Emma is the amazing illustrator behind our new English Country Garden Drawing Guide. I thought it would be nice to introduce her and her work so that you get to know her and how she developed her beautiful drawing style.
Hi Emma!
Hello! Thanks for having me.
What led you to start your business?
When I graduated from uni in 2014, I knew I wanted to work for myself as a graphic designer and illustrator. It took me a while to get going and find what worked for me, and I tried out lots of "businesses" before I really settled in to what I'm doing now. I've been offering branding and graphic design services for a few years now, and in 2019 I opened my Creative Market shop, selling my illustrations digitally for other designers and creatives to use. Running this shop means I get to spend a lot of my time drawing all of my favourite things, and visiting beautiful places to gather inspiration for new products.
Where and when did your love of plants start?
I've always loved florals, and some of my earliest memories of making art are painting watercolour flowers with my Nan. Plants really begun to be the centre of my work a few years ago once I had my own garden and a collection of house plants. Last year I started going on solo drawing trips to gardens, spending my day drawing all of the plants and taking hundreds of photos to draw from at home. That new practice has really increased my love for plants even more and they're now the focus of nearly all of my work.
What do you feel the benefits of creativity are to you?
Creativity is so important to me. All of my work, hobbies, interests etc are all revolved around being creative. It's the thing that brings me the most joy and the thing I spend the majority of time thinking about, and its definitely a huge boost for mental health. I can't even imagine a life without creativity!
What's your favourite plant to illustrate?
That's a tough one! It changes all the time as I go through phases of certain plants I'm a bit obsessed with drawing. At the moment its geraniums. I visited The Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall back in January and there was a greenhouse full of all varieties and colours of geraniums and I've been feeling super inspired by them ever since.
What's the best piece of creative advice you have been given?
To not always focus on the end result (ie. not everything has to be Instagram worthy!)
Practice is a really important part of creativity, and it doesn't matter if the drawings (or whatever it is you're creating!) aren't always perfect, you'll still have gained so much from creating it.
Where can we find out more about you and your studio?
I share a lot of my illustration work on Instagram @emmawebbstudio, and there's lots of information on the services I offer and links to my shops on my website emmawebbstudio.com