Hopes, Fears and Opportunities

Aims

This year is my last chance inside of education, and therefore, in my eyes, the last real opportunity to find a style for myself with some direction. I hope that doing this will make me more connected and proud of the work I do. I plan to try and get this done in time for my Final Major Project.

I also really want to gain more skills to do with the broadening field of illustration, as I enjoy learning new things and think it is necessary to survive in the industry.

Finally, I want to work with topics that I am interested in, which I'm currently doing with the Non Place/Consumerism project.

Objectives

Experiment with different ways of working.
Gather feedback from peers.
Take advice from one to one tutorials with tutors and group crits.
Make contacts with people from the industry.

Look into workshops.
Experiment with animation, photoshop, illustrator, and printing.
Get help from peers who have different skills.

Research my different interests and look into what I can turn into a Final Major Project.

Reflection

This semester has been a big learning curve for me. I feel a lot more confident about my own ability and my work as I think I am finding my place. I have experimented and have found that my drawing has grown since last year a lot already in that I'm no longer afraid of the blank page, so to speak. Working with backgrounds, thanks to the advice of my tutors, has really given my drawings depth and they look much less "tentative" as referred to in my last assessment. I would however like to experiment more in the next project, not with drawing styles but animation, print, and making things, which will also help me to achieve my objective of learning new things which I have started but not got far in.
While making work I often ask for advice from people around me as I think an objective view always helps me make design choices. It is this that makes me think I would like to work in a collaboration way or in a studio with other creatives in the future as bouncing ideas of other people, I think, is the best way for work to grow.
Overall I'm really happy with the way things are going and I hope to keep improving through the next project.


Themes for Major Project

I have learnt from the project that I'm currently undertaking that having a broad theme, although interesting to me, can leave me a bit lost at the start of a project and cause me to lose some time pinning down a topic. Over christmas I plan to research the different ideas I have to narrow it down before actually beginning the project to ensure this doesn't happen again.

Current Ideas

WANDERLUST/SERENDIPITY - these are my favourite words and I love their meanings, but I am unsure of how to get a project from Serendipity. Wanderlust would be interesting as travel is my main ambition but I'll have to do some thinking to narrow it down.

POETRY - I have a poetry book by Bob Dylan called Tarantula that always makes me want to draw, however I wouldn't like to just make more from the imagery as the work is quite abstract and I might struggle with it as I have with my project on the mind. I may look into some other poetry that I like and find someone with a more clear narrative as I find these more accessible and enjoy finding the running themes.

Triptych

I have chosen a quote from the book Missing Out: In Praise Of The Unlived Life by Adam Phillips to base my work upon. The book is a discussion of the ways in which your fantasies can ruin or haunt your real world experiences. He goes into great detail about the way humans react to different levels of missing out, not getting what they want, and actually getting what they want.

The quote I have chosen is based on the way fantasies and reality collide when falling in love. However I plan to take the idea in the more broad sense. 

In my work I have interpreted the writing on the three frustrations as need and desire, discouragement, and disappointment. 

I am looking forward to finding metaphors and imagery to represent this idea. My tutor, gary, directed me towards a triptych method of making work, to show a movement or change in each of the images to reflect the different emotions.

What does illustration mean?

"As our visual language evolves, the playing field is levelling. Graphic designers, sculptors, painters, creative developers, and even musicians amorphously meander across different parts of our creative industries. As a consequence, I often wonder what the term 'illustration' term now means. Maybe as a medium it might need to do more than vocationalise aesthetics and cultivate a border palate of profundity for its own survival."
Michael Salu
Artistic Director of Granta Magazine
2012 Varoom

When I meet people and tell them I am studying illustration the usual response I get is, "What...Drawing?".
This is one of the most frustrating things I have come into contact with in the past 22 years.
However, it is difficult to explain to someone not in the field exactly what Illustration is due to the fact that there are a range of different opportunities for work these days. In the past an illustrator would merely summarise a piece of text, but these days illustration is used to make almost everything. Everywhere you go there are pictures and colour and animation (which is just an animated illustration) so as broad as the term is, it allows for experimentation and fun.
I think it's really exciting having the opportunity to play with all the different realms of illustration, old processes and new. I especially love combining the two. Pushing the boundaries is the only way of getting anywhere with an art form, so trying new things should always be an option to people.
I don't think there is a need for a name change as suggested in the above quote, as I don't think it matters what its called. What matters is you and your talents. And to illustrate is to explain. As long as your work is there and has a meaning behind it, it is an illustration in my eyes.

Prague Trip

I recently returned from a course trip to Prague where I had an incredible time. It is the most beautiful city I have ever been to, and the many pictures I took do not do it justice. Thought I'd pop on a few photos from the visit.

Sedlec Ossuary - The Church of Bones

John Lennon Wall

Pedestrian crossing  (I love the way the language looks)

Train station

Wenceslas Square

Dancing House

Wenceslas Square 

Castle cathedral 

Astronomical clock

Patrick Caulfield

My tutor directed me towards Patrick Caulfields work in my mid-semester evaluation. At first I was unsure of the way I could take influence from his style when looking at his more abstract work since this is not usually my style. However, I found some beautiful pieces that seem to use illustrator or some digital method to create black line work to create the structure of the image, and then textured colourful backgrounds to make the space have an atmosphere. This, I realised, is what is lacking in my work at the moment. The lack of colour causes it to not really have a sense of place or mood about it. Another aspect of Caulfields work is the elements of seemingly photographic sections added to his work, invoking a sense of surrealism and photo realism.

The work shown below obviously demonstrates these notions, and compared to my own work shown before it, it is quite clear how taking influence from this can help me to succeed in improving my style and method.

Consumerism Project

For the past month and a half I have been working on my self directed project on the theme of consumerism and media control. I've found it successful in the ideas I've had that visually represent the theories I have been studying. However when creating my final pieces to include in the practice mini-exhibition I found that some of pieces look too washed out and lacking something. I think in the next project I will experiment with background and making my work look more interesting instead of the minimal and simplistic approach I've been taking at the moment.

Guru Meeting

Last night the tutors invited some graduates from the Illustration course at Stockport College to come in to college and act as "Gurus" for the third year students in small groups.
I was assigned to Alan Dalby, who graduated 2 years ago. It was really interesting and inspiring speaking to someone who was recently in my position but has begun to make it in the industry. He went through his portfolio with us and the main difference I noticed between his work and my own was how professional his looked compared to my own sketchy work. It really set in how unfinished a lot of my work looks.

The main advice Alan gave us was,

It's important to take time and effort finding a style that works well for you, especially after you graduate.

Using social media to promote yourself is essential in this day and age, and it gets you known by word of mouth.

Making or getting interesting promotional material is a really good way of making people remember you. Think about portfolios, business cards, making things, websites.

Learning a broad range of skills to make you easily accessible, the more you can do the more likely you are to get work.

Making friends and contacts in the industry makes your work better and allows for interesting collaborations.

Overall it was a very insightful evening, and Alan gave us all his email address so we can contact him for advice which I really appreciated.

Back To Uni!

Very glad to be back at uni this week, being back in a routine will be nice. However, I did have a fantastic summer, visiting a friend in Florida and going to festivals.
Anyway, looking forward to getting on with the new project!

Summer Brief

Over summer I've been working on my choice of the briefs for the break. I decided upon the book Kingdom Come as it is based on consumerism and I am very interested in society and human behaviour, especially to do with controversial issues. I also chose to take an illustrator approach rather than an authorstrator one as I think I am more suited to a planned and direct method.

Also, I've always wanted to make work in the realm of anti-media control, and am planning to write my dissertation on advertising so this project and it's research will link in well.

Whilst reading the book I started my making work based on the broad theme in relation to "the man".

And the mass population and their interests in consumerism.

I then looked at themes and highlighted imagery to draw from which I found really helpful as they conveyed the message of the book and the storyline at the same time. 

The themes were

-picturing the psychology of the future

-nationalism

-fascism

-consumerism 

-advertising

-violence

-racism

Here is some of the work I created from these themes. 

Overall I found it a really fun topic to work with and enjoyed the imagery of the story. I am looking forward to expanding the ideas and making my work look more professional.

david foldvari: guardian masterclass

link to David Foldvari's guardian masterclass

david foldvari: guardian masterclass: i've been invited to take part in guardian's masterclass series . the title of the event is 'what every illustrator should know...