Julie McLaughlin “Am I working, or am I doing this for fun?” asks Julie McLaughlin. Like most creative freelancers, her work and life are intertwined. “A lot of times there isn’t a line, and that’s a blessing and curse.” “My work is often inspired by life and things/people around me. My life is often filled with people I’ve met through work or events I’ve heard about through work. I don’t even have a separate studio space yet, so even physically my work and life are mixed in together. There’s a great question in a book I have that proposes, ‘Am I filling my life with work, or am I filling my work with life?’ Amongst all careers, I think it’s really applicable to illustrators (and other freelancers)—especially starting out— because there aren’t set work hours where you physically have to leave the building and stop working, so it’s easy for work to take over your life. And because for a lot of artists, their hobbies do include art, so it’s hard to draw a line between work and pleasure.” “When illustrating, you have to look for something interesting and captivating in the subject you’re given, and I think part of that trails over to my personal life— finding something bigger in what I’m looking at or listening to or doing. You always try to look at a subject matter in different angles or perspectives and that’s really helpful in life!”
cAlgAry 403 969 2432 julie@whatwouldjuliedraw.com www.whatwouldjuliedraw.com 117