Messy mud potions, stepping stones, and neat new stuff.

🌱 ISSUE 06. 🍅 July 2024

Happy summer, little tomatoes! There are a lot of you on this newsletter now who found me at some late-spring markets (looking at you, Ithacafest and various Prides!) and I’m thrilled to have you here. If you’re new, I’m Julian, and I’m a full-time artist who splits time between selling at craft fairs, growing a garden, and illustrating picture books. It’s a very cool life that I’m lucky to lead, even though like everything, it can be kind of stressful. This newsletter is a way to keep everyone updated about new work, give you peeks into the life of a working artist, and come together over the shared work of making a life! Things have been moving and changing over here, and I’m very, very excited to talk about all of it.

☀️🌻 Planting the seeds of a sustainable career

First things first, some news! While selling my work directly has been the bulk of my career so far, in the background, I’ve been working on my portfolio in hopes of getting to both illustrate picture books and eventually write and illustrate some of my own. Some folks can manage that on their own, but most folks will eventually want an agent to help them get work, negotiate contracts, and grow as a creator, and… I am lucky enough have gotten one!

Going forward, I’ll be represented by and working with the incredible Naomi Davis (LINK) at BookEnds Literary. They are a senior literary agent at a very cool agency. I am so incredibly lucky to get to work with someone as intentional and experienced as Naomi, and I can’t wait to see what we make together! The header image on this email was painted to celebrate our new partnership and the joy that comes from making a beautiful muddy mess together :) Did anyone else make 1 million mud potions in the backyard as a child?? Naomi and I both did this, and that’s just one of about a hundred points of connection we discovered on our call!

This is a huge step forward for me and I am so, so thrilled and already working on some new portfolio pieces, so keep an eye out and get ready, publishers!! I’m coming your way! In just a few weeks I will be heading to two back-to-back children’s book retreats (including at the inimitable Milkwood!!) and I’m so excited to have a little time to focus on that half of my career. I’ll report back from both of those in August, along with that studio tour! The studio is a bit of a production mess right now, and while I believe very strongly in showing real behind the scenes stuff, there is literal dirt on the ground from where my cat threw a potted plant, so…. I have some cleaning to do.

🐌 New stuff on Etsy!

Some of you have seen this stuff and some of you have not, so I thought I’d put everything on Etsy to give everyone a chance to get fish stickers or shiny bug stickers! As promised, I’ve restocked everything I ran out of at all the markets (thank you all so much!!) and you can find it all on Etsy. There’ll be even more prints coming in a few weeks, so if there are sizes you can’t find that you want, keep an eye out!

As always, because you’re on this list, there is a little coupon code for you for 15% off :) It’ll apply when you hit the button below but if you lose that link, the code is TOMATO.

Fishes and bugs this way!

🧺 Markets and Shows

Oh, boy, what a summer we have upcoming! This year marks the most markets I have done ever, and I’ve placed a gigantic print order to make sure I have enough to get me through!

After the break for the retreats and some time off, we’re jumping back in with:

🌿 Great Outdoors Fest
Genesee Country Village & Museum, Genesee, NY
Saturday, July 27th, & Sunday, July 28th, 10am–4pm
👉 I’ll be running a Nature Illustration Workshop both days for an hour or so!

Then we head into August!

🌊 Lake George Art & Craft Festival
Lake George, NY
Friday, August 2–Sunday, August 4
10am–5pm

And absolutely thrilled to say that I’ll be part of:

🎨 Ithaca Artists’ Market
Ithaca Farmer’s Market
Friday, August 9
12pm–7:30pm

Then Mads and I will promptly drive to Brockport for:

🌻 Brockport Arts Festival
Brockport, NY
Saturday, August 10–Sunday, August 11
10am–5pm

Woo! What a summer! There’ll be more in September but no one can plan that far ahead, so I’ll list those as we get closer :) Hope to see some of you more this summer!

🍅 In the Garden

Our garden is growing every single day, and I’ve been sitting out back and watching the fireflies, so there are fewer links this time around.

It’s garlic scape season for just a little longer and I still need to make this garlic scape pesto and slather it on everything.

With all this heat I want to eat only cold things like these raspberry popsicles.

If you like comics / graphic novels at all, check out Ethan Maldridge’s work! He’s a queer creator whose work is so evocative and full of incredible shadows.

Anthony Hurd is another incredible queer artist I love. Their work is full of queer yearning and gorgeous colors and I’d like to live in their paintings, please.

That’s all from me today, my friends! Check back soon for a studio tour and recaps of the retreats I’m going to, but until then, please stay cool and eat a popsicle for me. ❄️