Deborah Panesar 2/17/22 Deborah Panesar 2/17/22

Spring/Summer Market dates 2022

There’s nothing I love better than getting out and about with my paper goods to meet you lovely lot in person! So far this year these dates have been confirmed, with hopefully a few more to add!

Sunday 15th May - North Notts Artists, Makers & Fine Foods Market, The Manor Room

Sunday 29th May - The Garage Market, The Garage Chilwell

Sunday 17th July - North Notts Artists, Makers & Fine Foods Market, The Manor Room

Sunday 31st July - The Garage Market, The Garage Chilwell

Sunday 7th August - North Notts Artists, Makers & Fine Foods Market, Ravenshead Village Hall

Sunday 21st August - North Notts Artists, Makers & Fine Foods Market, The Manor Room

Hope to see you there!

Deborah x

Deborah Panesar 8/1/19 Deborah Panesar 8/1/19

House of Illustration Summer Fair Round Up

What an honour it was to have been invited back again to the House of Illustration summer fair the other week!

I’ve been a bit behind in getting this post written up due to some lovely client work I’ve been beavering away on, but still wanted to share some of my favourite illustrators from the fair who I had the pleasure of meeting.

What an honour it was to have been invited back again to the House of Illustration summer fair the other week!

Miss Ella’s beautiful illustrated laser cut jewellery

Miss Ella Illustrator

I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Ella from when I studied at Norwich University of the Arts back in 2007-2010, and since graduating I’ve been seeing her beautiful work at various events across London. Her jewellery is just so imaginative and whimsical, and I am totally in love with those pink moon earrings.

Aleesha Nandhra

It was so lovely to meet Aleesha at the last House of Illustration fair back in December - especially when we realised that she was a distant relative of my husbands! Needless to say it was great to meet back up again (along with her amazing mum) to see the beautiful new work she’s been creating. She’s been travelling around the world (check out her visit to Nepal) and you see how these beautiful experiences have influenced her work.

Aurore Swithenbank

Plants? Check. Black on natural card? Check. Insects? Check check! All the things I love and more. It wasn’t just her gorgeous artwork that I was head over heels for, but her display stole my heart (LOVED that she brought along her linocuts) as did her gorgeous hand typed business cards. It just shows that it’s the little things that really make a difference.

House of Illustration Summer Fair held at The Crossing in Granary Square

There were so many more illustrators I wanted to shout about but I’m pretty sure you don’t have all day to scroll through it all. So here were some of my extra favourites:

I absolutely love coming to this fair as I always come away so inspired by the talent there. It’s so easy to remain in your little creative echo chamber but stepping out of this comfort zone always gives me the fire to try and do something new or pursue one of my illustration project dreams (and that list is long).

Fingers crossed I can make it to the Christmas event, and perhaps see you there!

Deborah Panesar 2/22/16 Deborah Panesar 2/22/16

Keeping that fear 'edge'

For the past week or so I've been working my way through my HUGE box of business cards which I've been collecting for 4 years, inputting each and every one of them into a new spreadsheet database. You might think I'm a little mad for doing this time consuming, and let's be honest, inanely tedious job but it's all part of the process I've started since reading Alex Mather's e-book How To Get Illustration Clients.

I've been working on creating, nurturing and building my database of contacts, one business card typed into Google Docs at a time. BUT, I'm not writing this post to subtly promote Alex's book, or brag at my awesome patience (which isn't that awesome, I promise) but, to tell you about a discovery I made that really struck me whilst going through these business cards;

All of this can end at any moment.

Now, I don't mean in the morbid sense, although you wouldn't be wrong with making that connection too. What I'm on about is freelance business, creative business, art careers, that can all come to end in a quicker fashion that it may have taken to create. The amount of cards I went through who either were no longer doing that line of work (illustration, surface design, tailoring, design etc) or simply did not exist on the internet any longer took me quite by surprise.

It had the same tang of when you discover an old school friends-father's-long-lost-cousin had died - you don't know that person at all, in fact you probably never met them, but you acknowledge there is a loss there and that someone was somebody's something; Aunt, Uncle, Niece, sibling whatever. For me, it's the same thing. These people's business cards don't hold much sentimental value in my life, but I can't help but wonder what's happened to these people. Are they ok? What happened for them to no longer be doing that line of work? All those long hard years of working, just gone. They were someones illustrator, photographer, designer, copywriter.

I can see how this may seem a little dramatic , however when you work for yourself you sometimes can forget that in the midst of the hard slog of seeking out clients, networking, marketing, generating work and still trying to earn a regular bit of money, some creative or freelancer, somewhere, had the plug pulled on their dream of a creative career. And that's a sobering thought.

I have no idea what the circumstances are for these creatives who I met many years ago - they may possibly be on to bigger and better things, situations that suit their circumstances better, but I can't help but feeling immense gratitude for still hanging on to my dream, even if sometimes it feels like I'm just hanging on from my fingernails.

One day, I may find myself in a situation where I need to make a hard decision and I cant stop myself from imagining someone, somewhere, finding my business card after 4 years, Googling me only to find that I exist no longer on the internet. The very thought makes me a little sweaty because I absolutely refuse to let that happen.

But that's the feeling you want. Really!

If you're like me and still hustling your career then I think it's healthy to have a little fear to keep you from being complacent. I tend to work 1000% harder, doing things that I find uncomfortable and loathsome, when I'm low on clients and money. But what if I applied this fear edge to when I'm actually ticking over nicely? Imagine the work generated!

I have a lot of business cards left to wade through, but I can tell you that I'm getting through them faster than ever before now that I remember what I need to do to prevent my future business card self ending up in a recycling bin graveyard.

Before I head off for an evening of Walking Dead and pizza (because Walking Dead gives me another type of fear and pizza is my comfort) I want to leave you with a question: If you saw your career as your lifeline, how tight would you hold onto to save yourself from drowning?

As always, I'm keen to hear your thoughts! How do you keep yourself from being complacent in your career? How does it make you feel to imagine never doing your dream job ever again? Feel free to drop your comments below or tweet me!

Deborah x