Potential Contacts ~Wish List~

As part of our Creative Strategy brief (studio brief 1), we've been asked to identify and contact at least 10 practitioners who's work is relevant to the development of our practice. Initially this sounds pretty intimidating (to me anyway - probably because I'm out of the swing of things after a long summer break).
I wasn't really sure where to start, so I've just gone through my blog and selected some of the artists I've posted about in the past:

1. Tori Anne
2. Kim Searle
3. Annie Wu
4. Sophie Campbell
5. Jen Bartel
6. Paulina Ganucheau
7. The Printed Peanut
8. Elea Lutz
9. Genevieve FT
10. Babs Tarr
11. Kindred Studio
12. Lollilu

This is a good start. I should expect that I won't get a reply from everyone because they're probably pretty busy. Now I've got to figure out what I'm going to ask them..

• what inspires your work?
• can you describe your process when creating work, whether it's personal or a set brief?
• what advice would you give a young illustrator about to embark on their third and final year of university?
• what do you think is important to do to keep your practice progressing?
• how did you get to where you are now? formal education? did you attend events, talk to loads of people?
• what's your favorite part of your job? - and what's the worst?
• what's your favorite way of working? digitally, painting by hand? tools?
• what do you think makes a good portfolio?
• who's work would you recommend taking a look at?
• can you suggest anyone else I should contact?

I probably haven't worded some of the questions very well, but I'll adapt them depending on who I'm emailing. I think most of these practitioners go to a lot of conventions and do a lot of networking there. I think this year I ought to set myself a target to get my portfolio up to scratch so that I can do this too. I'd love to have a table at a convention and I didn't feel ready for ThoughtBubble in November, so I'll have to make plans for another one sometime.