The Maker Q&A: Five Minutes With Jessica Kendrew
Jessica Kendrew is an artist living and working in East Dulwich, London. She primarily works in watercolour creating paintings inspired by her local surroundings as well as a variety of commissions. Jessica has built a successful business selling her own original artworks, greeting cards and art prints, alongside fabric featuring her hand painted surface pattern designs.
She also paints murals on walls and windows as well as being a live artist, painting fast portraits at a variety of events. She loves nature and the countryside, and given the chance will be painting a whimsical scene of woodland creatures for her next creation.
How did you first get your start as an Artist?
After studying fine art through college, a foundation at Winchester, and three years at Chelsea, I always assumed I would be a practicing artist. But university somehow diluted that passion. Between struggling with conceptual art-speak (I just love painting what is around me!) and needing to pay London rent, I stepped away from my own easel for a while.
My working life kicked off with a hilarious stint front-of-house in a windowless room at Toni & Guy head office, rubbing shoulders with fancy hair and Toni himself! But I soon gravitated back to what I loved, landing a job at an art agency licensing greeting cards and children's book illustrators. That was the turning point: I finally picked up my paintbrush again just for the joy of it.
Though that role was short-lived, it led me to a thrilling seven-year stretch at another central London art agency. It was fast-paced, high-intensity project management, wrangling brilliant artists who could storyboard 24 full-colour frames in under 48 hours! I learned so much, but deep down, I wanted to focus on my own art.
When I had my eldest child nearly nine years ago, it felt like the natural cue to make the leap, transitioning into full-time motherhood, rediscovering my art, and running my own freelance storyboard company on the side!
I'll put the radio or my current favourite playlist on (Siouxsie and the Banshees, Kiss then for me is playing right now) pour myself a nice cup of rooibos tea and pack orders from the day before so they're ready to drop off at the post office. I just had a mini hot cross bun slathered in butter, this isn't a daily ritual but I think it will be for the next week.
Gosh, hard question! Ok if I don't overthink it, I will say foxes, you might have guessed that actually haha! (for those unaware I have painted a couple of murals for Forget Me Not and Green, both featuring our furry little urban friend. I love painting any woodland creatures, preferably dressed up in clothes!
Another hard question here, I tell you what, I came across a truly delicious biscuit recently, Lottie Shaw's Yorkshire parkin biscuits. They are so fiery, crunchy and chewy in equal measure, gingery and yummy, and even better they are huge!
Locally it has to be Peckham Rye Park and the idyllic nature garden on Marsden Road, hunting for the woodpecker, but even though I've been a Londoner now more than a country girl, I will still take any opportunity to escape the hustle bustle and you'll find me in Suffolk by the sea or in the marshes somewhere or Hampshire by the chalk streams and weeping willows.
