weather 🌸 I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for the cherry blossoms! Oh and before I forget … I have a very impromptu giveaway over on Instagram which ends soon so don’t forget to check it out! ok bye!
