Here at Advocate, we always do our best to help our artists reach their full potential by applying their skills to the most relevant pathways and projects for them. Often this means that artists could come from more of a Greetings Card background and find themselves in the world of children’s books! This was the case for one of our freelance illustrators Helen Rowe, and here she describes making the big transition from being a greetings card artist to a children’s book illustrator.

“After an 11 year career working as a ceramic surface pattern designer in Staffordshire I decided it was time fora  change, I relocated back to Wiltshire and started designing and publishing greetings cards. I was interested in licensing the designs onto other products so approached Advocate to see if they could help. I took a box of card samples over to the Advocate office to meet Ed who thought that maybe my style would suit children’s book illustration. I had always had a secret longing to illustrate children’s books, but it seemed like an unobtainable dream which I always kept on the back burner.

Ed suggested I try working up some of my greeting card characters into scenes, and pointed out areas I needed to work on and key points to focus on. With this advice in mind I went away and created a series of images and as if by magic I’m now almost at the end of a 2 book project!

I feel as if a new passion has been kindled in me, and look forward to a new year developing my portfolio. A big Thank You to everybody at Adcovate who has helped me in the transition to my new life as a children’s book artist!”

Helen’s bright and playful work looks fantastic on both greeting cards and children’s books, and you can check out her folio here!