Featured Artist of the Month

Nelly Camacho, Illustrator

I am an illustrator who was born in a beautiful country called Colombia. This place influenced my art style greatly as tropical colours, and warm weather surrounded me.

I lived in Spain for a few years until I finally came to London, UK. I started my creative career at the age of 16, when I began to study Graphic Design and Photography at college. For three years, I learnt all the basics of art and design, and I had the opportunity to meet amazing people who would lead me to apply for a university degree of Illustration.

In August 2018, I graduated from the University of East London as an Illustrator. For these three years of university, I studied art history, different art techniques, and experience in design when completing different work placements.

Before finishing university, I published my own children's book, which is about building strong friendships. I have also participated in different book design competitions and completed a work experience at Harper Collins Publishers.

I have been a volunteer at Podium-UK as one of the youth leaders of 30 people. My volunteering role involves communicating with young people to understand their needs, so the organization can create events based on their needs and what benefits they could get from them.

I work in Marketing for a Latin American Festival called CASA. My work at CASA includes the design of all their visual materials for social media, maintenance of their website, and the design of email campaigns. Before quarantine, I worked in a primary school as a teaching assistant, and in my free time, I was a private tutor of Mathematics.

Art is not my only passion, as I love cycling. I recently participated in Le Tour de Waltham Forest, completing the 27-mile challenge and I am now aiming to go to France by bicycle. Influenced by my favourite sport and student life situations, I create illustrations for my social media.

My advice for every artist out there is never to stop learning, every new technique you know and every new art material you use will help you create even more beautiful artwork.

Challenge yourself up, so you never stop growing professionally. My current challenge is to complete my Master at the University of Greenwich in Web Desing and Content Planning. And I am now discovering a new passion in my life, a new way of expressing myself, and it includes coding which I thought I would never understand. Thanks to this new academic challenge in my life, I feel more confident of myself than I have ever felt.

Once I complete my master, I will face more challenges in my career, like finding a great job that involves what I am learning, but I am sure that everything will come at the right time.

I hope you find a bit of motivation to continue working on your creative and professional goals in my story.

Love, Nelly.