Sex Work Exhibition & "Aftermath"

I had some pieces of work in an exhibition about Sex Work which was put on to raise money for the charity Basis Yorkshire. It was part of the 17daysofaction movement for the international day to end violence against sex workers.

I went to the exhibition and it was really great seeing everyones work, including my own in an exhibition helping a cause.

I got a message from the girl who set it all up saying the pieces that I made for the exhibition sold for £40, which will go to the charity!

Some may say that was not enough money for the pieces, as there were 4 A4 digital prints, made especially for the event. Personally I am fine with this amount as all the proceeds were going to charity and for a cause that links very closely to my own views in regards to feminism and sexual health! I'm very happy with the fact that I have contributed to keeping sex workers safe and supported, even in a small way.

As well as this, I was kind of amazed that someone would buy my work! I got a few comments on my facebook page (for my art) about how much people liked it and that they put bids on it so that kind of made me realise that even if I don't think so cause I'm really self critical - people like my work and there is a place in the illustration world for me, even if it takes a while for me to find my niche.

Start Up Wednesday - Self Employment

OK this session was SO helpful as I was totally clueless on how to be self employed and do taxes and stuff. I feel a lot more comfortable with the idea of being self employed and how to do things when you are self employed, do's and don'ts and all that.

TOP STUFF I LEARNED:

The way to become an expert is to say you're an expert.

Register yourself as self employed when you start incurring costs with ya self employment - cause then you can claim the tax back on your costs.

You are taxed on your profit, not your sales!

Costs can be; software, materials, computer, equipment, studio space, travel, packaging, marketing, etc etc.

You don't need a business account when you're self employed.

Clothes are never a business expense, food is only an expense when you're away from home for something.

Earning under 11, 000 (profit) you don't pay tax anyway. Still a good idea to keep on top of your costs.

KEEP YOUR COSTS, KEEP EVERYTHING - (keep it all for 6 years)

TOP TIPS:
1. don't read papers or listen to the news, it will not benefit you as a self employed person as it feeds on negativity and fear

2. get around positive people, break up with your partner if they're a dick.

3. Flatter people - who the customer buys from is more important than what you sell - Personality!

4. Get good at sales and marketing, really fast

5. don't undervalue yourself, get your pricing right! If you want to make quality work go for higher prices.

6. Pay attention to your attitudes towards money, its not helpful to think money is a bad thing.

7. keep on top of your business costs, but sales is where you make the mmoney.

8. read / listen / learn as much as you can

9. Network everywhere you go! "how can I help you" is the attitude ya need

10. GET A GREAT ACCOUNTANT WHO UNDERSTANDS THE CREATIVE SECTOR

Travelling Man Brief and attempting to be a leader

Oh Boyo.
I opted to be one of the 'leaders' on the Travelling Man brief mainly to ensure I would be able to get a piece in, I've never been a confident leader in any aspect of life so I found the whole thing quite terrifying as I doubted my competence in the role. Luckily I was not alone, top lad Jack was also on the scene which was a massive help - working collaboratively with him as 'leaders' made it so much easier to deal with.

The easiest part of this whole project was choosing the theme and colour palette which took about 5 minutes. We knew we had to be efficient on this project because we got the brief so late, we basically had two weeks to get the pieces done, printed and delivered to Travelling Man. We made a brief with some specifications, I made some little hand outs with the colour scheme on it, and we got a bunch of questions from the crew who were interested so we could clarify some things.

MAIN ISSUES I ENCOUNTERED

• communication with Travelling Man was somewhat difficult as it is convention season and everytime me or Jack tried to get information the manager was not in, so we had to work mostly on initiative on when things needed to happen. The deadline on the brief was the 1st November but we were unsure if that meant the opening night was the 1st, or they wanted the work on the 1st. We decided it would be best to get the pieces in on the 31st October so there was time to hang them is the opening night was the 1st (which it was).
• communicating with the group was generally ok, as basically everyone is on social media so it was easy to put notices out, though sometimes they were missed meaning people didn't turn up to some group meetings which was a little frustrating - I now understand why tutors get annoyed at us not signing up for stuff on estudio. I felt myself becoming tutory, I was ashamed. (no offence tutors)
• We chose the colour palette using my pocket colour wheel by spinning it and choosing the 5 colours it landed on, which may have been a mistake as we ended up with a strange colour palette however everyone managed to make it work and got their stuff to us on time! 
• We didn't know whether we had to plan an opening night, even though it was in the thought bubble guide. I went down on the 1st November to see what was going on and saw they were hanging the exhibition, so I asked if there was an opening night and they said yes. Pretty short notice but I tried to let as many people as possible know it was on that day! (and plenty of people came and brought their friends)

All in all, I'm proud of my nerd children. The exhibition looks great. 

Start Up Wednesday - Crowd Funding

Guy working for Indiegogo came to talk about crowdfunding. I found the session interesting, it made me realise you can basically crowdfund anything, as long as you deliver on it.

Notes:
MARKETING IS EVERYTHING - and can get your concepts into retail! These cat ear headphones designed by two girls got off the ground via crowdfunding and now Ariana Grande has a line(?) of them.

There are different types of crowdfunding.

Rewards based crowdfunding - (Indiegogo, kickstarter, etc)

Debt Crowdfunding

Equity Crowdfunding

& Loands crowdfunding. 

A big point of crowdfunding it, it doesn't matter WHAT you're crowdfunding for, as long as you have a good campaign for people to believe in you. [Compelling reasons, good video, marketing etc]

Planning your Campaign

* Have an Idea

* Research & Plan

* Build a Team 

* Build your Audience

THE 30% RULE

IF YOU HIT 30% OF YOUR TARGET IN 2-5 DAYS, YOU WILL PROBABLY HIT YOUR GOAL. 

Set your target at the lowest you can possibly do whatever you're doing for, then anything over your target is 'profit' that can go into more of the project. 

When setting your goal consider costs 

cover unforseen costs

Tips:

Grow e-mail list, networking, tell people, start with family

you- family- community network - potential backers

Leverage social media, make a facebook page, share, share, share.

Give REWARDS - people will pay for exclusivity. 

You can always update your rewards / add more. 

It's all about marketing and creating LIKEABLE CONTENT, that people will want to share.

 

50% of traffic comes from social media, so make regular updates!

Make a Video!!

It's all about PPP, no not personal and professional practice but, PASSION, PRIDE and PARTICIPATION!

Going to London (to buy a heat magazine)

I went to London, it wasn't so bad.

I went for the Feminist Avant Garde exhibition at the photographers gallery, as research for COP. I had never been down to London alone before so that was a travelling experience. Opted for the train instead of a torturous 5-6 hour bus journey.

The Exhibition:
Contained absolutely loads of really inspiring work. Obviously it was mostly photography or performance films, being at the photographers gallery. I found loads of artists that I could really engage with the work, I liked some of the stuff so much I bought the book of the exhibition just so I could keep looking at it.

The kind of work there was stuff that really challenged views of women. There was an obvious embrace of femininity and autonomous female sexuality in a lot of the work, in defiance of the over-sexualised, male gaze orientated view of women and the completely de-sexualised view of women. 

The work was subversive of its time and I believe is also subversive now, and although a lot of the work I've done has been fun and not serious I am becoming more interested in making subversive work that could raise awareness for important issues. 

LinkedIn

I have actually really been enjoying linkedin. I've been able to find some really interesting articles as well as seeing everyone sharing their work and ideas. It's kind of a stress free way of networking, as it's just like using social media.

I posted an article on feminism, and I feel like I will probably post many of my weird ideas about art and how I fit into the world on it.

I have also been sharing my work from behance on there. I'm apprehensive about interacting with the groups although I searched a lot of things I couldn't find anything I really connected to and just joined some groups that were of vague interest (illustrators & graphic designers etc)

WEBSITES???

I already use various social media like tumblr, instagram and facebook for my professional work and I keep all of that separate from my personal social media accounts but a real website seems kind of daunting at the moment because I don't feel like I've got anything to put on the site??? Though getting it together earlier would be better than later!!

I had a look at a couple of free website hosting sites. Theoretically I could just buy a domain name and put it on my tumblr but I find tumblr not as customisable as I'd like for a website.
I'm thinking cargo collective might be a good one to use because it's generally aimed at creative types and has a nice level of customisation. I looked at a few people's sites on there already and each one looked really different and functional, promising. I think I need to get a design or logo together before I start making a website, I've just been using various patterns on other sites but I don't want a website to be so overpowering with black and shapes - It's really something I'll have to think about, colour schemes and stuff. I want it to still be 'me' and have my tone of voice but just NOT so busy.

I looked at wix as well, I had a wix site in the past for something else and it was an absolute pain to try and modify? I'm hoping it's changed since then and might be easier to use, but i'm still swayed towards cargocollective as I know other people who use it.

wow I can get ayykaplan.co.uk for only a penny. (well £8 for two years) sure why not. I have purchased a domain name. Now maybe I'll get on with properly thinking about a website.

On my website I would aim to post the higher quality finished project work, with links to instagram, facebook, tumblr, a blog etc so professional 'fun' and personality can be shown a bit more.

One day on the internet

I was searching for pictures of Morrissey & Robert smith for a halloween costume and found this absolutely banging art by Butcher Billy. I'm really interested in it, I feel like this work really resonated with my own practice - with links to different elements of pop culture all smashed together but it just works. He describes himself on instagram as a "pop culture butcher, looking for the perfect cut".

https://www.behance.net/butcherbilly

Things I am enjoying:
- subject matter, pop culture, films, comics, music etc - a range of different things so it's appealing to lots of audiences.
- block colour, striking style
- gentle bit of texture making it look 'retro', like an old comic book
- I'd buy these images on anything.

A selection of my favourite pieces:

Sometimes I feel a bit uncomfortable about doing a lot of fan art but my interests and the work I like are very pop culture based, so whats really wrong with making fan art as long as you make it awesome?

Long story short: THIS STUFF IS SO COOL

It's PPP3

Who are you now - has anything changed your view of your practice?

I feel like I'm very different in some ways to how I was starting this course - or even at the beginning of last year. I definitely began to find myself at the end of last year. I'm generally happier with the kind of work I'm making, I feel like it's less generic than what I was making. I think now I am making work that I WANT to make and not minding so much about what other people want / what's popular.

I thought that I wanted to make slick digital work in a traditional comic-like style, as I was interested in comics and narrative, but I've found that that's not for me. It's just not how I work. I am still interested in narratives but if I were to pursue any work in comics it would be for more indie stuff or webcomics rather than big mainstream names like Marvel and DC. In regards to narrative I also like the idea of book illustration (not really children's books), book covers etc.

I've found that I enjoy making work using lots of different media and not limiting myself. I enjoy creating work with textures and am interested in finding lots of different ways I can make work with my tone of voice without it all looking same-y or being made in the same way. This year I would like to expand my printing skills, particularly with lino and monoprint.

I feel like what I want to do is still quite eclectic but also have links. I'm quite interested in entertainment - books, live shows, music, comics. I would definitely like to explore poster design, book illustration, album art and such. Something else I am toying with is merchandising / packaging / illustration for products. I've been thinking about makeup branding for indie companies - as they tend to have more fun packaging than some of the bigger companies. I definitely think that could be a viable use for my weird art.

Things I am not looking at is definitely editorial & educational kind of things.

What are your plans for the structure of your future practice - collaboration: individual: full employment: other?

Honestly I'm not sure. I feel like I'm mostly an individual person right now but collaboration is something that would definitely be useful in the future especially collaborating with people in different disciplines. I like the idea of maybe being part of a collective.

I've vaguely thought about doing an MA but I don't want to do that immediately if I do choose to do that, I'd like to try and work in industry for a few years. Maybe looking for an internship would be helpful as I know that I have skills but I always get a bit scared about working in an industry setting (rather than being freelance, being a graphic designer for a company or something so looking into that may provide me with some vital information and make me less afraid of life)

Hangin out with the new kids

There was an activity to break the ice between all the years and to let us old folks give some great (not so great) advice to the younger years.

One of the first years (who will remain anonymous) noted that many of the third years gave the same advice or said they were looking forward to refining their practice and becoming more professional. They asked if we had been told to say these things, which we hadn't, I think that shows the natural progression of the goals of the students on this course. Going into third year most of us have found something that we're happy to do and just want to work more on our personal tone of voice and professionalising our practice.

I may have spooked a few second years because I found that year really challenging as I wasn't really sure what I was doing but now I think I have more of a 'style' going on and know what I would like to experiment with and focus on this year (printing, textures, papercut, mixing with digital media) and I feel like after the complete and utter mess that was my 505 project, I have a better idea of how to set myself a brief and can use the mistakes I made last year to help me not make those mistakes again.

Megacrit 26/09/16

Megacrit today, we got to look round all level 5 and 6's summer work, and it was all really quite impressive. Some of the level of crafting was amazing, especially for sketchbook work - made me think about upping my sketchbook game a bit more. I need to create more work, and while really rough sketches are fine I should be doing more development within my sketchbook to bring me from a scribble to something more finished. Also experimenting with media, I have started doing a lot of papercut and texture based stuff, which I would like to explore within a sketchbook as I usually do it outside of the sketchbook.

At the time it didn't cross my mind but I realised after we didn't actually do any critting of our sketchbooks. Looking at them all was chill and a fun way to start off the year and allowed me to self reflect based on what I saw other people doing but I realise I would have liked to have known what other people liked about/ thought I could improve upon in my work as well.

Talenthouse - Capture the Spirit of Halloween

I submitted a work to a Talenthouse contest a couple of years ago for a This is England project. I found out about this a couple of days ago but didn't really look at the brief, I've now realised that submissions must be in by the 29th September so If I want to enter this I'm gonna have to be able to crack something out quickly. Luckily I love halloween and when I'm in my element I can get really absorbed into making something so I think I would like to do this, as I have been thinking lately about making halloween related work anyway, and it will give me good practice working quickly. Since the deadline is the 29th, I'm guessing I can't include this in my extended practice work but I can/will document this process on my PPP blog. 

Girls That Gig - Network and Chill

On the 19th I went to a networking event held by 'Girls that Gig' which was specifically for women in creative industries. I think originally it was mainly aimed at musicians but all creatives were welcome to find possible people to collaborate with. 

It was a pretty fun evening, though I wasn't really sure what to do or say to anyone. I brought along a few business cards, a sketchbook, and a few old zines incase anyone was really interested in seeing any work. There was a real sense of community there and it was quite comfortable, since I think everyone was in the same kind of boat. 

I exchanged business cards with a few other creatives and added a bunch of people on social media.

The experience made me realise how difficult illustration is to talk about, people ask what kind of work you make and I just didn't know what to say. I think that's definitely something that needs some attention as if I can't explain myself to random people how will I be able to an employer? I always struggle with selling myself, but as I'm developing a style more and more I hope it will become easier to define my practice. 

Harnaam Kaur

I saw this on Instagram and was excited by the prospect of this. I sent an email showing interest in being part of the team (even if I'm not wholly qualified for it). Body confidence and representation is something that I am interested in and have done projects on before - my COP project last year being on how classical nude paintings have influenced modern beauty standards, and a project on foundation where I created designs for body confident monsters with fun slogans and stuff. I mentioned this and attached links in my email to my work and various social media platforms.

I'm intrigued by what being part of this creative team would involve as there wasn't too much detail in the post, but as I said I'm interested in the cause as there's aspects of identity and gender politics that go with body confidence and anti bullying campaigns, which is stuff I do feel strongly about and maybe should focus some work around to show that I can make work with a serious meaning behind it.

I look forward to hearing back and seeing whether I can be part of this team.

Whoops

I definitely have not made the best use of my time this summer - in regards to my professional practice. I spent a lot of time trying to work on self-care and trying to find a job, spending time with my family etc - regular 'holiday' stuff. However that means I am now in that place where I've realised I should have done more for my practice here and there and I suppose I have done a couple of things. In the next year I really want to focus on being more balanced in my life, as I tend to go between doing nothing and doing everything at once, and I need to focus on getting my time management skills up so I can manage to do things in a non-stressful manner.

Things I WILL/CAN/SHOULD do

• GO TO STUDENT SUPPORT & GET HELP WITH TIME MANAGEMENT. 
• Make plans for days - including whatever down time I need 
• STICK TO MY PLANS (get those priorities in order) 

I've found a thing called 'bullet journalling' where you make bullet point to do lists per day and use symbols to know when you've done things, what's a priority, whether you've moved a task forward in the week etc. I think this would be a useful thing to help with my time management failings if I can stick to that at all!

Beatrix Potter Re-imagined

 

I, in true me fashion, left this until two days before the deadline to make something and thus I think my idea and execution are absolutely not the best. 

(insert images of working here)

I wasn't really sure what to do for this, I was never really all that into Beatrix Potter as a child and so going through her stories again was less fun than initially imagined.

I ended up settling on this idea of having the two bad mice as Sid and Nancy - esque characters. I'm still not sure if it's in bad taste but it was at a point where I just had to roll with the idea. I looked at posters for the film with Gary Oldman in it for some reference on layout and colours. I did have a more intricate design in mind, (which I will insert a picture of when I scan it) but found when I was making the papercut mouse faces that I liked the way they looked alone, and adding more might just have ruined it (and been a waste of time). So I made the decision to simplify the design

Beatrix Potter Re-imagined

 

I, in true me fashion, left this until two days before the deadline to make something and thus I think my idea and execution are absolutely not the best. 

(insert images of working here)

I wasn't really sure what to do for this, I was never really all that into Beatrix Potter as a child and so going through her stories again was less fun than initially imagined.

I ended up settling on this idea of having the two bad mice as Sid and Nancy - esque characters. I'm still not sure if it's in bad taste but it was at a point where I just had to roll with the idea. I looked at posters for the film with Gary Oldman in it for some reference on layout and colours. I did have a more intricate design in mind, (which I will insert a picture of when I scan it) but found when I was making the papercut mouse faces that I liked the way they looked alone, and adding more might just have ruined it (and been a waste of time). So I made the decision to simplify the design

AyyKaplan // RedBubble

I decided to make a redbubble account. This is because I liked the idea of putting my artwork onto products but I simply do not have the funds to push into making my own merch at the moment, so at this time it's a cost effective way of getting my work onto products. So far I have been enjoying it, the site allows you to customise different products with your design and create collections of stuff. At first I just put up an old pattern that I had made for the crispin orthotics brief in responsive, to see how it worked and how things look. I ended up really loving seeing my stuff on products so I decided to put up more designs, and will also continue seeing how I can adapt designs for products (as not everything is as straightforward as slapping it on a product, you have to make the background transparent and crop the image etc.)

Anyway, I'm having fun with it and enjoying the experience. The site allows you to add tags to your work so people can find it while browsing or searching for something general. In a way this could aid exposure of my work, I'm unsure how likely that is but we'll see.

Tattoo Expo 2016

I got a last minute opportunity to sell my wares at Leeds Tattoo Expo 2016. I was pretty happy about the opportunity as I am very interested in tattoos (as you may be able to tell by looking at me). It was really last minute so I wasn't able to make any new stock but I had lots of pieces left over from previous arts markets at the Belgrave I had done during the year.

All the stalls were in the foyer of the building, as obviously the main event was the tattooing. I was happy to be there but the placement of all the stalls meant they did not get as much traction as hoped. Even the bigger stalls such as the Barbers and the male grooming products didn't manage to sell much.

I had some makeshift business cards printed with my details printed on using the designs I made for PPP this year. They were not top quality but were good enough for a first go. I handed these out and scattered a few across tables in the main hall in the hopes that people would pick them up while looking around and even if I didn't get any more browsers over the weekend maybe a few people would look up my instagram or facebook page.

Looking back on all this I realise I need to put more effort and pride into the presentation of my work when selling at places like this - although I didn't get a lot of people looking / buying anyway - at future places it would definitely better to have proper solid packaging for my prints. I also think that I will look into having products made as work tends to be more sellable on an object rather than just on a print. I will look into Awesome Merchandise and other such companies as well as sites like Society 6 and Red Bubble for selling art.

Final Presentation

Creative Presence Presentation Boards

Life's a Pitch Presentation

(There is another blog post with this and evaluation further back under the label OUIL502 Studio Brief 2)

Tumblr

I have a separate tumblr that I use to reblog and store art and images that I like or that inspire me/ are relevant to various uni projects. It's useful to refer back to when I know I've seen something relevant on tumblr and so I can just find it within this blog.

Creative Presence - Printed

I was struggling to configure "ayykaplan" onto the front of these business cards so I just settled for "Ayy" which I still think is fun and also intriguing in a way - people may pick them up and be like "ayy what does this mean?"

I toyed with having a black back of the card with green text to match the front but I feel like it didn't look so good, it just reminds me of the Matrix and maybe that early 2000's aesthetic suits me but I think the white version definitely looked better out of the two and I think the added skeleton parts are good because it's part of my work and links to my creative CV.

Something I see becoming a problem is the fact that I have elected to use a drawing of myself on the business card because I feel like I'm recognisable by style mostly - however I do change my hair a lot, so I would have to continuously update the card. For now it's fine but in the future I should think about a logo or something representative.

As a bit of fun I've applied some of these designs to promotional tote bags which I think look quite funky and could hypothetically be sellable merchandise.

Creative Presence - Online

Online I have used Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram to share my work. 

I am using the name "ayykaplan", and keeping them all deeply separate from my personal accounts because of reasons. Using instagram is nice because I can share directly from instagram to facebook, I can also tag things to get them seen better whereas on facebook you just have to convince people to like your page. 

I don't have a real website yet but this is something I will look into next year. I find it good to share both rough sketches and finished work - Though Jonathan Barnbook said David Bowie told him that once you share the roughs it changes the view of the final thing so I should be selective on how much rough work should be posted online. 

Creative CV

I'll be honest, this is not the most creative 'creative CV' but it's definitely a start. 

There is a running theme with this and my business card, using the same font and spooky bone motif. I like the use of the spine papercut to break up the sections but it does perhaps look a little clunky. 

Another thing that I'm not so hot on is the text saying my name, I wanted it to stand out from the rest of the text so it's a hand drawn 'type' I had wanted to use the slime writing but found it didn't really fit with the rest of the CV and I had only written "Ayy Kaplan" out in that. This fits the aesthetic but it should be more refined, I think. 

Association of Illustrators.

Tips from the AOI

You should have a website that's functional, simple and links to your social media.

Put your email on your website, not a contact form as people are less likely to use a contact form!

If you have a blog as well as a website / any social media you post on keep it updated regularly! Also keep it professional, keep your personal shitposting separate from your professional life. If you're not good at keeping up with social media, just don't do it.

If you're doing personal projects, keep that updated on your blog - doesn't have to be just professional work.

Don't post work you're doing if you're not allowed to by the company you're working for, or you'll get in trouble and nobody wants that.

Behance is good for posting projects and development of said projects.

With physical mailers (creative CV's etc) make them A5 - A6, introduce yourself and avoid sir/madam to make it more personal, if you know the name use the name! Follow it up later with an email. Don't just send out mass mails with all the same stuff on to different people - check you've got the right name.

You automatically have the copyright on your work unless you hand it over to someone else (don't do it, it's not worth it). To avoid people ripping your work off the internet and using it use a lower res (72dpi which is fine for the 'net anyway) and put the copyright symbol when you post it. This may help people be able to trace the image back to you as well if it is used without your knowledge.

Read your contracts! Make sure there's no sneaky loopholes in there that give the company all rights to your work as they'll use it over and over and you won't get paid for it! You set the licence for how long the client can use your work for, and in what regions they can use it. You can keep raking in the cash if they want to renew a license or use it internationally.

Value your work! Don't sell yourself cheap to begin with and then try and up your prices! Cause work does go for lots of money and companies with big budgets will try to swindle you! (If you want £200 for a piece of work say you'll do it for £300 and let them think they've haggled with you). Do not work for free! When offered a brief find out as much as possible about the client, as sometimes the name cannot be mentioned but you can find out how many branches there are, whether it's international or not and be able to make a good approximation of how much you should charge for your work!


This talk was pretty helpful. I feel like I know a lot more about copyright, licensing and how important it is to find out information and read contracts when valuing your work as it can be easy for baby illustrators to be ripped off, big time! I feel a bit more confident knowing that I can join and seek help from the AOI if I find I have no idea what I'm doing or really need help valuing a project.

Vague Presentation Script

Introduce self: Hello I’m Amber I’m a kooky creative, eyebrow enthusiast and village witch. 

Let’s start off with some high points of the year, I actually found responsive one of the most helpful modules of the year as I got to try out a few different things rather than focusing a lot of time on one project. As well as helping me work to tighter deadlines I learned a lot of new things via the brief’s I did.

I really enjoyed doing the A Clockwork Orange book cover. Book covers are not really something I’d considered but I was interested none-the less and it’s something I ended up being really happy with and has inspired me to do more work with book covers in the future.

I learned a lot about mockups in responsive and I find it really rewarding to see what my work would look like as a finished product.

My substantial brief for responsive was the D&AD shutterstock brief where you had to illustrate 3/7 story archetypes and relate them to everyday life here are two. – The quest for coffee and the tragedy of messing up your makeup in the morning. I enjoyed this brief because it was really open and amongst a module where I primarily made imagery that would be on a product  It gave me a chance to just focus on my practice – as during 504 I found that I quite enjoy working with lino. So here I could experiment with lino and digitally adding texture, colour etc. This is some of the work I;ve been most happy with,

I didn’t know anything about pattern at the beginning of the year, and only ended up doing it because I had to learn how to make pattern for my responsive collaborative project. Here are two of the first patterns I made this year, they aren’t so great. I didn’t know what I was doing. But since then I have really enjoyed making patterns and have basically made a repeat pattern in all my other modules too just to satisfy my own desire to make pattern/

I found COP much harder than I did last year. I’m not sure why though. I had a really hard time writing the essay and narrowing down my mass of ideas into a focused question. Nevertheless the publication I made for COP had a good idea behind it (explain idea briefly). I am starting to find that I work better with a solid maybe meaningful idea. And I still love injecting a bit of humour into most of my work as it’s one of my greatest assets. My crafting however does still need work.

Outside of college I have had a small stall selling prints and badges at the Belgrave Arts market a couple of times. This is good for a confidence boost as I have had a couple of sales. Kids love the badges. Makeshift business cards.

I also am president of the comic society when I find time to put it on. This has helped me become a bit more confident in speaking to people and almost leading a group, as well as communicating with people outside of the college about stuff. – Next year I hope to be able to organise my time better so I can do more stuff with the society and be a good president.

Leading me onto my next point. My time management is awful, it started off okay for 504 but everything else has been totally terrible. I have never handed in something late but I definitely am sabotaging myself by not actually giving myself enough time to finish a project to the standard that I want. Time management impacts quality. I am an awful procrastinator and find it really hard to plan my time. I should have done it already but due to my aforementioned time management problems I have not, I will be going to learning support to help me manage my time better over summer and into level 6.

Another weakness has been my inability to narrow down ANYTHING which gets me into all sorts of trouble. I start projects late because I can’t choose a focused topic to do. For example 505 (space / greek mythology mess with products – If I had chosen to go with my gut I would have known  what I was doing from the get go)  - some more stuff about how 505 was a total shambles for me.

Moving on – I keep feeling as if I don’t really have a style so I decided to reflect on what’s working well in my current and past work. Thinking about my favourite thing from last year, similarities between this and current work – Black background, bright contrasting COLOUR, good use of shape and texture. I decided I wanted to capitalise on what’s working well and try and make some more pieces in a similar style – so I did this for my creative presence. I found I really enjoy this technique and style – papercut, not as bad as I thought it was etc.

Managed to make some good imagery that was transferrable from artwork to business card, to pattern, to social media. Little critique of using image of my face with ever changing appearance – explain reason for using this.

I am indeed using social media – facebook, Instagram, tumblr. Keeping personal and professional separate because I’m a terrible person. Aesthetic. Easy sharing. Tags etc.

Made some tote back mockups as sellable merchandise ideas.

Next Year: I’m feeling good about next year. Had a lot of realisations quite late this year but better late than never. Want to do more book covers, posters – shows, films, bands, carry on experimenting with this style I’m working on. Make more patterns. Manage my damn time.

The most important thing I’ve learned

Thanks n goodbye. 

Finding My Style ???

I was having mixed feelings about the style I'm starting to form as I felt like it wouldn't suit things I enjoy drawing so I decided to re-create a sketch I did last year to see how the translation would work.
Obviously I still need to work on the crafting but I feel like I've got the basis of a good thing going here. I especially like it as I've worked into it with paint as well as papercut so I don't have to 'give up' on things that I enjoy to make something that looks good and gives me a bit more of a style. I have always wanted to be better at papercut but put it off due to being so bad at it generally but I'm finding it much more enjoyable as I like what's coming out of it!

I have found that with this style I do have to know what I want to make, I can't just go into the papercut process blindly - there would still need to be roughs and sketches and tests before I could throw myself into it.

Olivier Kugler

An origin story: originally from Germany, mesmerised by tin-tin comics. Would draw images from favourite comic books - eventually wanted to draw comic books. Encouraged to draw from life instead of copying comics, life drawing is important yo.

Being an illustrator is hard. People will say they'll contact you soon and then they never do.

 Shape and line is nice man. - adding colour digitally. Lines are organic and lifey, stuff overlapping, the flow is real nice. busy, movement, there's life to the images.

Drawing on location / Drawing from reference photos - allows for development of imagery - good for that sweet sweet visual storytelling.
You might get called a paedo if you take reference photos of kids.

Reportage - visual storytelling - comics. This is pretty interesting, I never considered reportage illustration but I am interested in narrative and comics so maybe it is something to look into  (reportage graphic novel)
Labelling is nice. (duck!)

Just get drunk and ask for things it's the only way to get work.

(MC) NOODLE KING

the son of mafia man under witness protection plays hitman. Good choice. There's a stories in everyday life.

STUFF THAT I REALISE I DO WELL

I feel like I have been struggling to find my style this year so I've been trying to notice things that are working well in my work so I can capitalise on them - and maybe find a style from here.

I always shoot people down when they say my work with shape is good but surprise surprise, I'm just stubborn because it is in fact one of my strengths.

I find that the work that I am most happy with uses a combination of strong shape, colour and texture paired with some detail. This year I have really enjoyed working with lino, it allows me wot wwith with both shape and detail. I found a lot of the work I've done with heavy contrast of black and colours works really well for me.

Because of this I have experimented a bit more with papercut and am finding that I do enjoy it and can make some really interesting pieces using that method, especially when I'm creating my own textures. Papercut allows me to make distinct shapes as often when painting I can have a bit of a wobbly hand.  After doing these experiments I have realised that this style is something I could push, as it doesn't have to be exclusively papercut, I can work with paint or digitally and still have this texture driven stuff.

Vague Business card ideas

I wanted to use an image of myself as I'm a pretty recognisable person and I feel like people would remember me better if they had the visual, like "who was that weirdo with green hair and eyebrows"

I decided to capitalise on a style that I thought looked good last year - the same technique I used for the 'Dragula' poster. I had a realisation of things that work well in my work and that I'd like to capitalise upon (which I will highlight in another post)

Some options for the card design are my face with this spooky text on it. It gets the name upfront. 

Framed face - draws attention to the imagery. Unsure because if I put the spooky writing on the back it would probably all have to be in that writing style or in a different type face. Perhaps I could also just capitalise on "Ayy", perhaps just my face with "Ayy" underneath it and then the full name / contacts on the back?

This was something I tried but it's terrible, the writing is barely visible against this and it's just not gonna work. 

Mad Max Poster

Film society were showing Mad Max Fury Road which is a film that I absolutely love so I thought I would get involved and do a poster for it!

I started off by roughing out ideas, taking themes/ imagery from the film that were recognisable - steering wheels, Max's back being tatooed, Characters etc.

I went for this idea of a close up of the neck with the tube coming out of it from Max being used as a Bloodbag as I liked the idea of swirling the tube into the title. 

This is the final poster, all in all I think the idea was good. I decided to use a lot of red/orange and brown as these are colours that are really prominent in the film. Something I struggled with was choosing some text for the date and time, as nothing looked right and I hadn't thought about positioning when I had roughed this out - something I should think about for future posters I may do. 

Jonathan Barnbrook Creative Networks

I decided to go to this as I had studied Jonathan Barnbrook at A-Level and thought it might be interesting to get a better idea of his work, as I appreciated the typfaces he has created throughout his career.

This talk was absolutely one of the best, funniest, top notch artist talks I've ever been to. Barnbrook has so much personality which is evident in his work. It was so much better than I thought it would be because even though I was familiar with Barnbrook's work, for some reason I still expected him to be clean-cut, graphic designer cliche, but he was awesome. Anti-Consumerist, pro artist and changing the world kind of guy. (I also appreciated that he talked about Bowie a lot)

A lot of his work is pretty controversial, but that's good because he has something to say. 

He talked a great deal about not being a hypocrite. If you're going to be anti-consumerist when a big company calls you and asks you to do some work for them you've got to decide whether it's really going to benefit you to take on the work. 

You should stay true to your identity and working style, even if selling out could give you a lot of cash. 

Political statements through art should be out on the street. You can stick your stuff out there, you might have friends willing to help you out too by wearing high-vis jackets or sneakily using their place of employment to help get the message across. 

Something I found interesting was David Bowie's ★ is an image because it's universal and recognisable to everyone (along with other symbolic images within the album art). It relates to emoji's and the kind of universal language of emoticons in todays culture. A quote from William Burroughs was mentioned I don't remember it exactly but it was something along the lines of writing should be a mixture of hieroglyphics and airport signs 

OUIL505 Summative Evaluation

This module got off to a promising start, I was excited to start researching and do something I was really interested in. I started off thinking about space and stars but quickly changed to greek mythology as I thought this would have more scope for exploration. In hindsight, I think it might have actually been better to stick to my guns and do something space themed and mould it to fit into what I enjoy doing. I often struggle with deciding what I want to do at the beginning of a project with as much freedom as this as I find it hard to refine my ideas and end up trying to blend too much stuff together rather than choosing one starting point - for example I did think about trying to blend greek mythology and space (NO). This has always been a problem of mine in different aspects, I really need to learn how to narrow down my ideas.


This could have been the best project of the year and something to have fun with but because of how I went around it it ended up probably being my worst work. None of the work I made has been good. I don't think any of it's been bad, it's just all painfully mediocre. On the plus side this has emphasised how much I need to work on crafting in the future and dedicating time to doing something rather than thinking "this will do" because I want to make work that's GOOD and I won't if I keep falling into these routines of procrastination and rushing. Because of my terrible planning and time management I  didn't keep up with anything well, which lead my blogging to be unsubstantial and not terribly reflective and I didn't visually exhaust each idea I had. I had a few different ideas that kept flitting around still within Greek mythology and how I was going to modernise it, I couldn't settle on anything. I got caught up in the beginning thinking about the area I had chosen (book design and publishing) rather than just on my project, but then when I finally focused on the project I couldn't figure out what I was doing. I realise I should have decided on a final 'product' much earlier than I did, it was a real flaw in my thinking of this whole module.

I thought that keeping my options open was a good plan but it wasn’t. It’s like setting a dissertation question, the more focused you are the better. If I had been more focused with a goal in mind I think that I would have been able to really get stuck in and exhaust good ideas.

Despite the fact that I think this project has totally bombed I am glad that I have made these mistakes and been able to realise them NOW rather than at Level 6. I think the realisations that I have made will make it easier for me to set manageable and focused briefs in the future which will hopefully in turn allow me to work on my crafting more. I’m finding that generally my ideas are sound but as I said before fine crafting is something I would definitely like to improve. This was definitely a module of realisations. I don’t know why I’ve made all these realisations so late on in the year but as I said better now than halfway through level 6.

This has been another module where I have learned more about making mockups. My mockups are still not incredible but I definitely feel as if I am getting more proficient with digital media. The mockups still give quite a good impression of what the designs would look like on a real product, which could be shown to clients to show that the work would be viable as a product. I was happy that I was still able to incorporate my new found enjoyment in creating patterns during this module, I am still really enjoying it too. I just find it so fun and satisfying to see a pattern come together.

 

As ever time management has been a problem, as I have been busy trying to finish all the work I have not been able to go down to learning support to get help for this yet, but I am definitely going to get onto that for level 6 and over summer. As I am becoming increasingly aware of how much my time management problems are indeed impacting upon my work. I usually thought well I always get the work finished and in on time so it doesn’t matter, I am wrong It does matter because I’m not reaching my full potential because I’m not giving myself enough time to make the standard of work that I should be!

Feathr

I didn't do this for responsive, just for a bit of a laugh really. 

I submitted the pattern that I had made for the cover of my COP book to Feathr. Mainly because I thought the whole thing was totally hilarious and since it was such a weird idea and horrifying pattern it'd be really weird to see it as wallpaper. I was right. But on the other hand I love how there is such a juxtaposition between the nice living room and this completely wild wallpaper. 

It's got me thinking about how much of my work I use a large contrast in. I really like combining completely different things. 504 I combined Edgar Allan Poe with hipster beer culture, 505 I combined greek mythology with modern culture etc. It's something I think I could definitely capitalise on next year. particularly with COP because I like to subvert views and ideals of women through it. 

Dr Sketchys

I have been going to Dr Sketchy's for a couple of years now, it is an alternative life drawing event, usually with some form of Burlesque or an interesting theme to work around. For me this is more fun than regular life drawing as you can get a bit wild with it, and also there's prizes and challenges. It also does help me improve my life-drawing skills but in a way that is relevant to my interests.

Women's Day & Artificial Womb Zine

For international Women's Day there was a fair and talk from Kate Evans - who has done a graphic novel of Rosa Luxemburg's life (Red Rosa: A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg) down at Leeds Museum. The talk itself was interesting as the writer / artist had really become totally enthralled with the subject matter - it emphasized how much knowing about and enjoying the project is important in the process of creating.

 

While I was looking around the stalls I mentioned I was an Illustration student to a group who make a Zine called 'Artificial Womb' (https://artificialwombzine.com/). Creatives can submit their work each month, there is a theme per month and  the artists are paid for their contribution if it gets in. I have not had the chance to submit anything yet but I would really like to look into it more and perhaps make a project out of it for extended practice - as it will be good to communicate my thoughts on issues and make some more meaningful work. 

What even am I interested in?

Trying to think about what I'm interested in so I have a better idea of what I should be looking at next year. I simultaneously know that there are a lot of fields I want to dabble in but also in the spur of the moment forget everything I like in a split second.

Character -

 Films, TV, Comics, Video games

Narrative

Concept art

character design

world building

stories

Book Covers - Sleeves, boxes

Tattoos

Feminism

zines

Music - record sleeves, Gig posters, Event posters

Film posters? 

I've highlighted some of the stuff I've been thinking about a lot as of late. As I've gone through this year I've had a lot of thought about what I want to do based on what I've enjoyed doing. One of the projects I most enjoyed was doing A Clockwork Orange cover, so I'd definitely like to look more at book covers. 

I feel like I have more of a drive to do work when it's something I care about, I had a lot of fun with my COP so maybe some more social issue related things? More into the lo-fi zine side of things rather than editorial 

Livia Falcaru

(https://illustrationage.com/2016/04/19/raw-emotional-illustrations-by-livia-falcaru/)

I found this artist while browsing through websites and loved the look of their work. With this image I particularly enjoy the colours and textures, as I personally really enjoy pink and blue together. There's something a little bit abstract about the image as you can tell there's a girl in a bed but there's not a lot of other information - The shadowy background could be a wall or a cityscape. I think it's nice how there's something left to the interpretation of the viewer. I also really love the line quality in this artists work, its like the lines are smooth but also sketchy, which gives it a more human feel to it.

OUIL501 Evaluation

This module stressed me out much more than it did last year. I had a really hard time coming up with a question because I had so many ideas that I kept getting lost in, whereas last year I was able to choose a solid question quite quickly. This caused me a lot of stress but in the end once I chose a question I really got into it and enjoyed researching the topic as it was something I was really interested in finding out about. I reached my essay question of “How have representations of women in classical nude European paintins influenced modern beauty standards?” in a weird way, as in the beginning I was thinking about how we in the modern age don’t view classical painting as sexual but we are offended by the female nipple – I went on to find out that a lot of classical nudes do generally have sexual connotations as a lot were painted for high ranking men (Lords, Kings, etc ) of their mistresses. Which lead me to thinking about the ideal form and the idealisation of women, and how this is similar in classical painting to now. I was able to draw on research I had done last year, as I had found out about the elongation of proportions to make the woman more pleasing for the male gaze. I was able to further this research and it was really interesting to find out more, the best piece of information I found was about body hair being an indicator of sexual dominance – and that is why women are portrayed hairless most of the time!

Again my time management has been terrible, I absolutely did not plan it at all and I really should have. The draft that I submitted was unfinished and while I still got really useful feedback from it I think I really shot myself in the foot there. I definitely need to work on balancing my time and planning it so I can spread out my work and not end up with this one week rush of having to finish off everything. I am definitely going to go down to learning support and get some help with time management, because it’s becoming a regular occurrence in each module and I am a terrible human being and never do anything about it.

I don’t feel very confident writing long chunks of writing, I feel like I can never quite hit the word threshold by some miracle I did this time but I still felt uneasy writing it. Everything I wrote didn’t seem to make sense, but when I read it back it did? I feel like I should have finished my essay a lot sooner and gotten more feedback on it as while I think the structure is sound, the content might be a little thin. I’m worried I’ve used too many quotes and it looks like I’ve just padded it out with quotes rather than having written anything useful, though I did think through everything I put into it and it went through a heck of a lot of editing.  

In regards to my practical work I am happy with the concept and overall happy with the final publication I made. I think the interactive element of the book being a ‘make your own paper doll’ type thing, makes it fun and engaging while also commenting on the issue of idealism in art and media. If I had managed my time better I definitely would have liked to have made the imagery a bit more polished, as it is a bit rough around the edges and there are some elements I didn’t manage to erase in photoshop before printing. Though I do feel a lot more confident using indesign and making a booklet style book, as this is probably the best experience of folding / cutting / putting together a booklet I’ve had. Usually my folding skills fail me. Also I am really enjoying pattern, I made a quick pattern for the cover of my book and think it looks pretty cool – this is definitely something I could move forward with in my practice.

I am apprehensive about the looming dissertation next year, as I am not confident with my writing at all. I will have to choose a subject that I can really get stuck into. I am still interested in representations of women, and particularly female sexuality and empowerment but I’m not sure what elements I want to focus in on as of yet. I just want to make sure I choose something exciting, and give myself enough time to DO something really exciting with it! I definitely want to strive to be better at everything than I have been this year!