Developing your creative practice with funding from Arts Council England

Part 1 - My unsuccessful application vs. my successful application

Trust where the journey takes you. That’s what was whizzing in my head as I clicked on the email from Arts Council England telling me that my decision letter was available for review. It was around a week after my mum had passed so my brain felt like scrambled eggs and I kept reading the automated email over and over. Logging into the application platform I could tell from the title of the the update that my proposal to spend the year exploring picture book illustration had been accepted. I couldn’t believe it! What a journey to get to this point, from that first unsuccessful application over a year ago to this one which I started in October. I’m so excited to have the means to study the children’s book publishing industry, have mentoring sessions and be able to travel to museums and heritage centres to research and draw.

If you are looking to apply for funding for your creative practice, be it illustration, writing or other visual arts, then head over to my latest blog post to hear all about the DYCP fund from Arts Council England, where I went wrong with my first application so you don’t make the same mistakes, and what resources helped me to write a successful funding application.

In future blogs I’ll talk about my activity plan for my Arts Council Develop Your Creative Practice funding application, budgeting, tips for applying and managing your DYCP activities and of course, keep you up to date with my monthly adventures in illustration. So be sure to sign up to my Substack to be notified of my next blog hitting the screens and follow me on Instagram for stories from the studio.

Chat soon,

Annie

Northern Bird Designs