Illustration & Design student Charleigh Carr set up her own business, Honeycomb Paints, in 2018 where she sells her personal artwork, like tote bags, stickers and art prints.
On the advice of a lecturer, the University of Sunderland student applied to the Sunderland Robson Art & Design Scholarship, which is designed to support first year students who enroll onto an University of Sunderland Art or Design course, show passion and promise in their field and meet at least one of the Widening Participation priority awarding criteria.
Her application was successful, and the money allowed her to grow her business and reach customers outside of the North East.
She explained: “I wish to pursue art as my full-time career beyond university. I have set up my own business and have been fortunate enough to be able to sell my personal artwork to people around the North East at events, and people around the world online from my Etsy store. I am very passionate about what I create, and I want to have this as a full-time job and my main income for the rest of my life.”
She continued: “I mostly work digitally, creating designs that resonate with me and using themes that I love and believe in. I work hard to capture the beauty I see around me on a daily basis. I love creating witchy aesthetic themed things, especially for the artwork I create to sell on Etsy and share with everyone.”
Thanks to the scholarship Charleigh was able to buy better equipment for her business which improved the quality of her products and help her boost her sales.
She said: “My dream is to make a comfortable living from my art and I’m slowly getting there.
“I have bought a higher range printer, which allows me to make items, which are of a higher quality, pushing my art to a larger audience.
“As I had this scholarship, I was able to spend more time on improving my personal art and making it commercial. This has tripled my audience and helped me be happy with where I’m at with my skills.
“I released a range of stickers for different aesthetics and journaling, I have been able to experiment with different mediums such as resin and pressed flowers and I have been able to make my personal art into prints that others can enjoy.”
She concluded: “I cannot begin to thank the Robson Fund and the committee enough. This has been a big help in pushing my desired career in the right direction. I was able to purchase a tablet to help further improve my digital art, and I have used it every day since, for my studies and personal work. I hope that my art shows the progress I have made and how this has helped me in every way you can imagine.”