I’m Jessica Jane, a Melbourne, Australian based illustrator and designer. Once a month I will send out a newsletter giving you updates on what I have been up to in the previous month with my creative work and any updates for the month ahead.

March was a very event filled month. I literally started the 1st of March with my favourite regional market, The Daylesford Sunday Market and ended the last weekend of March with 2 events on at the same time… me at Perth oz Comic Con and my lovely assistants at The Handmade Design Market in Coburg.

An update on the previous Months art projects:

Enchanted Realms was one of my first events for the month. Along with running a market I also taught a mushroom ink drawing workshop. I hadn’t run a work shop in a few years so was a bit nervous to do it again but it went great. Public speaking is definitely not one of my strong points but I’m good at talking about things I know, so it’s easy to discuss and talking a topic that I spend a lot of my time focusing on.

For part of the workshop I recorded a time lapse of my drawing process from start to finish and had this playing in the background during the workshop. You can now find the timelapse on my YouTube by clicking here. I also made a step by step booklet guide for the workshop which I am planning to have available as a digital download on my website shop soon.

I recently restocked my zines at Sticky Institute in Melbourne. I was in the city setting up for an event and they were open so snuck in quickly before set up. I’m not in the city very often while they are open and had been thinking about restocking for months. You can now find some copies of my handmade Fairytales & Vintage Stories zine in the store!

Mini originals from the archives (aka my art drawers). My partner made custom picture frames for some originals from past freelance and personal projects.

Once tucked away in my studio these one off pieces have been finding forever homes at my events in March with the rest trickling along to other future markets and my online store soon!

In March one of the picture books I was commissioned to illustrate finally came out and is now available online! It’s called ‘Garden Stew: Recipe for my Bestie’ by Susan Appleby and is my favourite book project so far!

You can view and purchase it online on the authors website here by clicking here!

“Garden Stew Recipe for My Bestie”, is a delightful story written in verse, about the joys of making garden stews and best friends.

April Illustrated Recipe Club Reveal: Key Lime Pie 🍋‍🟩

Every month I create an illustrated recipe poster as my version of a subscription style snail mail club. I remake a recipe I always come back to and have made my own or get creative with something new.

We have a lime and lemon tree growing in our backyard and this is our go to dessert recipe every year once our limes are ready! 🥧
Towards the end of summer our zesty fruits are generally ready to go. This is the most delicious lime dessert l’ve made, topped with cream and whatever edible flowers are in season at the time. The digital recipe poster is currently published on my Patreon with posters, stickers and prints being posted soon. You can find out more and become part of the recipe club by clicking here!

This is the very first peeks at my latest illustration! I recently took part in a witchy themed market in march and planned to debut this at the event. I very much overestimated the amount of time needed to complete it and I still have a long way to go. This illustration is very prop heavy and with all the individual elements and details it has become a piece I will hopefully tackle in April.

With all the event prep I had in March along with deadlines for freelance work it got put on hold but you can enjoy the first looks here!

In March I also topped up my stockist products at Vero Junior located at Werribee Plaza with some of my newer pieces! So my fairies and bunnies can now be found in store with a selection of prints, cards, bookmarks and stickers.

For Perth Oz ComicCon I did my first event where I got a plane to travel. To do this I had to create a whole new display as my big bulky wooden print stands have no chance at fitting in a suitcase or not weighing too much.

To make a suitcase friendly display I used cube grids to elevate my display. I wanted to paint it but ran out of time. And I made 5 foam print stands. I did paint these unfortunately on the same day I had to pack and they stuck together a bit which means some touch ups are needed when I get around to it. And some of the thinner cut out areas of the display broke so lots of learning and fixing for later. But pretty happy with the overall new display!

Last update! You can now pre-order physical copies of Fabled Magazine, including issue 1 and the new issue 2! This is a really special project that I freelance on as a designer and filled with amazing creatives. Click here to check out Fabled.

Inspiration & Recommendation Updates:

All of a sudden summer was over and we hadn't gone to the beach! Both me and my partner have been fairy busy and we aim to go swimming at least once or twice during the summer. Luckily there was one last hot day in March when we had a day off work and went snorkelling at the Jawbone Marine Sanctuary in Williamstown.

Soup club with friends! A really lovely activity coming into Autumn and with the cost of living currently. Meeting with a group of friends and making a meal at home then having a craft session afterwards!

Monthly Casper the Samoyed Update:

After a successful market day at Enchanted Realms we all went out for dinner at 3030 Waterfront in Werribee South. James had helped me run this market while I was teaching a workshop and we both didn’t feel like cooking. Casper was on her best behaviour and just happy to sit and people watch. She also said hello to the dog at the next table over. It was a nice way for us all to hang out after leaving Casper alone all day.

The day after the Clunes Booktown Festival we went to the YouYangs for a hike. Casper loved it and smelled many trees. I had been doing lots of driving the past 3 days and running a market stall in a very warm tent. The fresh air and walking was a nice way to unwind after working at a festival!

Markets & Events :

EBV EASTER MARKET

2 Apr - 4 - 9 PM - East Brunswick Village -The market is set up along Village Avenue and/or Bluestone Way

MELBOURNE SUPANOVA

18-19 Apr - 10 AM - 6 PM - Melbourne Showgrounds

TBC - Ballarat Farmers & Makers Market

25 Apr - 9 AM - 1PM - Ballarat Botanical Gardens

TBC - BENDIGO WITCHES FAIR

2-3rd May - 10 AM - 4PM - Zinc at Fed Square

POMPOM! ART MARKET

2 May - 10 AM - 3PM - Bendigo Trades Hall

RENFAIR

16-17 May - 10 AM - 5 PM - Armstrong Grove, Yarra Glen VIC 3775

ADELAIDE OZ COMIC CON

30-31 May - 10AM - 4 PM - Adelaide Showgrounds

MELBOURNE OZ COMIC CON

6-7 Jun - 9AM - 5 PM - 1 Convention Centre Pl, South Wharf VIC 3006

ARTIST ALLEY RESERVOIR

5 Jul - 9AM - 4 PM - Darebin Community Sports Stadium

FINDERS KEEPERS

10-12 Jul - 10AM - 5 PM - Royal Exhibition Building, Carlton Gardens

METRO COMIC CON

18-19 Jul - 9AM - 5 PM - 1 Convention Centre Pl, South Wharf VIC 3006

What’s in my Shop: Bunnies & Ribbons

No new pieces but I finally got around to uploading some artworks onto my shop that hadn’t been previously. So you’ll find my Mushroom Fairies artwork and some new greeting cards! Mushroom stickers are pending!

.Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about my art and got some fun recommendations and insights.

If you enjoyed reading and want to support me you can buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jessicajaneco

Some free ways to support me are following me on my socials at:

Instagram I Tiktok I Youtube I Facebook

See you next month…

Jess

I’m Jessica Jane, a Melbourne, Australian based illustrator and designer. Once a month I will send out a newsletter giving you updates on what I have been up to in the previous month with my creative work and any updates for the month ahead.

I thought February was busy but just scroll down and see all the events I have booked for March! My calendar is getting very full and I’m having less time to write these newsletters… so I hope you enjoy them! Also summer is gone and I’m not ready for that.

An update on the previous Months art projects:

The month of February started with the opening of the Folktale exhibition at Tanglewood Galley in Sassafras. I didn’t make to the opening but I did a trip up once I had a free day and visited the show whilst sightseeing in the Dandenong Ranges. Tanglewood is a whimsically curated space with so much to look at. I spent a long time discover new artists and wondering over the magical shop products. The exhibition had a few awards and I was lucky enough to receive the Professional Artist Prize!

If you missed this my Fairies in Flowers artwork will still be in the gallery for most of March and I am now also part of their gallery shop. You can find my prints, cards, stickers and bookmarks now stocked at Tanglewood Gallery.

While I was in the area I also restocked my products at Finders Keepers Emporium located in Upper Ferntree Gully which is another store I stock in. Here you can find handmade prints & greeting cards.

Other places we visited which I recommend if you're making the trip include Leaf Studios in Kallista and Miss Marples Tearoom for lunch if you're after something on the sweeter side.

A lot of the month of February has been dedicated to designing the second issue of Fabled which is due to come out in April. Although I can’t show any behind the scenes on this yet I can share some photos I did of issue 1. To start issue 2 I did a deep dive into the design of issue 1 and looked back on layouts, type and general design to make sure we were keeping things consistent moving into issue 2.

I love looking at this magazine. Along with great writing it has stunning art and is beautiful to look through. Click here to see some further snaps and a glimpse into issue 1 while we wait for what comes next…

I’ve always wanted to have more holiday themed illustrations that can be used year after year but every time I’ve had the idea to do them i’ve left it too late. I spent the last week of February creating my next illustration: Bunnies & Ribbons. This artwork was made with Easter in mind but also as a stand alone that can be appreciated throughout the year, especially if you like rabbits and bows.

I just had this visual in my head of a piece that could easily be converted into a repeat pattern for wrapping. It needed to have something more than just the animals whilst not being direct to Easter so it can work all year round. I loved the idea or twirling ribbons flowing through the negative space. And I was inspired to draw kenilworth ivy from a photo I took of the plant on a trip to Williamstown where I found it growing outside a nursery. One of my friends has a lop eared rabbit and all 4 lop eared bunnies are referenced from snaps of her rabbit named Luna. Click here to browse my new rabbit collection of come find it at markets this month!

For the March Illustrated Recipe Club I have made the Bundt Lamington. At the start of the year I began a Patreon with a snail mail style subscription where you can receive a digital and/or physical illustrated recipe poster with add ons like stickers and prints.

Making a Lamington was on my list but how to make it different… Turn it into a dome layered cake with cherries to decorate. This was made for my little brother’s birthday and with good packing and ice survived a two hour car ride to the birthday destination!
If you’d like to make this and have access to all my past recipes which include video tutorials and timelspase drawings check out my Patreon here.

My favourite event from February was attending Bookfair Australia in Melbourne!

This event was a little different to my normal conventions. Being book themed, along with sharing my regular stall set up of my personal work/products I also made a display to showcase my Illustration/design freelance work. People got to see the amazing first issue of the @fabled.magazine , I finally met @jessica_peace_writes in person and sold copies of her book that I illustrated/designed, and I met another one of my authors @susanapplebyauthor ✨ I had illustration samples of her book and Kate Hasbani’s picture book, both coming out this year!
I also took part in my first panel with the lovely @isobellecarmody !!
I was also a judge for a colouring competition.

Attendees kept me very busy and I spent Saturday night printing and assembling sold out stock. All the stallholders were friendly and great to have a chat with. I left it to the last hour on Sunday to walk around and still didn’t have enough time to see everyone! I’m looking forward to coming back soon…

Inspiration & Recommendation Updates:

In February I spent a weekend in Daylesford but not to do a market! It was nice to visit and do all the touristy things. My favourite spot was Lavandula Farm which is a pet friendly working Lavender Farm + Swiss Italian Historical Site. Lots of animals and gardens to admire and delicious lavender flavoured food. I recommend the Lavender ice-cream. Other spots we went to over a weekend included The Convent Daylesford, the Daylesford Lake, Bromley Gallery, the Sunday Market, Wombat Hill and Farmers Arms.

For Valentine’s Day we did a metal rose making workshop at Waterside Metal Art in Footscray. It was a 3 hour evening workshop and very fitting to the day. A great workshop for beginners if you’d like to give metal work a go. The staff were great to learn from and they even have a studio hound called Harry who is very sweet.

Monthly Casper the Samoyed Update:

Casper’s dalmation cousin Millie stayed over for a sleepover and this is what happened when we went for a walk during Holi! Casper is looking pretty like a unicorn and we are still waiting for her to become white again.

Markets & Events :

ENCHANTED REALMS

8th Mar - 10 AM - 4 PM - Welcome to Thornbury

I will be teaching a workshop from 2pm at this event so If you wanted to see me come before then. After 2pm I’ll have an assistant running my stall.

LANCEFIELD WITCHES TWILIGHT FAIR

14th Mar - 2PM - 7 PM - 4 The CrescentLancefield, VIC, 3435

COBURG MAKERS MARKET

15th Mar - 11AM - 3 PM - 69 Charles St, Coburg

CLUNES BOOKTOWN FESTIVAL

21-22 Mar - 9AM - 4PM - I’m very excited to announce I will have a stall at Clunes Bookfair as part of ‘A Novel Bunch’ Marquee located at stall J on Fraser Street.

THE HANDMADE DESIGN MARKET

28-29th Mar - 10AM - 3 PM - 90 Bell StreetCoburg, VIC, 3058

PERTH OZ COMIC CON

28-29th Mar - 9:30AM - 4:30 PM - Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre

EBV EASTER MARKET

5 Apr - 10 AM - 3 PM - East Brunswick Village -The market is set up along Village Avenue and/or Bluestone Way

MELBOURNE SUPANOVA

18-19 Apr - 10 AM - 6 PM - Melbourne Showgrounds

BENDIGO WITCHES FAIR

2-3rd May - 10 AM - 4PM - Zinc at Fed Square

POMPOM! ART MARKET

2 May - 10 AM - 3PM - Bendigo Trades Hall

RENFAIR

16-17 May - 10 AM - 5 PM - Armstrong Grove, Yarra Glen VIC 3775

ADELAIDE OZ COMIC CON

30-31 May - 10AM - 4 PM - Adelaide Showgrounds

MELBOURNE OZ COMIC CON

6-7 Jun - 9AM - 5 PM - 1 Convention Centre Pl, South Wharf VIC 3006

What’s in my Shop: Bunnies & Ribbons

A mixture of 8 lop eared and up eared rabbits tied in bows, surrounded by kenilworth ivy. An illustration made with Easter in mind, whilst being able to be appreciated all year for bunny enthusisets. Created in Jessica Jane’s nostalgic detailed ink drawing style. Products include the original artwork, giclee prints, cards, wrapping, gift tags, and stickers.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about my art and got some fun recommendations and insights.

If you enjoyed reading and want to support me you can buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jessicajaneco

Some free ways to support me are following me on my socials at:

Instagram I Tiktok I Youtube I Facebook

See you next month…

Jess

I’m Jessica Jane, a Melbourne, Australian based illustrator and designer. Once a month I will send out a newsletter giving you updates on what I have been up to in the previous month with my creative work and any updates for the month ahead.

I recently made it to one year freelancing full-time, working for myself as an illustrator/designer! It’s been… weird, sometimes stressfully, bussssyyy, but amazing. It doesn’t quite feel like it’s been that long and I’m still very much figuring things out.

I had previously been working full-time in graphic design for 8 years and freelancing/running my own business on the side. I was never satisfied with just what I did in my day job and was always going to have my own personal practice for my creative fulfilment. One thing I loved about my time in the corporate world is all the different kinds of design work you can do. That kept it interesting for me when I started a new job, and I enjoyed constantly learning and working on my skills. I illustrated and designed products for kids/babies, did textile design and placement prints as a designer for licensed apparel and worked in print/digital marketing design for retail.

After being made redundant I continued freelancing while looking for my next position. At that stage having a lot more experience, being somewhat older/wiser and having gone through a few roles I was a lot more picker on what my next role would be and wanted something that would work better for my lifestyle longterm. I wanted to settle in a role and be happy with it. I had many, many job interviews and nothing ever quite worked out. I was lucky for the first time to be in a position to not just take any job and the longer it went on with just my own work the less I looked for jobs and the more I thought, well I’ve been going for this long, I might as well keep going. And here we are one year later.

Here are some of the things I accomplished in my first year working for myself full-time: I became the designer for the most perfectly themed magazine for my work ‘Fabled Magazine’, I worked on illustrations and/or designs for 4 picture books (just 1 is out in the world currently), I did my first interstate artist alleys, I did too many markets/conventions to count, continued making lots of new personal ink illustrations that I then designed into products, participated in some gallery exhibitions, was commissioned for 2 different textile design jobs, worked on logos, pet portraits, did some custom commissions like birthday cards and name prints, started development on my own picture book, designed new products like a calendar and tote bags, a few new stockists and started a Patreon, aka The Illustrated Recipe Club.

I love all the work I create for my personal practice and for freelancing and am very proud that I am finally giving it a go. The biggest advice I would give to someone wanting to work for themself is having the confidence to do it and commitment/work ethic to work hard. Work ethic has never been a problem for myself. Having the years of experience in a corporate environment, you pick up skills like time management and multitasking quickly. But I was doing that and then going home and continuing to do my own work in-between; being passionate about your own work defiantly helps. If you don’t want it bad enough it’s a lot easier to go back to just doing any job for stability.

Confidence is harder. It’s a big part of the reason it’s taken me this long to do it. It’s hard to ignore the noise of people unintentionally making you feel like you're not good enough, society and the way you were brought up telling you it’s not the way. I think I actually lost a lot of confidence being employed as a designer. I never felt appreciated and valued in my work, I was a small fish in a big pond and the way some people talk to you/treat you, I would never put up with outside of a work environment.

When I freelance it’s the opposite. People come to me for the work I do, I am the expert in my field, the attitude/friendliness of my clients is so contrasted compared to my corporate experiences. I am very much surrounded by a network of likeminded people who share similar creative interests.

It is true though, what they say about 24/7 working when you work for yourself… I hated the idea of a 9-5 structure, but I do actually work so much more now!

To celebrate this milestone I will have 20% DISCOUNT on my online store for a week, finishing midnight 8th Feb. Discount code is 20%OFF-1YEAR at checkout. Excludes print on demand products.

Now back to the monthly updates…

An update on the previous Months art projects:

For a lot of January I worked on my first personal illustration of year: Fairies in Flowers. This A2 original artwork is now on display at Tanglewood Gallery in Sassafras as part of their Folklore group exhibition. The show runs till the 28th of Feb and is available for viewing during this time.

This piece is hopefully the first of many original concepts I will be creating for my personal work this year. Over the past two years I made a lot of art inspired by iconic stories because I wanted to, but also as a way of building up a portfolio for artist alleys and conventions. I now think I have enough of these and it’s not what I want to become known for, so I am aiming to have most of my new work this year come from my own ideas.

I really love this piece. Creating the concept for it came easy for me as it’s a theme I’m familiar with and enjoy but actually drawing it took longer than usual for a piece this size. Generally the more individually aspects and details that go into an artwork the longer it takes. This artwork has 14 fairies and 10 different varieties of flowers in it!

I was lucky enough to win the Profesional Artist category award for the exhibition which was very exciting news to receive!

Another project I’m really excited about and have been deep in development for, is creating a new workshop for the Enchanted Realms Market on the 8th of March. Along with running a stall on the day I will be holding a mushroom themed ink drawing workshop! I have designed and created a step by step booklet that each participant will receive and each student will get a set of fineliners to keep working away on at home.

Workshop Description: Follow the mushroom path at Enchanted Realms and create your own magical mushroom illustration. Learn ink drawing techniques from Jessica Jane whilst following a step by step guide to rendering the perfect mushroom.

Starts: 2pm
Duration: Approximately 2h
Price: $115
Spots available: 15
Tickets available now: https://events.humanitix.com/enchantingrealms/tickets

My February edition of the Illustrated Recipe Club is now available in the form of a digital and/or physical letter snail mail via Patreon. I introduced this back in my previous newsletter and I’m enjoying creating some food inspired art and sharing recipes I love.

If you sign up before the 14 of Feb you’ll recieve the Frozen Limoncello illustrated Recipe. It’s my favourite summertime drink. Perfect for those extra hot days.

We like to make this on a weekend evening before or after dinner as a refreshing way to cool down in the backyard. Or double the recipe as needed for guests as a treat!

My first Pet Portrait commission of the year was another puppy! It’s ridiculously cute and tiny on my smallest size A6. You can learn more about my pet portrait keepsakes here: www.jessicajaneillustration.com/commissions/pet-portrait

Another special commission I completed was for a 1st Birthday keepsake in my watercolour look illustration style I’ve been doing for some client work. The concept was very sweet and I loved doing some watercolour handwriting.

We were also commissioned to make the picture frames! This is a new service I will be offering soon. I’m luck enough to have a crafty partner who I get to make picture frames for my original artworks. We started getting compliments on them at events and now I’m looking at having them as an option for pick up.

If you recall in my last newsletter I shared some images from a name print commission I did. This has been a year long project which originally started with 3 name prints for boys rooms but added an additional one when a new member joined the fam! This is the new piece I made for them. My personal work is all detailed inks but for client work I can get out the paint brushes!

Inspiration & Recommendation Updates:

In the first weekend on January we went to see the Anastasia Musical. It played at my favourite theatre in Melbourne: the Regent Theatre. If you love the movie, the musical does not disappoint! Georina Hobson had the perfect voice for Anya.

Before the musical we visited the bar StoryVillie. It had been on my list to visit for years and we finally tired it out. The interior styling of the venue is impressive with glowing mushrooms and they have themed cocktails based on fairytales. It was a fun experience with great presentation but the taste of the drinks did let it down a bit!

Monthly Casper the Samoyed Update:

Early January we took a trip to PortFairy to take part in the PortFairy Community Market during the new year period. Unfortunately with the bushfires around Victoria the event was canceled due to dangerous winds. But we made a mini holiday out of it and Casper loved digging in the sand at the beach.

Markets & Events :

BALLARAT FARMERS & MAKERS MARKET

14th Feb - 9 :00AM - 1 PM - North Gardens Reserve Zoo Drive, Lake Wendouree

TBC MALMSBURY FARMERS’ & ARTISTS’ MARKET

15th Feb - 9 :00AM - 1 PM - Cricket Ground, Ellesmere Pl, Malmsbury VIC 3446

BOOK FAIR AUSTRALIA

21-22nd Feb - 10 AM - 4 PM - Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

Along with my regular market stall I will be showcasing some books and magazines I have worked on. I will also be part of a design panel on designing front covers 3.30-4.15pm Saturday.

ENCHANTED REALMS

8th Mar - 10 AM - 4 PM - Welcome to Thornbury

I will also be running a mushroom drawing workshop at this event in my detailed ink drawing style!

LANCEFIELD WITCHES TWILIGHT FAIR

14th Mar - 2PM - 7 PM - 4 The CrescentLancefield, VIC, 3435

COBURG MAKERS MARKET

15th Mar - 11AM - 3 PM - 69 Charles St, Coburg

THE HANDMADE DESIGN MARKET

28-29th Mar - 10AM - 3 PM - 90 Bell StreetCoburg, VIC, 3058

MELBOURNE SUPANOVA

18-19 Apr - 10 AM - 6 PM - Melbourne Showgrounds

POMPOM! ART MARKET

2-3rd May - 10 AM - 4PM - Zinc at Fed Square

RENFAIR

16-17 May - 10 AM - 5 PM - Armstrong Grove, Yarra Glen VIC 3775

What’s in my Shop: Fairies in Flowers Collection

With my Fairies in Flowers illustration complete I designed a collection of new products to go with it. I purposely made the artwork in mind with being able to make seperate assets like individual fairies and flowers. This espically came in handy when it came to making stickers, 8 of them! I also have 2 bookmarks and giclee pints in sizes A3 - A6.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about my art and got some fun recommendations and insights.

P.S: If you made it this far, I apologise for all the spelling/grammar mistakes in the previous newsletter… It was the end of December and I was tired.

If you enjoyed reading and want to support me you can buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jessicajaneco

Some free ways to support me are following me on my socials at:

Instagram I Tiktok I Youtube I Facebook

See you next month…

Jess

I’m Jessica Jane, a Melbourne, Australian based illustrator and designer. Once a month I will send out a newsletter giving you updates on what I have been up to in the previous month with my creative work and any updates for the month ahead.

Starting the new year with a little reflection on the last month of 2026… December was full with 8 markets booked and 9 days of trading for the festive season. It’s exciting to confirm many people would have opened their presents to see my handmade Christmas cards.

By the time this newsletter is posted I’ll only be a week or two away from working for myself full-time for 1 year! It’s been a big change from working full-time in graphic design and freelancing on the side. I look forward to reflecting and celebrating this milestone in the next newsletter.

Also a pause on the art stuff for something worth disrupting 🎂 @sorshi_world Saffron Pear Cake with cherries from our backyard to decorate 🍐🍒🧈
This was my partners birthday cake and I took a whole day off work to make it! It’s my favourite cake yet and was deliciously worth it 🍰 I’m enjoying making pretty cakes.

An update on the previous Months art projects:

I ended the year with a new project announcement for 2026. I have started a Patreon creating an Illustrated Recipe Club! It’s a snail mail style subscription where every month I will make a new illustrated recipe. I’ve wanted to have a service like this available for a while but took a while to figure out an idea that had a point of difference. You can read more about the beginnings of my illustrated recipes in my first free Patreon post by clicking here.

For January I created a recipe for a flower shaped Pavlova. I have a variety of tiers available from a digital recipe option with video recipe tutorials and drawing time-lapse’s, to a printed A3 recipe poster with options for stickers, mini prints & original artworks to be posted as a letter.

This is a look at January’s recipe, a flower shaped pavlova. The idea is that the recipes will be advertised in advance so you can make them during the month they are designed for. The Pavlova illustrated recipe will be available to be posted till mid Jan then Februarys recipe will be revealed! Starting with a summery Aussie pav for the new year. Click here to look at my membership options and get your own copy of my first ever illustrated recipe!

Drawing Delilah… I recently got commission for a pet portrait of a beautiful kelpie dog. This one is in size A5 with a headshot of the dog. Pet Portraits are one of the services I’ve offered since I started my little business and I still love doing them every time. For more information on my pet portraits click here.

A lot of December was dedicated to attending markets and printing and assembling new stock for markets. My busiest week was the second week of December where I had 4 markets booked! I hadn’t done this since 2017 or 2018 when I was recently out of uni and doing markets while I started my career. I have improved a lot since then but definitely get more tired and sore now that I’m a bit older. I did a few weekday twilight markets and some weekend ones the next day and I think this may be the last time I do that… I spent a fair chunk of my market days feeling like a zombie who didn’t get enough rest/sleep. What does wake me up is seeing all the cute dogs who visit my stall.

I posted the following on my stories and it got. laugh so thought I’d share it here. It’s a little reflection on the comments one gets when doing markets. Some funny interactions when doing markets in December:

A tiny human child looking at my work and saying ‘that’s bad art’ and me saying ‘I love the honesty’ whilst mum try’s to convince them it’s good.

Another person saying ‘nice Lino art’ (this happens a lot) whilst I’m drawing in front of them with a fineliner.

Someone asking if they can take a zine for free and then saying they are an artist and that looks like a lot of work...

It’s not so relevant now being January… but sticking to the once a month newsletter means you get to see some Christmas content in January. In record time I made a new Christmas themed artwork for greeting cards at markets. I was seeing a lot of grinch themed things popping up might have watched the movies too.

Realising I related a bit to the grinch just wanting to stay home with my dog I felt inspired to make my own Ginchmas artwork. I felt it was a nicer take on what it’s like to be a grinch. I had fun with the handwriting making what I thought a grinch like font would look like, slightly messy and whovilleish. It unfortunately dint make it to my online store onetime but maybe next year!

I did also squeeze one more artwork in before the Melbourne Oz Comic Con Christmas edition at the start of December. With the final season of Stranger Things coming up this was my final chance to do a themed artwork while it was still relevant. I based it on the first season as I still think that was the best and the characters have a more well known look here. It was a little different to my other story based pieces as I was sticking to a realistic look to the characters so my artwork style veered a bit here.

I was inspired by Drew Struzan movie posters who did had painted designs for Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones and more. I had also seen a lot of these style posters for varies seasons of Stranger Things and like the idea of creating a black and white ink version of this. Playing with the layout and sizes of character was important to create a hierarchy. For Eleven originally I was going to draw her in the stare look she is known for but then I was re watching the season and wanted to highlight her Eggo obsession as something different.

Something even more different to my normal style… I got to see some name print commissions I made earlier in the year for a kids bedroom wall art job. Pictured below is one of four pieces and I loved seeing the final result and how they were styled with the room. These prints were designed from symbolic watercolour artworks I painted. I enjoy every now and then doing something different for client work and was so happy to see how they turned out!

Inspiration & Recommendation Updates:

One of my markets in December was the Brunswick Ceres Market located at Ceres Environment Park. I was amazed that a place like this existed so close to the city and made sure to have a good walk around after the market. Complete with a garden, nursery, cafes and bookshop it was the calming environment I needed after trading all day. I’m keen to return for a day trip one days as it is a dog friendly spot.

And another Christmas themed callout, sorry not sorry. GINGERBREAD!

Each year my partner and I make a new gingerbread masterpiece for our families. James made an excuvator which was a request from some little people and I make a church/castle. I wanted to go with something safe this year as last year my invention didn’t quite work out and I know that I can do buildings!

I design the templates from scratch in adobe illustrator and we often have to do some adjusting come assembling time. I’m not a math wizard but I get pretty close to a correct template. It’s the gingerbread expanding and having space to fit pieces within pieces with added icing space that gets us. We like to add stained glass (hard lolly) windows and patterned royal icing with piping bag nozzles.

Monthly Casper the Samoyed Update:

Casper has been doing a lot of napping in the ensuite now that it’s summer. I brushed out I think the most amount of fluff ever and we’ve been going on walks with my Little Women tote bag. I keep my keys, phone and dog treats in them while we are out.

Markets & Events :

DAYLESFORD MAKERS MARKET

3rd Jan - 9 :00AM - 2 PM - Daylesford Spa Country Railway - First ever makers market at Daylesford!

PORT FAIRY COMMUNITY MARKET

10th Jan - 9 :00AM - 1 PM - 5 Railway PlacePort Fairy, VIC, 3284

BALLARAT FARMERS & MAKERS MARKET

24th Jan - 9 :00AM - 1 PM - North Gardens Reserve Zoo Drive, Lake Wendouree

DAYLESFORD SUNDAY MARKET

25th Jan - 8 :00AM - 1 PM - Daylesford Spa Country Railway

BOOK FAIR AUSTRALIA

21-22nd Feb - 10 AM - 4 PM - Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

Along with my regular market stall I will be showcasing some books and magazines I have worked on. I will also be part of a design panel 3.30-4.15pm Sunday.

ENCHANTED REALMS

8th Mar - 10 AM - 4 PM - Welcome to Thornbury

I will also be running a mushroom drawing workshop at this event in my detailed ink drawing style. More news to come soon!

MELBOURNE SUPANOVA

18-19 Apr - 10 AM - 6 PM - Melbourne Showgrounds

RENFAIR

16-17 May - 10 AM - 5 PM - Armstrong Grove, Yarra Glen VIC 3775

What’s in my Shop: 2026 Calendar

2026 is looking busy already!!! Writing January market dates in my very own calendar 🗓️ I had to record this special moment. I will keep the Enchanted Stories 2026 calendar available on my website store till mid January then it will be gone forever.

My calendars are a print on demand online only item and can be purchased from my website by clicking here.

Last newsletter I revealed my Wicked inspired illustration. You can now find my Wicked collection on my online store including prints, cards, stickers and bookmarks. The scene pictured is inspired from the Popular scene in the 1st movie.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about my art and got some fun recommendations and insights.

If you enjoyed reading and want to support me you can buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jessicajaneco

Some free ways to support me are following me on my socials at:

Instagram I Tiktok I Youtube I Facebook

See you next month…

Jess

I’m Jessica Jane, a Melbourne, Australian based illustrator and designer. Once a month I will send out a newsletter giving you updates on what I have been up to in the previous month with my creative work and any updates for the month ahead.

November went quickly and I believe December might be even more quicker with the end of year rush. I’m getting busy now with events, selling my illustration products with it being Christmas shopping time. As the weather warms up and it creeps to the end of year I tend to pick up on markets. This is the time when they are most busy and I’ll fill up my weekends with smaller markets in between my bigger events. I have more than double the amount of markets booked for December than I did in November so lots of chances for locals to see my work in person.

An update on the previous Months art projects:

My favourite event for November was taking part in the Enchanted Realms market at Welcome to Thornbury. I’ve been doing markets for a long long time and was very impressed with the professionalism of this event! They had some great marketing in the lead up to the event and were very organised with stall holder management.

The market had a fantasy/folklore theme and I had my best sales here for a one day event here. I found the event really complimented my personal illustration work and I’m looking forward to coming back. They were also taking photos during the event with Golden Wing Press. It was lovely to see some photos of my work from someone other than myself taking them.

In November I did a sweet pet portrait commission of dogs Kobe and Mable. For this commission I had the fun challenge of sorting through seperate images of the two dogs and eating them out together in photoshop to have them posing together. As Mabel is a puppy it’s difficult to get nice photos of them together but we made it work!

I love my pet portiat commissions and have a few spots open to complete for Christmas gifting. Click here to browse my past pet portraits and see commission options.

Another stockist announcement! You can now find my products at Vero Junior located at Pacific Werribee Shopping Centre. I’ve been working behind the scenes with this store since October to make a new display for their shop. My work has slowly trickled it’s way into enough stores in Victoria that I have now made a new page on my website with all there details and locations. To do some in person shopping click here to see where you can find my work.

I’m extra excited to be at Vero Junior as this is at my local shopping centre which I’ve seen change and transform since I was a kid. I used to shop in stores as a teenager here that I later would have my designs in, from my full time graphic designer days to now having my very own illustration products in the stores. So it’s very cool to see these things change over time. At one time I had my design work in Big W, Target an Bevilles at the same time which was a fun moment. Now I have the work I’m most passionate about at Vero Junior!

In last month’s newsletter I revealed my Lord of the Rings inspired illustration. In between the busyness of events and drawing I’ve finally designed, printed and posted the Lord of the Rings collection live on my online store!!! As usual I’ve made a selection of handmade giclee prints, greeting cards, bookmarks and stickers for my most requested artwork!

More than one personal illustration in one month!!! It’s a true Christmas miracle. I just watched Wicked again in the lead up to Wicked For Good coming out. I’m loving the Popular scene with the floral wall interiors in their dorm and Glinda and Elphiba’s fun costume designs. So whilst feeling inspired I started building up my ideal illustration based on Wicked in the hopes it could be done before the movie comes out here. I also wanted a few more new artworks for end of year events so my motivation was strong.

Ending with some Fabled celebrations… the magazine I design for had an intimate gathering with the local team to celebrate the launch of Fabled Magazines first issue being complete! I got to see the final copy in print for the first time and it’s looking amazing. It was lovely to gather in person as most of our work is done remotely. The magazine is done you can now purchase digital copies on their website. They are currently working with the printer to get physical ones out very soon.

Inspiration & Recommendation Updates:

Early November we did a day trip to Steiglitz Historic Park where we went for some dog friendly hikes and looked at heritage buildings in an abandoned historic town built in Victoria’s Gold Rush of 1850-90s.

In a rare city outing I found myself admiring decorative buildings on Collins st, coming back to the Memoir of a Snail display at ACMI and loving Spellbox more than ever before in the Melbourne Royal Arcade.

As someone who now works in publishing and is constantly looking at illustrators, authors and publishers online I love visiting bookstores and finding something that caught my attention on the socials. On my recent city trip I visited Readings at the Emporium, Dymocks Melbourne and the NGV shop. These are some of the books I found that were on my I want this list!

Monthly Casper the Samoyed Update:

Casper joined me at the Daylesford Market recently. She’s done a few markets with me but it’s been a while. She was very well behaved with minimal barking and enjoyed surprising a few customers by hiding under the market table which is her safe spot. She met many dogs and got many pats and it was a day well spent on socialisation training.

Markets & Events :

I have 8 events booked for December in the lead up to Christmas! So much shopping to be done!!!

MELBOURNE OZ COMICA CON XMAS EDITION

6-7th Dec - 9 :30AM - 4:30 PM - Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

LOUIS JOEL ARTS AND COMMUNITY CENTRE TWILIGHT MARKET

10th Dec - 4PM - 8 PM - 5 Sargood Street, Altona, VIC, 3018

CASTLEMAINE TWILIGHT ARTISTS’ MARKET

12th Dec - 3 - 7PM - 34 Edna Grove, Coburg, VIC, 3058

CERES JOE’S CHRISTMAS MARKET

13th Dec - 9AM - 1PM - 56 Forest Street, Castlemaine, VIC, 3450

CLUNES FARMERS & MAKERS MARKET

14th Dec - 9 AM -1 PM - Fraser Street Clunes, VIC, 3370

BALLARAT TWILIGHT CHRISTMAS MARKET

19th Dec - 4 PM - 8 PM - Zoo Drive, Lake Wendouree

CERES MARKET

20th Dec - 9 AM - 2 PM - CERES, Corner of Roberts & Stewart St, Brunswick East

TBC - DAYLESFORD SUNDAY MARKET

21st Dec - 8 AM - 1 PM - Daylesford Railway Station - 18 Raglan Street Daylesford

What’s in my Shop: 2026 Calendar

Calendar shop reminder! It’s just 1 month left till the new year and I’ve designed a whole calendar filled with my nostalgic inky illustrations. I don’t often create products like this and it won’t be a yearly product that I make so this is a great chance to grab one while it’s available. My calendars are a print on demand online only item and can be purchased from my website by clicking here.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about my art and got some fun recommendations and insights.

If you enjoyed reading and want to support me you can buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jessicajaneco

Some free ways to support me are following me on my socials at:

Instagram I Tiktok I Youtube I Facebook

See you next month…

Jess

Hello, and welcome to my monthly newsletter!

I’m Jessica Jane, a Melbourne, Australian based illustrator and designer. Once a month I will send out a newsletter giving you updates on what I have been up to in the previous month with my creative work and any updates for the month ahead.

October is my birthday month and I like to celebrate by making pretty cakes decorated with edible flowers from the backyard. This year we made a raspberry and orange cake with marigold and daisy petals on top.

We also celebrated the spooky season by carving pumpkins and taking Casper photos in her annual bat wings/pumpkin bandana outfit. I’ve also included some Casper sketches featuring her halloween costume.

In this newsletter we go over a few things… Some new store stockists around Melbourne, book illustration updates and creating a new personal illustration based on the Lord of the Rings!

An update on the previous Months art projects:

Some exciting news from the previous month… you can now find my work in 3 new stockist stores! You can now find my handmade giclee prints, greeting cards, stickers and bookmarks at 3 Love Local stores:
- Westfield Southland, Cheltenham
- Parkmore Shopping Centre
- Bayside Shopping Centre, Frankston

I had a busy week sourcing display options and getting crafty with painting buckets and designing product labels to make my display more on brand. I generally only keep enough stock on hand for upcoming markets, so stocking for 3 stores meant I had to almost double my product stock to have at least one or two of each artwork in each size/product category.

This meant buying more printing material and making time to print, assemble and package all my products. I also made barcodes for the first time which was an interesting challenge, but also adds so much more time to producing each product which I didn’t love!

Below you can see my 3 set ups for each store. I was prepping for stores up until the afternoon of the day I did bump in. After this it was a long afternoon to evening of driving to each store and setting up each display. Each store was very different and I like seeing how each space changes my product set up.

While on the topic of stockists … I’m in discussions with another shop a bit closer to home for me which I may be stocking in soon! Keep an eye out on my socials for updates!

An update on my book illustration work… I’ve just finished and submitted final art for 2 picture books and I’m starting development for a third book. Book illustration work is a big long collaboration with authors and publishers and it may be a while till it’s out in the world but it’s nice to share little updates when I can.

Below is the beginnings of final artwork for one of the freelance jobs I have permission to share. Here I’m working in procreate and have done final line work and base colours with digital watercolour brushes. Next I’ll build up the piece with layers of colour and shadows. I do love this soft light look it currently has with just the first layer of colour. This particular project is becoming my favourite book client job so far and the kind of work I’d like to produce in future picture book illustration jobs. I think it’s so sweet and cute!

I am currently taking bookings for freelance work for next year and would love to ad some more book projects to my list. If you know anyone who may be looking for an illustrator/designer feel free to share my details jessicajaneillustration@gmail.com

I’ve finally made the time to work on a personal illustration. I’ve been really missing doing my own work since I’ve been busy with client work and events and now that we are getting to the end of the year I want to have some new artworks for Christmas markets. This past month my plan was to start and finish a new artwork and have prints ready for the Enchanted Realms market in November.

My most requested artwork at artist alleys is Lord of the Rings and I’m finally doing it! Originally I planned to do a landscape where you could see more of the shire, but this is a nice close up that will scale down well for cards and smaller prints. I wasn’t sure about in the draft stage but since doing the ink outlines I love how it’s turning out.

Luckily I finished the artwork intake for my November markets and been designing and making prints, greeting cards, stickers and bookmarks for a new Lord of Rings inspired collection! You’ll be able to find these at my upcoming and events and I’m aiming to have the products on my online store within the next week.

Inspiration & Recommendation Updates:

If you read last months newsletter you would have got a peek of Casper visiting this place! In early October we did a day trip to the Tesselaar Tulip Festival. We love to visit a flower farm and this was also a research trip for a long term project I’m working on.

The best location finds are a surprise! Last month on my drive home from Daylesford Market, google maps took me on the scenic route and I had to stop for the canola fields and lush mountains. Somewhere in Mount Wallace…

Monthly Casper the Samoyed Update: We were busy this month and for the first time Casper missed her halloween walk. I’d say she is probably happy with this result. As much as she likes treats, she tolerates dog costumes.

Casper pictured at the facade window telling us to hurry up and get in the house…

Markets & Events :

ENCHANTING REALMS MARKET

9th Nov 10AM - 4 PM - Welcome to Thornbury - 520 High St, Northcote Vic 3070

I’m really excited about this event! So far the event staff are doing a great job promoting this market. Limited tickets available here: https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1463187

CRESWICK MARKET

15th Nov - 9 AM - 1 PM - 21 Victoria St, Creswick VIC 3363

I’ve done day trips to this location and visited the market before. Now I’m excited to try out the market for myself. You can find me indoors inside the hall.

KENSINGTON MARKET

16th Nov - 10 AM -3 PM - Kensington Town Hall, 30-34 Bellair Street

MELBOURNE OZ COMICA CON XMAS EDITION

6-7th Dec - 9 :30AM - 4:30 PM - Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

LOUIS JOEL ARTS AND COMMUNITY CENTRE TWILIGHT MARKET

10th Dec - 4PM - 8 PM - 5 Sargood StreetAltona, VIC, 3018

CERES JOE’S CHRISTMAS MARKET

13th Dec - 9AM - 1PM - 34 Edna GroveCoburg, VIC, 3058

TBC - CLUNES FARMERS & MAKERS MARKET

14th Dec - 9 AM -1 PM - Fraser StreetClunes, VIC, 3370

TBC - CERES MARKET

20th Dec - 9 AM - 2 PM - CERES, Corner of Roberts & Stewart St, Brunswick East

TBC - DAYLESFORD SUNDAY MARKET

23rd Nov & 20th Dec - 8 AM - 1 PM - Daylesford Railway Station - 18 Raglan Street Daylesford

I had a great time at this market in October and have selected dates to return. Keep an eye out on my socials to hear if I’ll be there. It’s a lovely spot to visit, definitely recommend making a day trip out of it.

What’s in my Shop: 2026 Calendar

Calendar shop reminder! It’s just 2 months left till the new year and I’ve designed a whole calendar filled with my nostalgic inky illustrations. I don’t often create products like this and it won’t be a yearly product that I make so this is a great chance to grab one while it’s available. My calendars are a print on demand online only item and can be purchased from my website by clicking here.

Youtube Recommendations :

I’m hoping to get back into making Youtube videos soon, aiming for at least once a month. In the mean time I do have a nice collection of illustration and personal vlogs which I had lots of fun making. One of my most popular videos was my recording of creating my Alice in Wonderland Illustration. You can click on the image below to browse what I’ve made.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about my art and got some fun recommendations and insights.

If you enjoyed reading and want to support me you can buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jessicajaneco

Some free ways to support me are following me on my socials at:

Instagram I Tiktok I Youtube I Facebook

See you next month…

Jess

Hello, and welcome to my monthly newsletter!

I’m Jessica Jane, a Melbourne, Australian based illustrator and designer. Once a month I will send out a newsletter giving you updates on what I have been up to in the previous month with my creative work and any updates for the month ahead.

September was a month of wattle and canola fields. I’m enjoying spring and welcoming warmer days. It’s been probably my busiest month since diving into freelancing full-time. My client work always seems to be at its busiest when I have a big event coming up! I’m enjoying the hustle and thankful for the busier months.

I’m starting to feel like I’m ready for a mini holiday/break. When I worked full time in design I generally would have taken my leave by now and had a few weeks off, so hoping to have some down time towards the end of October. I’m still in a weird transition period trying to figure out the rhythm of working for myself and reminding myself that I should fit in some kind of time for a break.

I definitely do though take advantage of being able to make my own schedule now, which helps to not overwork and burn out. I love that I can work on the same timetable now as my partner so we have the same weekend days. On the day this newsletter is meant to come out (sorry was late!) I’ll be heading to the Tesselaar Tulip Festival on a Monday and get to avoid the weekend crowd which I love!! This is the first year I can do something other than go to work on a weekday and having that freedom is great.

In this newsletter we go over a few things… my Sydney road trip to Oz Comic Con, progress on illustrating picture books, saying goodbye to a few original artworks and celebrating the successful kickstarter of Fabled Magazine, which I freelance at as their designer!

An update on the previous Months art projects:

First up is my second interstate event, doing Oz Comic Con Sydney.

I did the very long road trip from Melbourne to Sydney in September. Originally I was going to do the drive in one day but made it a 2 day drive after finding out I’d be doing the drive up by myself. It was a good test and good to know I can do something like that if I need to.

This may be my last time driving, hopefully if events are booked enough in advance I will be flying or training it from now on. This was meant to be my last trip driving with my current stall set up, and the plan was once I figured out it they where worth continuing I would then invest in a suitcase friendly set up for my next events.

Luckily the Sydney event was a success and I’m looking into artist alleys for next year now! Some of my most popular products were my tote bags which I love as they are a new addition. And people loved my psyduck and Wednesday artworks. I sold my Mycena Interrupta Mushroom original artwork at this event to a lady with a mushroom crown which was very fitting. This piece was from a collection of 3 mini mushroom originals inspired by mushrooms found in Australia. They have now all sold except one, my LERATIOMYCES CERES Mushroom original illustration which is still looking for it’s forever home.

Something I’ve been working on all year and is so so close to being finished is designing the first issue of Fabled Magazine. Now that marketing of the magazine has started I can share some pictures of what we’ve been up to. In September Fabled launched its first issue on kickstarter and did very very well! They hit their sales targets in a little over 24 hours and made more than double their goal in the overall campaign. It’s very exciting times for the new magazine which comes out this month in October. Literally the perfect gift for the spooky season. To be the first to find out our launch date you can follow fabled on instagram or sign up to their newsletter.

Pictured above is the initial design for the magazine cover featuring artwork by Adam Oehlers. Creating this design was a fun challenge as the original artwork was portrait and only made up some of the space on the front cover. The rest of it is photoshop magic, using a similar artwork by the same artist, working with a black background and taking assets from the leaves in the original artwork and reusing it to blend across to the back cover and then using dark gradients to fade out the design, make text more readable.

Bellow is development of some spot illustrations for a scavenger hunt pull out piece that comes as an additional treat to the magazine. This was a nice project as I got to create some art for the magazine swell as design it.

I have my fingers crossed next month I’ll have some product photos of the inside pages of the magazine and can share the design work which is coming to almost 100 pages, full of some amazing creative writers and artists on the theme of ‘Into the Woods’.

This past month I said goodbye to my sunflowers original artwork. It always makes my day to wake up to some online sales and especially an original artwork. They are hard to part with, but it’s nice to know they will be on someone else’s walls. In celebration of selling the piece I made a greeting card to go with it to send out to the buyer as a thank you and add to my card collection on my online store.

The text on the front of the card reads ‘Sending SUNSHINE your way’. And the back of card features some additional sunflowers from my Wizard of Oz Illustration.

I spent a weekend afternoon finally faming my gigantic A1 kangaroos and koala prints to take to events and sell. I made the original artworks for these back in 2019 when my focus was drawing Australian flora and fauna. Being the biggest artworks I had made at that time I wanted to offer a limited run of prints in the same size. These are the only prints I’ve ever outsourced as I don’t have a printer this big but they are still printed on beautiful textured cotton rag paper as a giclee print.

They are a limited edition of 10 each and once they are gone they are gone! You can find these prints on my online store here (for koalas click here) (for kangaroos click here). If you are after them framed this can be organised for pick up at my studio or any upcoming event I am attending.

Here is the set up at my recent market The Handmade Design Market in Coburg. With access to the side of my stall I was able to display these large framed prints amongst my easel with original artworks and tote bag stand.

It ended up being a good market day and I did sell one of the framed prints, yay! The plan is to take these pieces to non artist alley/convention events. I don’t do too many art/craft markets anymore but these will give a nice variety to my art themes when I do.

In September I continued working on freelance illustration picture book work. If you’ve read my past newsletters you’ll now I’ll currently working on 2 books and some exciting news I’ve signed a contract for a third book with is a continuation of one of the books I’m working on now. I don’t get to share much on this in the production stage but bellow is a final art test for one of the books I have permission to share development on.

Both books are currently at a similar stage. In September I finished draft work for the books and now in October I am starting final artwork. My aim is to have them finished in the month of October keeping ahead of schedule so I can make room for other freelance work, fingers crossed!

Currently all my book illustration work has been done digitally which is a nice change to my traditional ink work. It’s been a good way to practice working with other mediums and allows me to be more versatile with client work.

Celebrating another original I recently sold is my Psyduck artwork which is my favourite out of the 6 Pokemon pieces I made. Everyone is loving my psyduck prints and stickers at events lately and I’m wondering if it’s because of the recent new episodes of Pokémon Concierge on Netflix. Three out of the six artworks are now gone and I’m excited to see where they end up in the end!

And my last bit of news is that I did a shop restock at the Finders Keepers Emporium located at 1238 Burwood Hwy, Upper Ferntree Gully VIC 3156. I made a rare visit to top up my prints and greeting cards with my latest illustrations and some Christmas themed cards.

Previous to this I’ve only ever had my flora and fauna themed artworks in the store so I’m interested to see how my story themed piece go. I’m still fairly new to having stockists and this is something I’d like to work more on in the future.

Inspiration & Recommendation Updates:

In September I did a big road trip from Melbourne to Sydney and back and these are some of the places I visited along the way…

On the trip up my first rest stop was in Violet Town. Honestly I stopped there because it sounded pretty and it was! All my stops on the way up I was looking to go for walks to wake myself up and have a break from sitting. Here I walked through Honeysuckle Creek which was full of wattle trees and bushes and stumbled upon a community garden with veg/fruit plants and edible flower plants. It was a relaxing break from the car.

My next stop was Chiltern which was a charming vintage looking town. Being a weekday most of the shops were closed but the one that would have been my favourite anyway was open! Pictured bellow is the Lisa Bishop studio and Art Store. Full of beautiful art and trinkets it is my kind of shop. In Chiltern I walked around Lake Anderson and saw some pelicans.

My half way point for the two day drive up was Holbrook. Here I walked through lan Geddes Bushwalk Reserve which was next to a property that had some cute alpacas. Road trip hack - the Holbrook IGA has the best popcorn for snacks.

The next day I was a lot more used to driving and only did one stop before set up for Comic Con. I stopped at Gundagai which did disappoint compared to the smaller towns. I didnt feel as inspired here as it was a bigger regional town full of buildings and shops. Lots of nice church buildings and was good for a walk. I definitely prefer a cute small town!

On the way home I did a bucklist day stop in Bowral. We chose to do a little drive on day one going home, have a much needed rest after the convention and do a bigger drive on day 2 going home.

It was a very sleepy day with a nap needed after exploring but these are some of the fun places we visited in Bowral:

• Tulip Top Gardens - They had a flower festival on and whole town was covered in tulips!

• Dirty Janes - A great big vintage shop. Kind of like our version of the Mills Markets.

• Plantation Cafe, Green Lane - For lunch. A very pretty cafe with a display wall full of books and another wall covered in murals.

• Few & Far - My favourite homewares store to date - I loved the styling of their books and cards section.

• Bespoke Letterpress - The reason I visited Bowral - I love this brand and was excited to see their flagship store.

A town we went to for dinner during our stay in Bowral was Berrima. We got there just as all the shops were closing and if I’m ever in the area again I will definitely be taking a better look. We had dinner at The Surveyor General Inn which is known for being Australia’s oldest continuously licensed Inn. The picture bellow was taken out the front.

Monthly Casper the Samoyed Update: Casper had a busy month too! It started with puppy sitting an extra Sammy so Casper got lots of play time for the first half of the month. Then she got to do more playing with some other dogs while we were in Sydney, then a bit of resting and recently we took Casper on a day trip with us to the Tesselaar Tulip Festival where she posed for many treats and got many pats.

Markets & Events :

TBC - DAYLESFORD SUNDAY MARKET

19th October, 8 AM - 3 PM

Daylesford Railway Station - 18 Raglan Street Daylesford

Not confirmed yet as they only give a few days notice if you get in! Keep an eye out on my socials to hear if I’ll be there. It’s a lovely spot to visit, definitely recommend making a day trip out of it.

ENCHANTING REALMS MARKET

9th November, 10 AM - 4 PM

Welcome to Thornbury
520 High St, Northcote Vic 3070

I’m really excited about this event! So far the event staff are doing a great job promoting this market. Limited tickets available here: https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1463187

What’s in my Shop: OCTOBER HALLOWEEN PICKS

If you're loving looking at my art I have an online store where you can get your very own prints, cards… even original artworks! Everything in my online store is handmade in my studio. This includes everything from creating illustrations, designing the product, printing, assembling, packaging and posting. It’s a lot of work and I love it.

Print pick on the month: Wizard of Oz GICLEE PRINT. Printed on 310 gsm, 100% cotton rag, textured fine art paper using archival quality inks. Available in sizes A6 to A3.

Greeting card pick of the month: Harry Potter Greeting Card, a handmade A6 greeting card. The card is designed, printed and assembled by the artist onto 300gsm textured paper with a handmade patterned envelope. Blank on inside.

Bookmark pick of the month: Wednesday bookmark. Printed on 300gsm textured paper.

Original Artwork pick on the month: Autumn Fox Original Artwork. Hand drawn on 300gsm hot pressed arches paper.

Sticker pick of the month: Pumpkin STICKER Handmade stickers are digitally printed onto matte paper.

Youtube Recomendations :

I made a little behind the scenes video going through the process of designing my first calendar! Click the image bellow to watch.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about my art and got some fun recommendations and insights.

If you enjoyed reading and want to support me you can buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jessicajaneco

Some free ways to support me are following me on my socials at:

Instagram I Tiktok I Youtube I Facebook

See you next month…

Jess

It’s not often I make newsletters outside of my monthly updates but for a little while now I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my calendar design and it is now ready to go! You can shop my 2026 calendar by clicking here.

In celebration of my calendar launch I’ve a made a BTS video here where you can see the originals that inspired the collection and snippets of me designing the calendar.

Over the past couple of years I’ve kept a personal arts practice creating whimsically detailed ink drawings inspired by fairytales and vintage stories. I now have a collection of these nostalgic black and white illustrations and have designed my first ever calendar for 2026!

Here you’ll find recreations of Alice in Wonderland, the Secret Garden, Winnie the Pooh and more, with a different artwork for each month of the year.

With a background in design alongside my illustration practice I enjoy taking artworks and repurposing them onto different surfaces. For the calendar cover I’ve taken bits and pieces from almost every artwork featured inside and designed a pattern of them all together.

In this design you can find characters from the Wizard of Oz amongst Alice’s flowers, and cakes and pasties from Little women next to a mermaid.

I’ve added a mixture of beige and cream backgrounds that give warm tones and highlight the contrast of whites and blacks of the original artworks.

On the inside pages each month you’ll find a complimenting quote next to the artwork and space on the calendar page to write notes or a to do list. The calendar itself does not mention holidays or titles specific to particular places so it can by utilised and personalised to wherever you are in the world.

The 2026 Enchanted Stories calendar is a collection of my story and fairytale themed illustrations from past creations. I now have enough artworks made to celebrate these pieces together in a calendar! The calendar is a made to order product and can be found on my online website at jessicajaneillustration.com

Product Details:

- Square (21x21 cm) wall calendar

- Printed in vibrant, full-color on 250gsm coated silk paper (100 lb cover).

- Eco-Friendly: Made with FSC/PESC-certified papers and local production to minimize our environmental impact.

Please note this is a print on demand product and will ship separately to handmade products.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about my art and got some fun recommendations and insights.

If you enjoyed reading and want to support me you can buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jessicajaneco

Some free ways to support me are following me on my socials at:

Instagram I Tiktok I Youtube I Facebook

See you next month…

Jess

Hello, and welcome to my monthly newsletter!

I’m Jessica Jane, a Melbourne, Australian based illustrator and designer. Once a month I will send out a newsletter giving you updates on what I have been up to in the previous month with my creative work and any updates for the month ahead.

It’s Spring! Finally winter is over and flowers are blooming already (pictured is a tree found on a recent walk with Casper). I am not much of a winter person down here in chilly Melbourne so I’m looking forward to warmer days ahead.

While writing this it is currently the weekend of Art For All at Fairfield Primary School. I’m exhibiting 2 original artworks and taking part in the gallery shop. I have my fingers crossed some prints and cards find their new forever homes before I pick up my display tomorrow!

In this newsletter we go over a few things… I did my first interstate artist alley and chat about that journey, I share some development on client work, announce my next product update being a my first ever calendar, talk puppy sitting an extra floof and share details on my next interstate event.

An update on the previous Months art projects:

First up because I’m most excited about it is the announcement that I’ll be releasing my first ever calendar very very soon!

I’ve always wanted to design calendar, but was waiting till I had enough artworks under the same theme. Over the past 2 years I’ve been exploring drawing fairytale/story based ink illustrations. The idea came from a series of Narnia drawings I made in my last year of uni and never really came back to till recently. The drawings delve into my love of the ink medium, creating detailed artworks that are nostalgic and reminiscent of the inside pages of old vintage childhood stories.

In August I spent some time researching how to produce this product. I do love keeping my products handmade where I can but to keep a calendar cost/time effective I’ve chosen a print on demand service to print/ship the calendar.

It was a joy to design every page and pick out assets from my artworks to create a cover that showcased almost all the artworks inside. Some you can see in this cover peek include Alice in Wonderland, Winnie the Pooh and Cinderella. I finished the first draft of the calendar, got a test print and have a few tweaks to made to get the final copy. Once I have that there is a bit of photo and video editing to be done for marketing and then they can go live on my shop. I’m aiming for mid September so keep an eye out on my shop and socials for an announcement!

Next up let’s chat my first interstate artist alley!

I’ve been doing artist markets for the past 8 years and more recently conventions/artist alleys for almost 2 years now. Currently while I’m freelancing full time, this has been a great time to try out doing interstae events. This was a big milestone for me and something I’ve been wanting to do for a while.

In August I was part of the artist alley for Oz Comic Con Canberra. I had previously done the Melbourne events and for a first try Canberra wasn’t too far aware and more affordable. It was a fun and tiring experience! Over on my TikTok I’ve made a post which is like a visual diary of my time in Canberra, check it out here. I chose to drive for this event so I could take my whole set up, didn’t need to design a new one, take a helper and could easily get around in-between the event. I think traveling this way was nice for a first time trip to Canberra as we could do a bit of site seeing in the morning and evenings. But once I’ve done that certain event at a the location and am now familiar with the process, if I was to go back to the same event I would take the train or fly next time round. The driving is a lot and not ideal if I was doing events every couple of months.

In August I started working on two picture books which I’m very excited about! It’s very interesting working on two at the same time and noticing how different the development can be. I’m enjoying the process of working with different clients and catering to their different needs.

I have permission to she the art development of one of them and can announce the project once promoting has started. I love how adorable these two characters are. The author had some direction on what the girls might be wearing and how their hair was done and I got to create the rest. They are so cute! I’m currently doing rough draft work for this particular book.

For most of this year I’ve been freelancing as a graphic designer for Fabled Magazine and have been designing all their pages for the first issue. This is definitely a passion project for me and I’m inspired by all the artists and writers showcased. I can’t share much on this yet but a little job I did for it in August was creating my own ad to be printed in the magazine. I find the assets from my Alice in Wonderland illustration work best across designing new products/marketing and so I’ve recycled them here on this advertisement for my products/services.

An update on my business course: Last newsletter I announced I was about to start a business course and I’m now a month in. I’ve been making a business plan and learning how to use lots of financial spread sheets on excel which I’ve never done this whole time I’ve been sole trading!

The business plan has been great for documenting what I do and how I plan to grow my business. The financial spreadsheets have been helpful to have onc place where I note down my personal and business expenses and how much I need to make for the business to work. I’m looking forward to soon getting some coaching to see what I can do to grow my clients/customers past what I have been able to do on my own.

Inspiration & Recommendation Updates:

Most of my recommendations from August are Canberra related because of my work trip but I did do on an eventful dog friendly hike before we left. We ventured to the Wombat State Forest and did a 2 hour hike through the Whipstick Loop Walk and ended the walk with lunch at The Garden of St Erth.

The notable part of the walk was spotting a toy wombat that had been tied to a eucalyptus tree close to the end of the walk and was now covered in moss. It was a little creepy, I thought it could make an interesting addition to a scary movie. There were lots of obstacles on the walk from fallen down trees, which honestly made it more fun with the pressure of trying to get through with a dog or hike the whole way back.

Other than the obstacles it was a fairly easy walk. I did the hike after spending 2 months really focused on developing art for a my own picture book pitch and it was the outdoor break I needed. Lots of never-ending trees, the odd few streams and pink wildflowers. And we got to enjoy scones at the end of it!

One of my favourite cutting from my Canberra trip was visiting Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary. It was hard to find activities to do outside of the event hours but luckily this place was open 24/7. After standing all day retailing this was a great way to go for a walk and see the local wildlife. We went after pack-up on the Sunday before dinner.

My other Canberra recommendation is the National Arboretum Canberra. This was the only mid day activity we go to do before set up on the Friday. Great views and a nice outdoor stop after driving all day. I highly recommend the The National Bonsai and Penjing Collection. I’ve never seen so many bonsai in one place and they had a few bonsais made from Australian trees which I didn’t know was a thing. Very impressive to see.

Monthly Casper the Samoyed Update: We are puppy sitting an extra Sammy friend for the next few weeks. He is a one year old samoyed with lots of playing energy making them both nice and tired after the excitement of pulling each other’s fluff. Our backyard looks like it’s snowing…

Markets & Events :

OZ COMIC CON SYDNEY

21-22nd September, 9 AM - 5 PM

Sydney Showgrounds

Continuing with my interstate artist alleys I will be attending the Sydney Oz Comic Con convention next month. If you’re Sydney based this is a great chance to see my work in person!

ENCHANTING REALMS MARKET

9th November, 10 AM - 4 PM

Welcome to Thornbury
520 High St, Northcote Vic 3070

Starting to book the end of year markets and I’m so excited to do a folklore themed event!

What’s in my Shop:

If you're loving looking at my art I have an online store where you can get your very own prints, cards… even original artworks! Everything in my online store is handmade in my studio. This includes everything from creating illustrations, designing the product, printing, assembling, packaging and posting. It’s a lot of work and I love it.

Print pick on the month: Practical Magic GICLEE PRINT. Printed on 310 gsm, 100% cotton rag, textured fine art paper using archival quality inks. Available in sizes A6 to A3.

Greeting card pick of the month: Little Women Greeting Card, a handmade A6 greeting card. The card is designed, printed and assembled by the artist onto 300gsm textured paper with a handmade patterned envelope. Blank on inside.

Bookmark pick of the month: Alice In Wonderland bookmark. Printed on 300gsm textured paper.

Original Artwork pick on the month: MYCENA INTERRUPTA MUSHROOM Original Artwork. Hand drawn on 300gsm hot pressed arches paper.

Sticker pick of the month: Pikachu STICKER Handmade stickers are digitally printed onto matte paper.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about my art and got some fun recommendations and insights.

If you enjoyed reading and want to support me you can buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jessicajaneco

Some free ways to support me are following me on my socials at:

Instagram I Tiktok I Youtube I Facebook

See you next month…

Jess

Hello, and welcome to my monthly newsletter!

I’m Jessica Jane, a Melbourne, Australian based illustrator and designer. Once a month I will send out a newsletter giving you updates on what I have been up to in the previous month with my creative work and any updates for the month ahead.

June was colddd down in Melbourne, it is well and truly winter and the in true Aussie style sometimes it’s warmer outside than in the house. I’ve been walking Casper in the middle of the day when it’s warmest which is something I’m grateful for this season now that I work around my own schedule and not a 9 to 5. I used to walk casper at the end of day once work was done and it was chilly! Appreciating the little things in this weird in-between stage in my life.

An update on the previous Months art projects:

I had another successful artist alley event at Melbourne Oz Comic Con in early June. It marked one full year of me running stalls at conventions and I’ve loved seeing the progress I’ve made at these events. This was my 4th event and I now have people coming back to say hello, repeat buyers and made some artist alleys friends. It’s great to have found something that works well for my little business and has stuck… knock on wood. I even deputed my little artist alley uniform wearing a jumper with my Alice in Wonderland artwork designed onto it! I’m trialing out some print on demand products and clothing is one of my options. Check them out here!

I finally got to reveal this month a project that I’ve been working away on all year. One of my freelance gigs has been working as a designer for Fabled Magazine for their first issue! This Australian magazine is dedicated to the wonderfully dark world of fairytales, myths, and lore.

I’ve loved mixing my design skills with all things folklore and fairytales and it’s been a fun journey exploring building a magazine from scratch. I love being the person who gets to combine so many amazing articles and images into one collection and can’t wait to see the finished product in print soon.

In the month of June I’ve been doing some colour exploration to expand my illustration skills and options. Earlier this year I illustrated a picture book for an author and I’d like to continue work like this. For the picture book all the artwork was done digitally but for my own work I’d like to explore a mixture of traditional drawing and digital colouring.

My traditional drawing work is more time consuming but at the moment I do find it makes better results than drawing digitally. I like to draw digitally for sketching and drafting and then do final art traditionally.

As my personal work focuses on detailed ink drawings I wanted to trail adding colour to these. Here I am working in procreate with digital watercolour brushes to colour my scanned artworks and I think this is a good start!

Next I drew a character with the purpose of colouring it digitally. When I was in uni I worked in lots of mediums and was good with a pencil. Here I wanted to explore doing my usual ink drawing plus a graphite pencil version. On screen I think I like the pencil version better but seeing it in person I weirdly prefer the ink version. For my ink drawing I drew it a little differently than I normally would keeping colouring in mind. The line work is more cleaner and less rendered to leave space for colour. I drew this ink drawing at Oz comic con behind my stall so it’s not perfect and has a few mistakes as I wasn’t giving it my full concentration, but it was a fun challenge to draw at an event.

Here is the coloured version of the pencil drawing. I think it’s super cute! It definitely adds life to the artwork and it’s something I could see in an illustrated book. I did also try colouring traditionally with watercolour but I found time wise I need to be smart and work on something that is more cost effective as my drawing work already takes so long and you need to keep businesses’ in mind and what they can afford to pay you. I also think there is lots of room to develop and grow here and I’m excited about that. I’m looking forward to developing and exploring my colouring more over time.

Speaking of picture books part of the reason I’ve been doing this work is that I have a meeting with a publisher who is coming down to Melbourne in August! As part of my freelance work I do a lot of admin/networking where I email business I’d like to work with in the hopes of collaborating. It’s been a hard journey with a lot of rejection and ghosting. But one Australian publisher that I have loved and grown up with loving their products has agreed to meet and so i’m been working away on some ideas of magic we could make together! I find I work better when I have something to work towards and this was that right little push of motivation I needed.

I ended up doing some brainstorming and world building, thinking of the things that I would like to create if I was making something for myself, not visualising someone else’s story… and I wrote my own picture book! It’s filled with lots of things I’ve enjoyed in my personal life, mixed with themes that I gear towards artistically. I really love it. My plan is to pitch this idea and if they are not interested I will then take it to other publishers and agents and if I have no luck there I will end up self publishing. As I am yet to find out what will happen here I unfortunately can’t share too much of the work I am doing now but hopefully one day!

Inspiration & Recommendation Updates:

Each month I enjoy going on some outings and exploring. It’s a nice change when you work from home so you don’t feel constantly cooped up.

One of my outings was to the Werribee K Road Cliffs. It has great views of the Werribee River and wetlands and has had a bit of an upgrade since my last visit. They’ve added a gravel walking trail, lookout spots and are constructing some more trails and stairs down the cliffs. We saw some cool wildlife including a giant spider and possiblly a wedge-tailed eagle. It’s close to the Werribee Zoo and attracts some interesting critters.

Another trip we did was a drive out to Kinglake and Flowerdale just to see the area and go for a walk. It’s interesting visiting rainforest prone areas in the winter. It was very wet and the air was icy like being at the snow. My favourite part of Kinglake was Bollygum Park. It’s an Australian animal themed park and super cute, the playground was mostly made from wood which I love as you see less and less of that these days. Pictured bellow is Casper at Platypus’s House. In Flowerdale we had lunch at Boots’n Bobs Brew’n Bakes which was a cosy Cowboy themed cafe/shop. Their specialty is toasties which was especially good in the cold weather. Their shop had seem very fun cowboy boots and they have a Woody toy treating you at the coffee machine.

Our last visit for the month was to the Organ Pipes National Park in Keilor North. A great spot for a hike with multiple spots so see some fascinating rock formations. This park is home to one of the world’s largest ancient volcanic lava flows, stretching 350 kilometres from the edge of Melbourne to the western border of Victoria. Some really cool views seeing what has happened to the land over time, but be prepared to see and hear the most amount of airplanes in one place other than the airport!

After our walk we visited the Arundel Farm Estate for lunch and the best part of this was stop was the horses in their winter coats!

Monthly Casper the Samoyed Update: Not too much to update here. Casper got a bath, she went on some adventures with us, she’s looking cute, maybe barking more than I’d like… same old same old.

Markets & Events :

ASSEMBLY GALLERY EXHIBITION

Opening | Fri July 11, 6–9pm

Assembly runs | Sat July 12 – Sat Aug 16, 2025

52 Budd St Collingwood 3066 VIC

This week I’ll be exhibiting at the Jacky Winter Gallery in Collingwood and will be showing my Passion Fruit Flower artwork amongst 150 other artists!

COBURG MAKERS MARKET

19th July, 11 AM - 4 PM

69 Charles St, Coburg North VIC 3058

I’m trying out the Coburg makers Market on Saturday the 19th! It’s a weekend long event filled with lots of awesome local makers but I’ll just be there for the Saturday. It’s the only market I have booked this month so if you’d like to grab some of my work without the added postage costs make it a nice day out!

OZ COMIC CON CANBERRA

9-10th August, 10 AM - 4 PM

EPIC - Exhibition Park in Canberra

I’m so excited to be booked in for my first ever interstate artist alley! I’ve been wanting to do them all you but have been missing application deadlines and I finally got in! I think this will be a good starter one as it’s a bit smaller and a shorter trip than to other states so I can hopefully adjust to how tired I will be! A good one to trail out. If your located in Canberra and want to see my work I recommend visiting!

What’s in my Shop:

If you're loving looking at my art I have an online store where you can get your very own prints, cards… even original artworks! Everything in my online store is handmade in my studio. This includes everything from creating illustrations, designing the product, printing, assembling, packaging and posting. It’s a lot of work and I love it.

Print pick on the month: Bulbasaur Limited Edition GICLEE PRINT. Printed on 310 gsm, 100% cotton rag, textured fine art paper using archival quality inks. Available in sizes A6 to A4.

Greeting card pick of the month: Snow White Greeting Card, a handmade A6 greeting card. The card is designed, printed and assembled by the artist onto 300gsm textured paper with a handmade patterned envelope. Blank on inside.

Bookmark pick of the month: Practical Magic House bookmark. Based on Jessica’s Beauty and the Beast original. Printed on 300gsm textured paper.

Original Artwork pick on the month: Wednesday Original Artwork. Hand drawn on A3 300gsm hot pressed arches paper. Artwork shows Wednesday writing her stories at her desk surrounded by the props that appear throughout the series. The background showcases the iconic bedroom window as well as incorporating the decorative Nevermore Academy school gate above.

Sticker pick of the month: Hedwig Owl STICKER from the Harry Potter illustration. Handmade stickers are digitally printed onto matte paper.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about my art and got some fun recommendations and insights.

If you enjoyed reading and want to support me you can buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jessicajaneco

Some free ways to support me are following me on my socials at:

Instagram I Tiktok I Youtube I Facebook

See you next month…

Jess

Hello, and welcome to my monthly newsletter!

I’m Jessica Jane, a Melbourne, Australian based illustrator and designer. Once a month I will send out a newsletter giving you updates on what I have been up to in the previous month with my creative work and any updates for the month ahead.

May was full of personal projects as I get ready for my next Artist Alley at the upcoming Melbourne Comic Con! Client work was a bit quiet so I took advantage of this time to make 2 large personal illustrations, a collection of mini character artworks and some new products for a big shop update! Pictured above is my new Harry Potter collection as part of my shop update.

An update on the previous Months art projects:

I love love love when I get a freelance logo commission that makes use of my hand drawn ink style! This is a recent logo design I completed for Maithree Wijesekara who I met when I took part in the Melbourne Supanova Artist Alley in March. She is a Melbourne author, check out her work here! Pictured is the traditionally drawn copy of the logo next to the vectorised and coloured version. To see more branding/logo work I have done, click here.

One of my personal projects for preparing for my next artist alley was to create some mini original artworks. I chose to focus on some classic pokemon characters as I see a lot of pokemon themed fan art at conventions and I enjoy seeing what I can create as my take on this, in my black and white inky style. For this collection I will be showcasing the original artworks, prints and stickers at Melbourne Comic Con 7-8 June. This collection is now also live on my website!

Next I was commissioned to create some business cards for the clothing brand Socha Atelier. I’ve worked on the textile design for Socha Atelier’s clothing range and love when I get to do extra little projects like this. As I’m familiar with the brand and assets I was able to design some business cards that make use of their art, logo and fonts for an on brand design. The design makes use of the art I drew for their next collection!

If you read my last newsletter you would know I started working on my next personal illustration based on Wednesday. Well it’s finished and here are all the fun things pictured bellow that I made! This is an illustration inspired by the Netflix TV Show ‘Wednesday’ as part of my personal Story Artworks Collection. The artwork shows Wednesday writing her stories at her desk surrounded by the props that appear throughout the series. The background showcases the iconic bedroom window as well as incorporating the decorative Nevermore Academy school gate above. Click here to see the original artwork, prints, greeting cards, bookmark and stickers!

With a bit of extra time on my hands I went through my samples and old stock and made 6 mystery bundles wrapped in my illustration draft paper!

The beauty of handmade products/samples is sometimes tiny mistakes are made and little imperfections happen. Rather than throwing these away, they are being celebrated in a mystery bundle. Some imperfections are more noticeable than others, have fun discovering what makes these products unique!
Includes 1 A3 print, 1 A4 print, 1 A5 Print, 1 Greeting Card, Bookmark, 1 Sticker and 1 mini print or colouring sheet or zine! Imperfections in the sampling stage can include imperfect printing, marks, damaged paper, double sided prints with mistakes.

I got to work on a passion project this month to add to my portfolio. As an Illustrator and designer I’ve always wanted to do more work in publishing and can image my black and white ink illustrations having a home on the inside pages of novels.

I wanted to explore creating a book cover design and inside pages to complement my detailed illustrations. Looking back on my past artworks I chose to focus on The Secret Garden as I was already familiar with the story, had previously done mood board research to make my illustration and had a good idea of visual elements I could add to the cover.

The cover design has a decorative and nostalgic look with a symmetrical floral and vine border of silver foil embossing on a deep forest green background. The artwork for front and back cover was drawn in Procreate and designed in Photoshop and Indesign. The title text was designed in Indesign and edited in Procreate.

The sample of inside pages was designed in Indesign. Art elements from the cover were separated, inverted and added as design elements. My black and white ink illustration of the Secret Garden is added as an inside page illustration. To see more of this portfolio project click here!

Every time I run out of business cards I have fun updating them with a new design that reflects where I’m at on my current creative journey. I was running low and I go through a lot at conventions so knowing one was coming up I made this new design pictured bellow! Something I’m enjoying with my current artworks is separating the illustrations into individual art assets and recreating new designs with them! Here I’ve taken my Alice in wonderland artwork to make 2 sweet borders for my business cards.

Something new on this one is for my branding name I’ve written ‘illustration and design’ over just ‘illustration’. I’ve previously been employed for businesses as a graphic designer for over 8 years along with having my personal illustration practice and as I am currently freelancing full-time, I want to promote both my illustration and design services together. On the back I’ve included my YouTube handle as I’ve now made a lot of videos covering my art practice.

My next personal illustration theme is drawing Harry Potter ⚡️I had audio books playing for days trying to figure out what to draw for this theme. I borrowed all the dvds and looked through my own art books. I had multiple ideas from different stories of fun scenes to draw.
Things that stood out to me were the magical creatures, Hagrid and the decorative buildings. Looking back at Harry Potter as an adult I loved Hagrid’s fascination for caring for animals.
The scene that won was the Buckbeak sitting in a garden of pumpkins out front Hagrids hut from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 🛖 I got to draw animals, buildings, included some characters and created a border inspired by the Mirror of Erised.

One lovely commission I received in May was drawing a client in her favourite outfit, holding her cat whilst surrounded by plants and flowers in my stylised ink drawing style. For personal commissions which are usually pet portraits I will draw in a realistic style straight from the photo. This was a more illustrative request and required taking individual photo references and using them as inspiration to make a new scene. It’s always nice working on a personal commission as they are often heartfelt pieces that mean a lot to the client of person they are being gifted to.

Inspiration & Recommendation Updates:

The previous month we did a day road trip to a few regional towns in Victoria and took Casper to explore. We started in Gisborne and walked through their Botanic Gardens and then drove through Macedon looking at all the Autumn trees to Woodend where we had lunch at Fox in the Chamber. They had an outside eating area with umbrellas so Casper could join us. We then drove to Lancefield and then Romsey where we walked through the towns and enjoyed the Autumn scenery. My favourite spot in Lancefield was the bookshop Red Door Books of Lancefield. And in Romsey we enjoyed walking through the Romsey Ecotherapy Park. Pictured bellow is Casper at The Story Telling Chair by Richard Yates at the park.

Another trip we did was a hike in the You Yangs. They have a few different walking tracks to take and this time our starting point was the Western Plantation carpark. Lots of eucalyptus trees in this spot and wide tracks for horses. The You Yangs is a pet friendly hiking spot that Casper loves.

On our drive to our day trip destinations we often drive past farm lands and spot lots of cute animals. Recently this past month we’ve been seeing lots of baby cows. On our drive back home from the You Yangs we spotted some ponies with some baby ponies and managed to stop to say hello. There were two pictured on the left and behind mum. Who knew ponies could get any smaller!

Monthly Casper the Samoyed Update: Casper is loving the cooler weather now that it’s almost Winter. Less naps on tile bathroom floors and more on her dog bed. In the middle of the day it’s sometimes warmer outside than in the house so we do some sun bathing outside while I assemble and package prints.

Markets & Events :

OZ COMIC CON MELBOURNE

8-9th June,9 AM - 5 PM

Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

This coming weekend I’ll be at my favourite event of the year! I’m bringing all my new art that I’ve been working on. If there are any particular originals you’d like to see in person feel free to email me and I can make sure to have them out.

ASSEMBLY GALLERY EXHIBITION

Opening | Fri July 11, 6–9pm

Assembly runs | Sat July 12 – Sat Aug 16, 2025

52 Budd St Collingwood 3066 VIC

Jacky Winter Gallery is pleased to announce Assembly; a celebration of the community we have been lucky to foster, and we’re welcoming new and old friends alike!

What’s in my Shop:

If you're loving looking at my art I have an online store where you can get your very own prints, cards… even original artworks! Everything in my online store is handmade in my studio. This includes everything from creating illustrations, designing the product, printing, assembling, packaging and posting. It’s a lot of work and I love it.

Print pick on the month: Harry Potter Limited Edition GICLEE PRINT. Printed on 310 gsm, 100% cotton rag, textured fine art paper using archival quality inks. Available in sizes A6 to A3.

Greeting card pick of the month: Wednesday Greeting Card, a handmade A6 greeting card. The card is designed, printed and assembled by the artist onto 300gsm textured paper with a handmade patterned envelope. Blank on inside.

Bookmark pick of the month: Harry Potter bookmark. Based on Jessica’s Beauty and the Beast original. Printed on 300gsm textured paper.

Original Artwork pick on the month: Autmun Fox Original Artwork. Hand drawn on A2 300gsm hot pressed arches paper. An artwork inspired by the Little Women books/films. An exploration of 1860s fashion, food, furniture and interiors.

Sticker pick of the month: Psyduck Pokemon STICKER from the Little Women illustration. Handmade stickers are digitally printed onto matte paper.

What’s new on Youtube:

I publish videos where I record my arts practice over the years as a visual diary to look back on. It’s a space for all the things I enjoy in life such as travel, home, lifestyle and my dog Casper the samoyed! Some things you'll find here are pet portrait recordings, commission development, personal illustration progress, baking, crafts, holidays and hanging out with my dog.

I have 2 new YouTube videos up going though Timelapse recordings for creating illustration/design for the cover and inside pages of a picture book commission I did for author Jessica Peace.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about my art and got some fun recommendations and insights.

If you enjoyed reading and want to support me you can buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jessicajaneco

Some free ways to support me are following me on my socials at:

Instagram I Tiktok I Youtube I Facebook

See you next month…

Jess

Hello, and welcome to my monthly newsletter!

I’m Jessica Jane, a Melbourne, Australia based illustrator and designer. Once a month I will send out a newsletter giving you updates on what I have been up to in the previous month with my creative work and any updates for the month ahead.

April came and went quick. It’s getting chilly and the Autumn is well and truly here. I’m gaining a better appreciation for the trees that change colour whilst our eucalyptus ones stay the same. I’ve seen more red mushrooms on outings than I ever have before and I love it!

I’m currently still freelancing full time… I did think I would have a new job by now but being more picky than before is not working in my favour. The job market is definitely not great right now but I think in a post covid time and with cost of living it hasn’t been great in a long time either. I love the work I do right now but I don’t get enough of it and it doesn’t pay enough either. On that note if anyone needs or knows anyone who would be interested in working with an illustrator/graphic designer send them my way!

An update on the previous Months art projects:

Last month I mentioned I was working on illustrations for a the picture book ‘It’s All for You’. Im happy to announce the book is now finished and available for purchase. Click here to find out more. I’ve loved working on this book and Jessica Peace, the author has been a dream client. ‘It’s All for You’ is aimed at mothers and toddlers, going through the challenges of childcare. It offers words of comfort and goes through the ups and downs. Literally the perfect present for Mother’s Day with quick Amazon shipping!

Doing illustration and design for books has been one of my goals so it’s been amazing to get this started. I would love to chat to anyone who is looking for an illustrator and designer for a book and I’m open to exploring a variety of different styles. This is something that I have loved about the picture making process. Pictured bellow is the illustrated pattern I made for double page spread when you open the book.

Jess provided me with this sweet testimonial on the work we did togther:

Choosing Jessica Jane for the illustration of my first children's book was the best decision I could have made! From the very first point of contact, Jess was engaging, receptive, encouraging and displayed the utmost level of professionalism at all times. Her ability to visually capture the very essence of my storybook with such specific detail is a true talent that I am simply in awe of. Within hours of collaborating, Jess had taken my words and brought them to life so vividly that I could almost feel them jump off the page and dance around me. Jess holds a wealth of industry knowledge in graphic design and illustration/artwork, which made the entire drafting and execution of the project so much easier for me as an amateur. I am forever grateful for her services and will absolutely be seeking to collaborate with her for future projects. Thank you so much, Jess!

I recently got to work on the next print range for the Socha Atelier clothing brand. Pictured is the art asset development before it was scanned and designed into a repeat pattern. I love seeing my art on textiles and products so this is always a fun project to do and I love repeat clients! Keep an eye out on the Socha Atelier socials to be the first to see when the range comes out!

I’ve been slowly working away this month on creating a pattern library portfolio for licensing and here’s a peek at one of my colour selections for my Australian Flora collection. My pattern library showcases a selection of Hand-Drawn Print and Pattern Designs for use on products and textiles. The portfolio is a non-exclusive range and I offer exclusive and custom designs . My Australian floras collection is made up of five repeat patterns in a variety of colour options. Patterns are available as shown or can be commissioned to adjust assets and colours to make your own. Pictured is some mockup examples of how the patterns can be used!

I ended the month inspired to start creating my next personal Illustration focusing on the Netflix TV show Wednesday! Each month I switch to a different streaming platform and it was time to try out Netflix again. I was reminded how much I loved this show and had heard it has a new season coming our way. As I rewatched it the idea for this illustration formed. I wanted to recreate Wednesday writing her stories at her desk surrounded by the props that appear throughout the series. For the background I wanted to showcase the iconic bedroom window as well as incorporating the decorative Nevermore Academy school gate above. Keep an eye out on my socials to see progress and see the finished artwork!

I have a group show coming up called ‘All the Leaves are Brown’ with an Autumn theme. As I would be creating a n ew artwork for this I wanted to take the chance to explore adding colour to my inky style. My A3 artwork ‘Autumn Fox’ is drawn in my detailed ink work and coloured with watercolour paint on 300gsm paper. It shows a fox looking up at a bat that is hanging from a tree that is loosing it’s leaves. The floor is covered in leafy colour with mushrooms and pumpkins. As a primarily black and white artist I often get asked, ‘Do you do colour?’. I know there may be jobs in the future where this is necessary so I wanted to take this opportunity to explore this more.

Another idea I had this month in the lead up to my next artist alley, was to create a collection of small Pokemon original artworks. I will reveal more of this in the lead up to Comic Con Melbourne in June but wanted to draw these in-between client work while I wasn’t busy. I grew up with anime/manga obsessed siblings and this rubbed off on me in my childhood. I was tom boy and played/collected Pokemon cards a lot… I can’t claim this love as an adult but have enjoyed looking back at these cute characters and drawing them in my inky style surrounded by florals.

To celebrate Mothers Day I am having a print sale. I have 10 limited edition prints of my Kanga & Roos, and Koala‘s artwork in A1 size for sale. Printed at the size of the original artworks, they are on clearance at $90, previously $275. Perfect for Mother’s Day featuring mum and baby Australian animals.

Inspiration & Recommendation Updates:

In April we did a day trip to some regional Otway towns and stumbled upon the prettiest flower farm in Gellibrand. On our stop we where walking around he town and found Country Dahlias, a dog friendly flower farm that you can walk through for free. They have an incredible variety of dahlias in every colour and pattern and as you walk along the rows of flowers you can read all their fun names.

We also visited Beech Forrest where I found the most red mushrooms I’ve ever seen in one spot! Well into Autumn it was the perfect time for mushroom spotting. The timing worked well as I have just finished a collection of mushroom drawings for an Autumn themed group show opening in May.

We also took a weekend camping trip to Beechworth, another rural town in Victoria. Visiting in mid Autumn was the perfect time to make the trip as Beechworth is full of large old trees that change colour in the fall. Some of the highlights from our trip was the Beechworth Historic Park, Newtown Falls, Beechworth Hospital Facade, Beechworth Asylum, Beechworth Chinese Gardens and Lake Sambell. For food I had the best pie I’ve ever tasted at the iconic Beechworth Bakery where I ordered the Ned Kelly pie.

Monthly Casper the Samoyed Update: As you can see already Casper has enjoyed joining us on our road trips and outings. We like to take her out on little adventures where we can rather than leave her at home. She enjoys exploring and gets lots of treats. Casper also celebrated her 3rd birthday in April!

Markets & Events :

ALL THE LEAVES ARE BROWN EXHIBTION

Friday, May 9, 6 - 8 PM

Level 1/121 Brunswick RoadFitzroy North

I have another group exhibition happening soon which I’ve made some new artwork for! In addition to the fox artwork shown above I’ve made a collection of tiny Australian mushroom artworks. Ever since I drew my Alice in Wonderland illustration I’ve had a fascination with drawing different kinds of mushrooms.

YOUNGHUSBAND MARKET

Saturday, May 17,10 AM - 3 PM

2-50 Elizabeth Street Kensington, VIC, 3031

I’m heading back to the Younghusband market this month! It’s a great space hidden in the Melbourne Suburbs. Lots of handmade goodies to find here.

OZ COMIC CON MELBOURNE

8-9th June,9 AM - 5 PM

Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

One of my favourite events is just around the corner. I can’t wait to be back at the artist alley and have made some mini originals just for this event! More info soon…

What’s in my Shop:

If you're loving looking at my art I have an online store where you can get your very own prints, cards… even original artworks! Everything in my online store is handmade in my studio. This includes everything from creating illustrations, designing the product, printing, assembling, packaging and posting. It’s a lot of work and I love it.

Print pick on the month: KANGA AND ROOS A1 GICLEE PRINT, I currently have a Sale on this print for Mother Day. Previously $275, now down to $90! Printed on 310 gsm, 100% cotton rag, textured fine art paper using archival quality inks. Available in sizes A6 to A3.

Greeting card pick of the month: Koalas Greeting Card, a handmade A6 greeting card. The card is designed, printed and assembled by the artist onto 300gsm textured paper with a handmade patterned envelope. Blank on inside.

Bookmark pick of the month: Beauty and the Beast bookmark. Based on Jessica’s Beauty and the Beast original. Printed on 300gsm textured paper.

Original Artwork pick on the month: Snow White Original Artwork. Hand drawn on A2 300gsm hot pressed arches paper. An artwork inspired by the Little Women books/films. An exploration of 1860s fashion, food, furniture and interiors.

Sticker pick of the month: LITTLE WOMEN - CAKE, PIE, TEA STICKER from the Little Women illustration. Handmade stickers are digitally printed onto matte paper.

What’s new on Youtube:

I publish videos where I record my arts practice over the years as a visual diary to look back on. It’s a space for all the things I enjoy in life such as travel, home, lifestyle and my dog Casper the samoyed! Some things you'll find here are pet portrait recordings, commission development, personal illustration progress, baking, crafts, holidays and hanging out with my dog.

Things have quietened down a bit on YouTube posting but I do have one video I’m extra excited about to share: Illustrating a Picture Book!

To celebrate the launch of 'It's All for You’ by Jessica Peace I have made a video going through the illustration and design process from start to finish. Recording and discussing the illustration process from rough drafts, clean drafts to final artworks and then designing the book.

I have recently paused making weekly videos as I unfortunately need to focus on projects that will pay the bills at the moment. Although I love the video editing process and reflecting on my practice, creating these videos can take up to a whole day and whilst I’m currently only making an income from freelancing I need to focus on other things until work is a bit more stable.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about my art and got some fun recommendations and insights.

If you enjoyed reading and want to support me you can buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jessicajaneco

Some free ways to support me are following me on my socials at:

Instagram I Tiktok I Youtube I Facebook

See you next month…

Jess

Hello, and welcome to my third newsletter!

I’m Jessica Jane, a Melbourne, Australia based illustrator and designer. Once a month I will send out a newsletter giving you updates on what I have been up to in the previous month with my creative work and any updates for the month ahead.

March was the start of Autumn here in Australia. We still had too many hot days, but in the last week it began cooling down. I did a few more day trips this month so have lots of fun suggestions for adventures to go on. I did my first Supanova Artist Alley this month and I share here how it went. Some of the freelance work I’m working on now I can’t share, but here’s what I can share…

An update on the previous Months art projects:

Another month of freelancing full-time in illustration/design! YAY! I’m really enjoying this time that I currently have to dedicate to freelance work and personal illustration projects. Here’s what I go up to…

I’ve been working with the lovely Author Jessica Peace to illustrate her new book ‘It’s All For You’. Illustrating and designing for books is something I’d like to make a regular part of my freelance work so getting to work on this project was a dream. It was a great way to re-explore working with colour and trying out a different medium.

For this project I worked in procreate to create a digital watercolour style look. I used a paper texture, watercolour brushes and sketching brushes from Vanya Illustrations. I loved working digitally on my iPad for this project because it meant I could work on the go to get work done quicker. On one of our day trips I’d draw in the car while James drove, which was a little difficult with the bumps, but doable! For client work this is a great way to work and explore other mediums. I got the artwork finished for this within a month and will be designing the book once everything is finalised!

This month I got a pet portrait commission to draw a dog called Buddy. A fun fact I learned while looking at Buddy’s reference photos is that he loves KFC! I thought that was very cute. This is the first time I drew a pet that was noticeably aged and I hoped to do him justice. I think I did a good job and I hope Buddy is proud of the many years he has had. This pet portrait was drawn in A5 and was cropped to focus on the head. This means although the artwork is small the head is large enough as the rest of the body is cropped. For these portraits I fade out the body with cross hatching and stippling.

For one of my next commission, I worked on a logo design for a new clothing brand called ‘Peculiar People’. These are some of the options I came up with based on their brief and ideas. The design had a more graphic look and so was made up as a vector in Adobe Illustrator. To make the type more quirky to suit the word ‘peculiar’ one of the E’s was flipped and a - added above an O, as well as the placement of the I being changed. I love doing graphic design projects like this and It’s going to be so fun to see it out in the real world soon!

I was also commissioned to create some branding illustration assets for a brand I had previously done a logo design for in the month before. They were reading and writing relating artworks in a vintage style using my detailed ink look. The drawings were scanned, vectorised in Adobe Illustrator and also designed onto online branding banners for social media and websites.

My personal illustration for the month of March was drawing Snow White. Drawing Snow White was all woodlands, trees and forest animals. I drew this artwork in the lead up to the Snow White live action movie coming out and showcased the final artwork at the Supanova Melbourne Artist Alley later that month. I loved exploring the detail in the trees and all the different kinds of woodland animals I could think of.

Inspiration & Recommendation Updates:

I have a few destination recommendations for locals from the month of March. I did a beekeeping workshop at Dairy Flat Farm in Daylesford, Victoria. It was a great experience full of learning and eating honey! Highly recommend. A great starter course if you are thinking of doing beekeeping. It also includes a tour of the Dairy Flat farm which is a beautiful place.

One of our outings for the month was a day trip to Castlemaine and then Malmsbury on the way home. They both have stunning botanical gardens and we took our dog Casper along with us to go for a walk. Malmsburry has a big group of ducks near the gardens that made the small town even more sweet!

I live close to the Werribee Zoo and was lucky enough to visit on the day the elephant habitat became open to the public. Previously the Asian Elephants were located at Melbourne Zoo and are now in a much bigger space to play and thrive! Their space is now 21-hectares big with some gigantic swimming pools. It was great to see how interactive they were with the space.

This month I attended my first Creative Mornings session! Creative Mornings is a community that holds monthly talks all around the globe. My local is Melbourne and I have been following CMM for years, always interested in going to a talk but never available to attend one! Their talks are on a weekday around when work days start and I have always been either on the way to work or at work when the events are on. But now that I am freelancing, I am able to adjust my schedule to attend their events for the first time! I attended the talk on the 27th March with Kate Pullen. Kate is the Art Director of Frankie Magazine and a great artist/designer herself so this was a prefect first event for me to go to as it was inline with my interests.

My last outing recommendation is a trip to a gallery with an artist friend. I visited the NGV and ACMI in the city with my friends from uni days Grace Taylor. I don’t go to the city much anymore so it’s nice to visit the main galleries when I do and see what’s new. ACMI currently has a free display on Adam Elliot's Memoir of a Snail. It’s a must see! You can see all the claymation characters and props.

Monthly Casper the Samoyed Update: Now that the weather is cooling down we get to take Casper on some day trips. She loves exploring… until she’s had enough and wants to nap. Must be nice Casper, must be nice.

Markets & Events :

I don’t currently have any markets booked for the month of April so I’m going to reflect on my most recent event being Melbourne Supanova. I was part of the Artist Alley and it was a big weekend doing this event. I enjoy doing conventions because I love seeing how excited people get about my work and I did well at this one. Conventions are also a great place to network with other creatives taking part. I made an effort to talk to authors and publishers as I’m interested in doing illustration and design work for books. And I got a great response, they were all happy to chat with me, I’ve noticed most people at these event are also super nice!

SNOW WHITE DROP - SHOP UPDATE:

My Snow White shop update just went live! You can find prints, cards, bookmarks, stickers and the original artwork all up on my website shop now. Whenever I make a new illustration, I design some handmade products from the scanned artwork.

What’s in my Shop:

If you're loving looking at my art I have an online store where you can get your very own prints, cards… even original artworks! Everything in my online store is handmade in my studio. This includes everything from creating illustrations, designing the product, printing, assembling, packaging and posting. It’s a lot of work and I love it.

Print pick on the month: Practical Magic Print, an artwork inspired by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, illustrating Susan, Lucy and Aslan having a picnic! Printed on 310 gsm, 100% cotton rag, textured fine art paper using archival quality inks. Available in sizes A6 to A3.

Greeting card pick of the month: Dorothy and Friends Card, a handmade A6 greeting card. The card is designed, printed and assembled by the artist onto 300gsm textured paper with a handmade patterned envelope. Blank on inside.

Bookmark pick of the month: Cinderella bookmark. Based on Jessica’s Cinderella original. Printed on 300gsm textured paper.

Original Artwork pick on the month: Little Women Original Artwork. Hand drawn on A2 300gsm hot pressed arches paper. An artwork inspired by the Little Women books/films. An exploration of 1860s fashion, food, furniture and interiors.

Sticker pick of the month: Mushroom Alice in Wonderland Sticker 2 from the Alice in Wonderland illustration. Handmade stickers are digitally printed onto matte paper.

What’s new on Youtube:

I publish weekly videos where I record my arts practice over the years as a visual diary to look back on. It’s a space for all the things I enjoy in life such as travel, home, lifestyle and my dog Casper the samoyed! Some things you'll find here are pet portrait recordings, commission development, personal illustration progress, baking, crafts, holidays and hanging out with my dog.

For the Month of March I had one last asset creation timelapse to share for my collab with Socha Atelier. It was the drawing development for a leopard as part of the jungle collection. I recorded the drawing process of the art assets and then scanned them and made a repeat pattern for clothing.

My next 3 videos are recordings of how transitioning to freelance work full time in illustration and design has gone. I document the time spent freelancing including projects I worked on, personal illustration, markets & events and fun things in-between like day trips.

My first video Transitioning from full time graphic design to freelancing in illustration and design goes over my creative career and is a little introduction into what’s to come. My next video First week freelancing full time in Illustration & design after working full time in graphic design goes over how my first week freelancing went. I show outings where I have a little break in-between finishing my full time role to starting freelance and I share the first projects I worked on for the week. And my third video, How my first month went freelancing full time in illustration & design goes over the first full month of freelancing in February. I share all the projects I worked on and my thoughts on freelance work being realistic long term.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about my art and got some fun recommendations and insights.

If you enjoyed reading and want to support me you can buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jessicajaneco

Some free ways to support me are following me on my socials at:

Instagram I Tiktok I Youtube I Facebook

See you next month…

Jess

Hello, and welcome to my second newsletter!

I’m Jessica Jane, a Melbourne, Australia based illustrator and designer. Once a month I will send out a newsletter giving you updates on what I have been up to in the previous month with my creative work and any updates for the month ahead.

Summer has just finished and I think it’s wild how quick this year is going! I’ve been trying to make the most of the current time I have freelancing full time, but don’t feel like I’ve gotten enough done. I did get sick a couple of times so I’ll blame that. Here’s what I’ve been up to…

An update on the previous Months art projects:

If you read my previous newsletter you’ll know I’ve made the jump from working full-time in graphic design to trying freelancing in design/illustration full-time. I did a lot of networking last year and in Jan in the lead up to this to get some jobs. I’m giving myself a couple more months to see if I can make it work. It has been unfortunately quieter than I hoped. So far it’s a lot of back and forth with potential clients and waiting for them to get back to me. Buttt… I have started some work and some other work is looking like it might start soon!

One of my commissions this month that the client has allowed me to share is working on a new logo design. I’ve loved working on a logo again and it’s always great when I’m approached because of my ink work. This logo is for an author and they were inspired by my recent Secret Garden illustration. One of the designs needed to incorporate a door asset with vines around it, and their brand name. After some mood boarding and discussion these are the logo options I made up.

For this project I explored drawing the art assets in Adobe illustrator for a clean vector look, in procreate with a slightly textured brush and hand drawn with a fine-liner. The traditional method won in the end. It gave a more delicate and whimsical look. I then scanned the artworks and vectorised them in illustrator. I’ve now updated my client portfolio to include this new work as I’m hoping to pick up some similar branding work that makes use of my inky style.

I got another pet portrait commission which I always get excited about! This is the smallest size pet portrait I offer. It’s A6 in size making for a tiny, cute keepsake! I offer pet portraits in a variety of sizes so they can be adjusted for budgets and wall/display space. If you're interested in learning more about my pet portraits or would like one commissioned click here.

My next commission was a little different to my normal focus but a great way to come back to watercolours. This client was after some name prints for their kids and wanted a simple shape based artwork with a beach theme and different colours. Using layers of watercolour added a nice texture to the piece and made it a bit more interesting. The original artworks were done on a small scale, then scanned at a higher resolution so I could increase the artwork size for the print. I cleaned up the scan in photoshop and designed A3 prints. If you're interested in custom name prints let me know! I’m wondering if I should add these to my shop!

My personal illustration for the month of February was drawing Little Women. This was a magical piece and researching it was almost as fun as drawing it. I read the book, I watched the different movies and mood-boarded 1860s fashion, interiors, food and furniture. I was in the mood to make a food related artwork and I loved the beauty of the scene in the 2019 film, where the girls come home to a Christmas feast after giving theirs away. I saw a lot of potential in creating my own version of this and it was a fun excuse to make vintage inspired artwork.

Inspiration & Recommendation Updates:

My destination recommendation for locals is from a weekend trip I did to the Mornington Peninsula. I had a market in the area and decided to stay for the weekend as it was a long drive from the other side of Melbourne.

Our sight seeing spot was Black Rock Beach in Cape Schanck. It has a short walking track to get to the look out with large rock formations. On this particular day it was extremely windy! Sunglasses and a jacket with a hood are recommended.

We ended the day with a visit to the Peninsula Hot Springs. I had gotten a voucher from my birthday and it seemed like a great way to end the day after doing a market. Hot springs are very relaxing and a great way to feel cosy and get rid of those sore muscles.

On the way home the next day we visited Heronswood Cafe for a late breakfast, having scones and hot chocolate. I chose this location because of their huge garden which is a great place to go for a morning walk and even to learn/research plants. They have a huge variety. They also have a gallery and nursery shop!

My baking recipe recommendation from February is the Basque cake from the French Patisserie Recipe Book by Ferrandi. It’s a creamy custard wrapped in soft pastry. It uses so many egg yolks I had to make 2 pavlovas after… win win!

Here are some fun posts I’ve discovered on the socials:

• A block printed fish tea towel by Marissa Petrozza

• Jane Austen Garden illustrations by Jessica Roux

• Illustrating story maps by Thea Hawthorne

• Designing Instagram carousels by Melissa

• Watercolour brushes for Procreate by Adilson Farias

Monthly Casper the Samoyed Update: She’s been spending a lot of afternoons napping on the bathroom tiles. Don’t worry Casper… summer is over!

Markets & Events for March:

I got a last minute invite to take part in a group exhibition and I whipped up a new artwork for it! I’m very excited as I don’t do too many gallery shows these days. The theme is summer and what could be more summery than a sunflower! They are also my favourite flowers. It did open late feb so there isn’t long left to see it! I also have prints now available for this artwork!

POCKETFUL OF SUNSHINE EXHIBITION

February 26th - March 8th, open 12-5pm Wednesday-Saturday.

Dark Horse Experiment - 400 Spencer StreetWest Melbourne, VIC, 3003

I have 1 exciting market booked for March! Here you can find original artworks, giclee prints, greeting cards, bookmarks, wrapping paper, badges and stickers! Find me here:

SUPANOVA MELBOURNE

Saturday 29th - Sunday 30th March,10:00 AM - 6:00 PM

Epsom Road, Ascot Vale, VIC, 3032

LITTLE WOMEN DROP - SHOP UPDATE:

My Little Women shop update just went live! You can find prints, cards, bookmarks, stickers and the original artwork all up on my website shop now. Whenever I make a new illustration, I design some handmade products from the scanned artwork.

What’s in my Shop:

If you're loving looking at my art I have an online store where you can get your very own prints, cards… even original artworks! Everything in my online store is handmade in my studio. This includes everything from creating illustrations, designing the product, printing, assembling, packaging and posting. It’s a lot of work and I love it.

Print pick on the month: Practical Magic Print, A limited edition artwork inspired by the house in the Practical Magic film/book. Printed on 310 gsm, 100% cotton rag, textured fine art paper using archival quality inks. Available in sizes A6 to A3.

Greeting card pick of the month: Secret Garden Card, a handmade A6 greeting card. The card is designed, printed and assembled by the artist onto 300gsm textured paper with a handmade patterned envelope. Blank on inside.

Bookmark pick of the month: Butterfly bookmark. Based on Jessica’s animal illustrations. Printed on 300gsm textured paper.

Original Artwork pick on the month: Alice in Wonderland Original Artwork. Hand drawn on A2 300gsm hot pressed arches paper.

Sticker pick of the month: Eeyore sticker from the Winnie the Pooh illustration. Handmade stickers are digitally printed onto matte paper.

What’s new on Youtube:

I publish weekly videos where I record my arts practice over the years as a visual diary to look back on. It’s a space for all the things I enjoy in life such as travel, home, lifestyle and my dog Casper the samoyed! Some things you'll find here are pet portrait recordings, commission development, personal illustration progress, baking, crafts, holidays and hanging out with my dog.

For the Month of Feb I continued releasing videos going over my art asset creation for my collab with Socha Atelier. Last year one of my freelance commissions was to create a jungle themed textile design pattern for their new range. I recorded drawing time lapse’s for each asset. These videos include drawing an orchid flower, drawing a blue poison dart frog, drawing palm leaves and drawing monstera leaves. Asset development process's includes sketching drafts to final artwork.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about my art and got some fun recommendations and insights.

If you enjoyed reading and want to support me you can buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jessicajaneco

Some free ways to support me are following me on my socials at:

Instagram I Tiktok I Youtube I Facebook

See you next month…

Jess

Hello, and welcome to my very first newsletter!

I’m Jessica Jane, a Melbourne, Australia based illustrator and designer. Once a month I will send out a newsletter giving you updates on what I have been up to in the previous month with my creative work and any updates for the month ahead. For example there will a section for events I have coming up, new product updates and also some fun things like what’s currently inspiring me or new discoveries and recommendations.

An update on the previous Months art projects:

We are deep in the summer months now. I feel like this summer has been hotter than the previous years and more humid; I wonder if this is what it feels like to live in Queensland! I have been lucky that on my booked outdoor market days the weather has been kind to me.

This year is starting off differently than most. Mid Jan I was made redundant from my full time graphic design role. I am lucky to be in a position to not have to rush back to work and am now am enjoying time to focus fully on my freelance practise. It is a little scary and I would love the freelance life to last forever. I’m giving it a few months to see how it goes or until a new position comes up thats too good to say no to! By the time this email comes out I will have been freelancing full-time for about 2 weeks. Here are some of the projects I’ve worked on that I can share:

In January I was commissioned to make a 90th Birthday Card. This commission had lots of personal touches to it that are special to the person being gifted the card. Every art asset relates in someway to this persons interests, or places that are important to them. They spent a lot of time at a winery so a border was made of grape vines and a section of a vineyard is a prominent part of the design. They are fond of ulysses butterflies, so they are featured on the front and back. Part of the likeness of a ulysses butterfly is their blue colour so I hand painted the card with blue watercolour. The client requested a curlicue on the cover under the text, this helps give it an old fashioned and elegant feel.

On the inside, details of a specific mountain has been drawn that relates to an area they spent lots of time at. The vine border has been repeated on the inside pages with their name lettering being hand-drawn.

I loved this project and the process makes me want to do more commissions like this, even invitations would be fun! They are highly personal and I love seeing the reaction from the client at the final product.

Next I worked on my first pet portrait of the year. I’ve done many pet portraits over the years and I love these commissions. Because I have done so many of them they are a nice quick project for me and again very personal for the client. This was an A5 sketch of a puppy called Ollie. I took this drawing to one of the markets I did in January and worked on it in-between sales. This was a great way to make the most of my market time as well as promoting my pet portraits by having people see me draw live in person. If you're interested in learning more about my pet portraits or would like one commissioned click here.

Late Jan, I started working on my next personal illustration. I’m drawing the house from Practical Magic! Last year I did a series of artworks inspired by books and fairytales and I am continuing this into the new year. I read the book, but this is the first time I’d say I enjoyed the movie more. It’s very nostalgic and visually beautiful. The house is a highlight and I wanted to try drawing a building as the prominent part of an artwork. I’m hopping by the time this newsletter is out, it will be complete. You can keep updated on this illustration progress on my instagram at jessicajane.illustion

Inspiration & Recommendation Updates:

My destination recommendation for locals is snorkelling or beach walking at the Point Cooke Marine Sanctuary. Located in the west of Melbourne this was a great way to spend a hot day. It’s a nice area to walk, with an old homestead to pass by on the way to the beach. The tide was too low to snorkel when we went but you can see all the coral and rocks. They also had swans in the ocean!

My at home craft activity is felting hearts for beginners and building your own pet in Jekca form! I have been collecting my dog, Caspers fur for as long as I’ve been brushing her, with the intention of one day felting and spinning her fur. I was gifted a samoyed Jekca to build for Christmas and whilst putting the blocks together I had the idea to put a felted heart of Casper’s fur in the hollowed inside. This has an easy, simple way to try felting for the first time and make our Samoyed Jekca extra special.

My current favourite summertime drink recipe update is a limoncello slushy. See the recipe here! I add sweet basil to garnish. It’s great for the hot weather and delicious with a BBQ dinner.

Here are some fun posts I’ve discovered on the socials:

• Variety Hour releasing a range of gigantic flower shaped fabric bags

• Elegance Bound making your book shelf pretty with digital downloads for book dust jackets

• Day dreaming of my future garden if I had all the land.

• The cutest illustrated animal comics I ever did see.

• Hand drawn wrapping paper for when you don’t have any wrapping paper!

Markets & Events for February:

While I’ve got some more time to dedicate to my art I booked a few markets for Feb where I will showcase original artworks, giclee prints, greeting cards, bookmarks, wrapping paper, badges and stickers! Find me here:

MORNINGTON RACECOURSE MARKET - CRAFT MARKETS AUSTRALIA

Sunday, February 9, 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM

320 Racecourse Road Mornington, VIC, 3931

YOUNGHUSBAND MARKET

Saturday, February 15,10:00 AM - 3:00 PM

2-50 Elizabeth Street Kensington, VIC, 3031

WYNDHAM MAKERS AND FARMERS MARKET

Sunday, February 16, 9:00 AM - 1:30 PM

x2-10 Bulban RoadWerribee, VIC, 3030

What’s in my Shop:

If you're loving looking at my art I have an online store where you can get your very own prints, cards… even original artworks! Everything in my online store is handmade in my studio. This includes everything from creating illustrations, designing the product, printing, assembling, packaging and posting. It’s a lot of work and I love it.

Print pick on the month: Meeting at the Lamp Post print, inspired by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, illustrating Lucy and Mr. Tumnus meeting at the lamp post. Printed on 310 gsm, 100% cotton rag, textured fine art paper using archival quality inks. Available in sizes A6 to A3.

Greeting card pick of the month: The Hundred Acre Gathering card, inspired by Winnie the Pooh. The card is designed, printed and assembled by the artist onto 300gsm textured paper with a handmade patterned envelope. Blank on inside

Bookmark pick of the month: Platypus bookmark. Based on Jessica’s Australian animal illustrations. Printed on 300gsm textured paper.

Original Artwork pick on the month: The Enchanted Library artwork, inspired by Beauty & the Beast. Artwork drawn on A3 300gsm hot pressed arches paper.

Sticker pick of the month: Wizard of Oz sticker from the Wizard of Oz illustration. Handmade stickers are digitally printed onto matte paper.

What’s new on Youtube:

I publish weekly videos where I record my arts practice over the years as a visual diary to look back on. It’s a space for all the things I enjoy in life such as travel, home, lifestyle and my dog Casper the samoyed! Some things you'll find here are pet portrait recordings, commission development, personal illustration progress, baking, crafts, holidays and hanging out with my dog.

For the Month of Jan I published a video of my weekend trip to Phillip island. It’s an island in Australia where you can see little penguins! Next I published Creating a Textile Design Jungle Pattern for Socha Atelier - a collab process from start to finish, recording my Repeat Pattern Design development with Ink Drawings. Following this I made two timelapse recordings of drawing a Toco Toucan and a Passion Flower from start to finish. Going through my Art Asset creation for a Textile Design Jungle Pattern collaboration with Socha Atelier. Asset development process's includes sketching drafts to final artwork.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about my art and got some fun recommendations and insights.

If you enjoyed reading and want to support me you can buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/jessicajaneco

Some free ways to support me are following me on my socials at:

Instagram I Tiktok I Youtube I Facebook

See you next month…

Jess

Let’s go over a who I am, the reasons why and what to expect:

Who is Jessica Jane?

I’m Jessica Jane, a Melbourne, Australian based illustrator and designer. For my personal work I create detailed, whimsical ink drawings with themes like fairytales, travel, animals and plants. From these drawings I create handmade prints, cards, bookmarks, stickers and more!

I love being creative and my client work includes working on murals, pet portraits drawing workshops, textile design, surface design and graphic design for print/digital.

Why am I making this Newsletter?

I’d love a space where I can make a record of my creative practice in a monthly form. It’s something nice for me to look back on as a kind of creative journal. I also like the idea of having a platform that is’t controlled by an algorithm. If you sign up to my newsletter you will get a direct monthly email and will never miss a post. It’s a great way to keep updated!

What can you expect?

• A monthly newsletter going over my creative and life updates for the month

• Upcoming market/exhibition/event updates

• Behind the scenes on my illustration projects

• New product/shop updates

• Updates on my YouTube videos (Timelapse drawings, studio vlogs and more)

• Things i’m excited about, like my dog Casper!

What next?

If this interests you, you can fill in your email bellow to subscribe! Once a month you get a fun little email in your inbox full of pictures and little updates on my arty life.

Subscribe now