My Year In Review 2025 - How I Made Money As An Illustrator
Photo by Studio Rouge Photography
Every year I enjoy looking at how my illustration business has performed. I actually get quite geeky about the numbers and love seeing how it has compared to previous years. It’s also a chance to work on my goals for the upcoming year.
This year (2025) has been my best one to date, and in October I celebrated 5 years of running my business. You can read more about my journey from a product based business to a live illustrator in this blog post here.
I think understanding how your business is performing is so valuable, and with the new HMRC requirements for Making Tax Digital in April 2026, it’s more important than ever.
Something that has helped me get super organised with this has been to use Freeagent which syncs with my business bank account and was recommended by my accountant. As well as tracking my expenses, it’s made it really easy for me to track the jobs that I am quoting for, and when I get booked, I can convert my quotes into invoices really easily. It also means I have a running total of the income in my business, and I can project my income for the year, and create reports on the profit and loss in my business, as well as submitting my tax returns via the Freeagent platform.
While I won’t be sharing the exact money I’ve made this year, I will share what types of income I’ve had and the percentage they have been in my overall income.
Live Dog Portraits
Photo from dog portraits at ALO for Chelsea Dog Day
Last year, I started working with more brand clients, and the overwhelming majority of the events I was booked for were 14 events doing live Dog Portraits for John Lewis at a range of their stores across the south of the UK and London.
I loved doing these, and met hundreds of lovely customers and their dogs. However, this year I’ve switched to working with a wider range of clients and have collaborated with some brilliant dog friendly brands, including Assouline, to promote their Chic Dogs book launch in March, Butternut Box for their Company Away Day in June and ALO for Chelsea Dogs Day in October.
I’ve got some exciting dog portrait brand collaborations planned for 2026, so make sure you’re signed up to my mailing list if you want to hear about my upcoming events.
This year, live portraits of dogs at events represented 15% of my income.
Live Portraits - Brand Events
Live portrait at a Christmas Party
The most popular type of event I’ve been booked for this year has been Christmas Parties. This is a huge change from last year, when I mainly painting live dog portraits in the lead up to Christmas.
I continued my collaboration with 1 Hotel Mayfair this spring when I painted live portraits of their guests for Mothers Day. This was a really lovely idea and I’ve seen other illustrators like Niki Groom collaborate with hotels like the Langham in London to illustrate guests enjoying afternoon tea.
I also was booked to illustrate live portraits (and some dogs!) as part of an in store activation at Peter Jones in London to celebrate the Chelsea Flower Show. I also hosted a live floral watercolour workshop in their beautiful rooftop workshop space.
Later in the year I’ve been booked by Deloitte, XE, Beyond Repair Entertainment and The Kind Vibe Co to paint live portraits at Christmas Parties in London and Berkshire.
I’ve also been booked for some Networking events in early 2026 which I’m really looking forward to.
Live portraits at brand events like these have represented 20% of my income.
Live Illustration At Weddings
Bridesmaids live portraits at H & C’s wedding at the Libertine in London.
My biggest income this year has been live illustration at weddings, representing 50% of my income. I’ve been selective about the weddings I’ve picked and have been able to travel across the country from Edinburgh in Scotland, to Herefordshire as well as a few London weddings and some beautiful weddings at local venues such as Wasing Park and Stanlake Park in Berkshire.
I’ve updated my wedding packages and have launched a new wedding brochure, and I’ve exhibited at some lovely wedding fairs, including the Quirky Wedding Fayre in Buckinghamshire and Berkshire Wedding Fairs at The Retreat at Elcot Park and the De Vere Wokefield Estate.
As well as guest portraits on the day, all of my wedding packages include a portrait of the happy couple, and a few clients have also booked me to paint extra portraits in my studio after the wedding day so that all of their guests can get a portrait.
I have some fabulous weddings booked for 2026, and a few spaces left so I’m getting ready for flurry of enquiries in January, after engagement season.
Workshops - Corporate and Public
Flatlay from the Flow and Flourish Retreat- Spring 2025. Photo by Annabel Crichard
I have continued to host a range of public workshops at Micklems Farm in Berkshire this year, inspired by the seasonal florals in their flower farm. They have a wonderful barn studio space on site which is perfect for teaching in, and has plenty of space for each student. I have some Spring and Summer Floral Watercolour workshops booked with them for 2026, and you can find out more and book your space on their website.
This Spring I also hosted another Flow and Flourish Retreat with Jodie Rose Calligraphy which was so much fun. It was a calligraphy and watercolour retreat at the Garden Gallery at the Museum of Farnham in Surrey. Jodie is continuing to host calligraphy workshops and calligraphy retreats, but I’ve decided to step back from co-hosting the retreat as public workshops are no longer the main focus of my business.
This year I’ve been building relationships with different brands, corporate companies and charities to host private mindful creative workshops and I’m planning to continue this in 2026.
My combined income from public and private workshops (including the retreat) in 2025 represented 12% of my income.
Live Illustration at H & S Wedding in London. Photo by Sophie Barloc
Overall, Live Illustration continues to be my main source of income as an illustrator, as well as hosting creative workshops. My plans for 2026 are to continue illustrating at weddings, as well as working with corporate brand clients.
I’m also developing my Fashion Illustration portfolio, having taken some courses with Scott W Mason this summer. I would also love to apply for Arts Council funding for Developing my Creative Practice, as well as doing an artist residency.
I did apply for funding through Groundwork as part of taking the Hatch Enterprise Business Incubator Course this summer. I wasn’t successful in getting this funding, but I’m taking on board the feedback they gave me. It will help me build my next application for funding in 2026.
A big theme for 2025 for me was learning and development. I’ve taken courses on Marketing, SEO, Fashion Illustration, Business Growth and PR. These courses have all helped propel my business forward, as well as giving me access to an amazing community of other business owners. This is so important to connect with others when working as an illustrator, or indeed on any small business, and having a creative business community has lead to some wonderful collaborations and friendships.
I hope this blog post has been helpful if you’re reading this as an illustrator, or a creative business owner. Although I’ve had an amazing year, it’s important to remember that it’s taken me 5 years to get to this point, with a lot of trial and error along the way.
The main thing I would always encourage if you’re a creative business owner is to diversify your income, as well as pitching for a wide range of opportunities. The best thing I’ve done to create opportunities in my business is to do the Rejection Challenge. You can read more about that here.
Finally, if you enjoy reading about what an illustrator earns in a year, I can recommend the Money Talks series by Niki Groom where she shares her own income as well as interviewing other illustrators
