Kerry Darlington: A whole post about her.

Kerry Darlington is a brilliant Welsh artist who I've included in this blog because she is included in an interview in 'Artists & Illustrators' called "Mass Appeal". Her story is interesting because she came into popularity after leaving her job as an illustrator Craig Bragdey Designs to become a stay at home mother. She started selling her original works on Ebay, where she was spotted by a traditional art gallery, spiraling her career out to a much larger audience and helping her to develop her work while still earning money.

This is an incredibly lucky thing to happen to her, but her methods are still interesting to someone about to leave university (=





Kerry Darlington, 2013

Her most popular work is based around artist prints, she uses a mixture of paint and resin to give her work a really magical feel to it. In the interview she offers the advice "If you're starting out, buyers tend to want original works from you. You have to prove yourself with that before you go into print." This is encouraging to those of us (sigh) who prefer hand- rendering artwork but still like to work in the illustration field. Darlington also says that a lot of her work is bought by people who have never bought art work before, which highlights her ability to appeal to the masses with her popular themed work, focused around such childhood classics as "Alice in Wonderland" and "Peter Pan". All the added credibility her fame has given her also allows her to charge more for her works, upto £700 for a print. She also talks about how important a publisher is, to act as a liaison between her and galleries and keep promoting her, though she has now opted into self-promotion with the help of her husband.




"Wild and Free"

All in all she is someone to aspire to and follow, someone who's work I like and someone who represents the slight possibility of creating work that is non- technological but still popular to the masses.

Arty word of the day: Du Jour. This is a French term for anything new or fashionable at a certain time.