Camilla Engman

Image can be found on Camilla Engman's website: http://www.camillaengman.com/

Just before my visit to New York, I had contacted Camilla Engman via email, and when I returned I had received an email from her with a response to my question as well as a helpful tip!
I asked Camilla if there was any particularly motivating advice she had received that she could pass on to me, and how to promote myself successfully. I wanted to know if there were any particular 'No Go's'

On 11 Nov 2012, at 14:21, Camilla Engman wrote:

Hi Jadine,

Sorry for the very late answer!

I have a degree in graphic design, we had of course classes in painting, nude sketching, sketching perspective, colour practice, etching, photographing and so on but we didn't have any classes in illustration. When I started to work after my degree I started as a Graphic designer, and I used myself when I needed an illustrator. I was a good enough graphic designer but better as an illustrator and also my interest laid there, in the pictures not in the typhography. So all I've done is putting up a website and later on a blog, beeing active in different kinds of illustration happenings on the web - like Illustration Friday (which was much smaller back then) - and saying yes to almost everything that sounded fun. Now I don't have as much time but I still try to say yes to the things that sounds fun. I think my only advice is to be true, not to force yourself in to a way of illustrating - your illustrator-voice will soon show itself. It might not be the one you want but it will always shine through :) Be brave. If you copy others just do it for training, do not put it on the web or sell it, it can and will backfire. You can find anyting on internet but everyone can also find you.

Good luck with your future!

Camilla 

Copying others for training seems to be reoccurring advice given, as I have been told this by my tutors in the past, as well as Andre Da Loba. If you like how an illustrator works or how they use colour then why not experiment with something similar yourself, it is always good to be inspired. And as for her point about forcing my way in to a way of illustrating, I understand exactly what she means because I have experienced this recently. I look at similar illustrators work because I admire their techniques, but when I explore a similar working method, I do not want my work to be the same. I can not change the way I do things and so I need to apply these new techniques to the way I naturally draw.

The fact that Camilla had trained as a graphic designer reminded me of some of what charles Hively had to say when we visited his home in Brooklyn,

"I have just returned from New York and I spoke to Charles Hively the design director for 3X3 and he was saying how illustrators have no idea about business and how its the graphic designers and photographers who know how to set a price and promote themselves, so I wonder whether your background in a different discipline has perhaps helped in that respect?"

I have to say thank you again to Camilla Engman for taking the time to speak to me!


Hi Jadine,
It's ok to publish our conversation on you blog. Feel free to change the text so it is understandable :)

In the beginning I was influensed by my graphic design prices, and also I worked more towards advertising agencies. After a while I got an agent in the US and they gave me assingments and told me the price. And I guess as stupid as many illustrators are in this way, I was just happy to get an assignment in another country/in the US/for a well known magazine. After a while I got used to it. I've heard somewhere, I have no idea if it is true, that an illustrator now has the same fee (?) as an illustrator had back in the 50's. Illustrating for magazines and books are very very bad payed. So let your stomache keep the size as it has now when you are a student ;)
After all that, I'll have to say that I've been able to live on my work for over 10 years and I wouldn't like to change my career choices so far.

Warmest regards,
Camilla