We are very pleased to be involved with the Pathways Into Children’s Publishing which has been designed collaboratively by the House of Illustration and Pop Up Projects offering tuition, one-to-one mentoring and professional guidance to aspiring illustrators in the UK and abroad who are interested in getting into children’s publishing. This month SAA members Tamlyn Francis and Caroline Thomson from Arena Illustration took part in the Pathways Professional Day delivering a 30 minute webinar on Building a Profile and the importance of portfolios, online presence and self-promotion.

We continue to enjoy our long relationship with the Association of Illustrators and this month we’ve been very busy. SAA member agent Laura Lee from Debut Art chaired a talk called: Be Seen - Representation (what makes it a winning team, how they worked together) with Paperface (the previous winner of the SAA Agents Award for New Talent in 2019). This was part of a programme of webinars celebrating The World Illustration Awards 2020.  SAA member agent Caroline Thomson from Arena Illustration is one of three agent mentors who are part of the AOI’s 2021 Mentorship scheme. This year the AOI are looking to support people under represented in the agenting field, either at the early stage of their agent career, or who are interested in becoming an agent.

Since the agency was founded, Startworks has been helping new graduates bridge the gap between leaving university and kickstarting their career as an illustrator. We continue to successfully represent many artists who have joined the agency through Startworks; helping to expand portfolios, build client relationships and navigate the creative industry.

If you have graduated as part of the class of 2020 from an illustration, design or arts degree and think you’re ready to leap into the world of professional illustration, then we want to hear from you!

Please send a short introduction, no more than 5 low-res jpegs and a link to your online portfolio, to submissions@theartworksinc.com . To reiterate, this is only open to those who have graduated in 2020. Please be aware that due to the overwhelming amount of applications, we can only respond to those who have been successful, but we thank everyone for taking the time to get in touch.

Best of luck! We look forward to hearing from the graduates of 2020!