Winning through rejection

Why NOT getting DYCP Art’s Council funding this spring was the best thing that happened to me

Since last summer, I applied twice to Arts Council England’s Develop Your Creative Practice fund and failed both times. Am I a loser? NO! Because, as if by magic, I have achieved a lot of the development that I’d wanted the funding for. So maybe I didn’t get a nice shiny £12k in my bank BUT I did gain a lot of confidence drawing characters for my books. Winning?

It certainly feels like it.

What did I apply for?

I wanted funding to support the development of my picture book characters. I’ve always felt more confident drawing scenery and creating atmospheric work, and seize up a bit when it comes to drawing people and animals. Feedback on my MA was always on this theme but I didn’t have time to give focusand attention to characters during the course (I was having too much fun in the print room…see this post.)

So a few months after graduating I thought a bit of funded time, love, and energy behind character development was just what a needed. Also I really missed the structure and direction that the MA had provided for the past 2.5 years - a funded year of planned development would help keep momentum going.

I wanted more confidence to draw my characters interacting.

‘ Why is ‘winning’ a big deal?

Firstly it’s a big deal because everything is about winning. When you think about it.

And secondly, winning in this context a big deal for me because when I’m not illustrating books I actually spend quite bit of time helping people apply to the Arts Council. I’m an Access Support worker there Develop Your Creative Practice “DYCP” fund (check me out) so I am very familiar with the application and how to meet the requirements.

So why didn’t I get the funding?

There are MANY possible reasons why I didn’t get the funding this time:

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DISCLAIMER - I did successfully apply for DYCP in 2020 and enjoyed a great funded year of developing a portfolio to apply for my MA Children’s Book Illustration with - well done me. So I’ve got all the different experiences.

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1. Maybe my response to question 3 wasn’t specific enough - This is the feedback that ACE gave, but it’s also the feedback I’ve seen them give to everyone.

2. Maybe I live in a busy creative area - ACE ensure they spread the money out over the different creative disciplines and across the regions. Perhaps there were too many illustrators applying from the South West this year?

3. Maybe my reference could have been more about my professional practice - My reference was fairly academic, perhaps this wasn’t what they were after.

4. Or most likely, I made a decent application and it just didn’t win the lottery.

One could gossip for hours about why one didn’t get the money. Or…

Why am I so obsessed with winning?

Over the years I’ve seen many awesome creative people apply for DYCP and not succeed (and also seen some not so awesome people get the money, hmmmm). My success rate with clients is about 50:50…pretty good considering 1 in 10 applications get the money.

When people invest their precious time into the application and don’t succeed it can be disheartening, frustrating, and make you want to just throw your toys out of the pram a little bit. WHHHHYYYYYY MEEEEEE?! WHHHHYYYYY???

And as the person helping them, I wanted to make them feel good about having just put in all that effort. And get some kind of reward for daring to put themselves out there as well. Same goes for me…I want to make sure it’s worth the 2 day slog to put together the application.

Why God?! WHHHHY?!

So how to make a win win?

Cue…FUNd Club! The applying-for-funding philosphy where you win whether you get the money or not.

✔️Clarity on what to focus your time and energy on? DONE

✔️A well organised plan for the year? DONE

✔️A lovely reference letter full of praise from your favourite tutor? DONE

And so many other benefits. Even just writing the answer to the “Tell us about yourself” question forces you to come up with all the ways that you’re awesome. Feels like a win to have an “I am awesome” list pinned above your desk for whenever you need a wee pick-me-up.

We are awesome.

What on earth is FUNd Club?

For the past couple of years I’ve been running FUNd Club, a series of workshops on how to put the FUN back into arts funding. The aim of the game is to make your arts council application into a win win…where you and your practice benefit even if you don’t get funded.

I LOVE running FUNd Club. I make people do all sorts of awkward things like brag to everyone about what they’re proud of in ther practice (this is mostly in my “Toot Your Horn” session). We also dream audacious big dreams for our creative lives. And exchange awesome ideas of how we’re going to get there.

My FUNd Clubbers report all sort of great vibes (check out the testimonials here) and feeling really good about themselves and their practice when they leave a FUNd Club session.

And I take these great vibes into my Acess Support work as well - surely the creatives who are feeling the most confident are most likely to get the funding?

How did I make my application a win-win?

• I made my time plan realistic, spending a small amount of time each week on character development. This meant that even without the money I could manage to scratch together some time for characters.

• A big part of my application was to spend time doing observatioal drawing of people and animals. Without the funding I just got more clever about taking my sketchbook everywhere and stealing little bits of drawing whenever I can.

• I found courses that if I couldn’t get funded to go on them perhaps I could save up to do them at a later date

• I used the application time to really think about WHY I wanted to develop characters, to get clear on my motivation

• I also thought hard about exactly HOW I would develop characters…what would this process look like? If I didn’t get the funding I would still follow these steps, it will just take a bit longer.

Winning.

And the proof is in the pudding

I realised I was winning when making my portfolio for Bologna earlier this year. I was including some new character work and thought “Hey…this is way better than last year’s portfolio! And I like it way more!”

A new character-focussed portfolio spread for a new book idea…The Beast Club

What do you think?

What’s the biggest win for me?

Being clear on ‘WHY’ developing my characters was so important, and making it a priority, was the biggest win for me.

And on a more personal level, having more expressive characters allows me to express more in my books, and explore more complex or subtle emotions and themes. This is the really fun part.

Subtle, but expressive.

What accidental other wins have I had?

Some unexpected wins have cropped up because I didn’t get the funding. Win-win-win! 3 dimensional winning.

To fund the time developing my practice I’ve just been more efficient with my freelance work and to value my time more. I’ve started charging more for my time, and people have been very willing to pay. Realising through my DYCP application how important it was for me to have this time developing my characters made me get serious about my illustration business. Big girl pants are officially on.

Me being a rock and roll badadss big girl illustrator.

So, do you want to win?

Of course you do! Who doesn’t? If you think you don’t then I feel there might be something going on in there to take a closer look at. Do you deserve to win? Absolutely!

So if you want help in win-win-winning when it comes to FUNding applications for your creative practice, do give me a yell. I’ll be taking on a few clients for the next round of DYCP applications. So either nominate me as your Access Support worker through ACE (if you have any sort of access requirments). And I’ll be running an online FUNd Club for anyone excited to grab the win-win bull by the horns.

FUNd Clubbers winning together!

ACE haven’t released their next dates for DYCP funding yet, but I expect the next round will be in the late summer. Woohoo!