Aims and Changes

I tried to list my long term aims but really struggled. This is what I managed to come up with but now I am thinking about it, I am sure these will evolve and change as time goes on. Thinking of the near future, I have used a slide from my level five PPP presentation as a basis for reflection and figuring out what changes I can make this year to help me get closer to reaching my goals. 

Professional Aims

• People buying what I want to make balanced with me making what people want to buy. 
• Good online presence, both a website and through social media. 
• Long term goal is to work as a freelancer. 
• Homeware/furnishings/textile applications of my designs. 
• Having an identity that is recognisable yet versatile. 

Personal Aims

• To be confident in what I do and believe that it is worth something. 
• Be able to support myself financially. 
• Be proud of what I make, and myself. 

Reflection on level five PPP presentation - How I can be better this year. 

Time Management

• Continue to write lots of lists!
• Living further away from college this year will force me to take less trips home and commit to longer hours in the studio. 
• Set deadlines for myself to ensure I am on track for college's official deadlines. 
• Use my diary for my social life as well as college life so I can plan my time more effectively.

Distractions

• Delete twitter! I don't use it for a productive purpose and its main function to me is looking at funny pictures of dogs. I waste too much time on it. 
• Change location. I think working outside of my flat is the best way for me to avoid distractions. I want to spend more time in the studio but also working in cafe's or outside. I find I am really productive with my blogging when I work somewhere with no internet connection as there is no temptation there. I can type up what I want to say and then upload to blogger when I am back at home or in the studio. 
• Get some new headphones so I can plug in and zone out from the studio noise. 

Confidence

• Keep going with my ambassador work as it is helping me to feel more comfortable in a range of situations and I am much better at talking to new people. 
• Take more opportunities and don't be scared of failing or looking silly. I feel like I missed out last year by not taking park in the art market and that was partly due to me thinking that I didn't have anything of a high enough quality to sell. But I proved myself wrong over summer by doing an arts fair and selling online. 
• Maintain a good social life and talk to interesting people. 

Organisation 

• Make packed lunches instead of going home at lunch or eating too many Tesco meal deals. 
• Plan time off work so I don't run myself into the ground. 

Professionalism

• Treat coming to college like a job. 
• Be focussed in the studio and if I need a break then try to leave the room to leave the studio space purely for work. 
• Always eat breakfast so I am not mopey in the mornings and am actually able to function. 
• Learn some email etiquette! I need to sound like I know what i'm doing when emailing professionals and agencies. 

Thinking about the Future

Spending the weekend in London with my friend who has been living there for the year has been great. London is a really vibrant city, there is so much to do and such a vast creative scene. However, the more times I visit, the more I realise that I really wouldn’t want to live there. To me, its just too overwhelming to think about experiencing London life every single day. I know that it is supposedly the best place to go for creatives but I cant say I totally agree. 

This is scary but I have been thinking about what I am going to do after I graduate (ahh!), I don’t really have a plan as such but I suppose now is the best time to start making one. 

I love living in Leeds. It’s not overwhelmingly big or busy but there is always something going on and there is plenty of creative events and businesses to get involved with. Financially, living without the help of a maintenance loan would not be possible directly after finishing university unless I walked straight into a full time job. Another option for me is moving back home to Loughborough, its not the liveliest of towns but it could be worse. Also, if I manage to build my online profile maybe it wouldn't matter where I am based. 

Things I need to think about… 

Do I want to move back home?

Do I have a choice whether I move back home or not, financially?

What sort of jobs could I apply for?

What internships are available and would they be worth it?

Do I want to travel?

Can I work at the same time as travelling?

Will I ever visit the places I want to go to if I go straight from university to full time work?

Could I juggle a part time job and still work on my own practice?

This list could go on forever! But I am thinking about these things now and trying to get things straight in my head about what my options are. 

What do I need to do this year?

More art fairs

Raise my online profile

Get better at using LinkedIn

Look at what jobs are out there 

Be more organised and live like a proper adult (if thats possible)

Further develop my digital skills. 

Which college facilities do I use the most and will these available to me outside of college when I graduate?

Christmas Starts Here

I have started to think about Christmas already so I can get some stuff done while I still have a bit of free time over summer. I also want to be able to print these before the rush right before christmas. I am keen to make some new designs for cards this winter as I have had a few people say to me that they would be interested in buying their cards from me this year, which is obviously really nice to hear! However, I also want to see if I can easily adapt some of my existing designs which I know have already been successful.

 

I think these have potential to make some simple cards and tags. I think i'm going to keep things simple with the penguin design and just use the existing image with a message of 'merry christmas' or something similar. I may consider adding colour to the hat. With the pug drawing, I want to add another element, most likely some reindeer antlers as these somehow feel slight less cliché than a standard santa hat. 

I did a few sums and I worked out I can make these pretty cheaply but still good quality. Hopefully this will allow plenty of room for profit and paying myself for the time it takes me to pull all of this together. Now I need to look at whether there are any local craft fairs I could take part in or whether it would just be enough to sell these online and to people I already know in person. 

I am also wondering whether this could evolve into a more substantial project that I could complete as part of my extended practice. Greetings cards is something I am definitely interested in learning more about so this could be an option.

Etsy Shop

I finally got round to setting up an Etsy shop a few weeks ago and I posted four products on there available for sale. I didn’t want to put all of my available stock online at this point because I was about to sell some work at ‘Art This Way’ and I didn’t know how much I would have left after that weekend. More recently I have uploaded my leftover stock to my Etsy shop so it is looking a little healthier. 

I am trying to use social media more to promote my work. I am using the Facebook page I set up last year that is dedicated to my practice and I have decided to use my personal Instagram account too. My Instagram account isn't purely personal as I share a lot of my artwork on there, so the people who follow me are people I know and people who have taken an interest in my practice. The stats on my Facebook page are going up, its really good that I am managing to reach so many people as I feel social media is the primary way to spread the word nowadays.

I had my first sale this week which was exciting! It was a set of three ram skull prints. I am packaging my products in boarded envelopes and including a business card in each order. I’m hoping there will be more orders to come soon! 

The BFG in Pictures - House of Illustration

I saw a sign for this exhibition in St Pancras station when I arrived in London and I knew I had to visit it. The BFG was one of my favourite books as a child and Quentin Blake was one of the first names I learnt when thinking about people who draw pictures to make a living. He has such an iconic style and even though children's illustration is not a field which I have a specific interest in, I still take inspiration from his linework. 

"I hope these pictures demonstrate the way a recognisable style of drawing can be adapted to different moods and situations."

I think Quentin Blake nails what the key to finding your style is about. Being adaptable is really important in this industry but maybe being too adaptable makes you less recognisable and noticeable. I think it is about balance, the middle ground between a style that works for you that people can recognise as yours but with space to evolve, alter and twist to fit the requirements of a brief and fulfil it. 

"These are books that all have magic in them, but then, particularly in young lives, all books are magic." 

Quentin Blake

'We Built This City' and Typologies

We Built This City is a shop on Carnaby Street which challenges what a souvenir shop really is. I had a look at the ‘We Built This City’ website when I got home to find out more about them. I Have included some screenshots of their website and I really appreciate the ethos of the business. They are trying to get artists and illustrators recognised for their talents and battle against the mass produced tat that for sale on almost every street corner in the city. We Built This City is the kind of shop I am drawn to and I like to think it is the kind of shop where my own work could be for sale in the future. Looking around this shop sparked a lot of inspiration for me, particularly around the theme of typologies. 

David Sparshott - Bicycles 

It’s informative, it’s attractive and it shows a certain interest in a topic. That’s what I like about David Sparshott’s work, I am presuming from his subject matter that he has a passion for cycling and the work he produces (outside of commissions) reflects this. 

Ros Shiers - We All Scream For Ice Cream

I was really drawn to Ros Shiers’ drawing style, maybe because I could see some similarities to my own work, and everything was in black and white. I had a look on her website later on and found that aside from animal portraits, her images are mainly of collections of objects. She sells these as prints and greetings cards and I saw her designs available on other textile products in the London shop. 

Other Examples 

While looking around the shop I saw typologies cropping up all over the place, not only in the form of prints but also at patterns which is something I really got into towards the end of level five. It got me thinking about tying typologies and patterns together for one of my briefs next year.

When I searched for a definition of a typology to clarify it in my head, I found this:

1. a classification according to general type, especially in archaeology, psychology, or the social sciences
2. study or analysis using a classification according to general type.
3. the study and interpretation of types and symbols, originally especially in the Bible. 

This confused me a bit because I don’t really understand what a lot of that means. I then found the definition for a photographic typology which was much more helpful: 

‘Typology is the study of types, and a photographic typology is a suite of images or related forms, shot in a consistent, repetitive manner.’

This is something I definitely want to pursue in my studio practice in third year because it builds on my basic drawing skills but will also allow me to develop my pattern and arrangement skills. I will hopefully be able to learn how to take one typology and apply this to numerous different products and forms to make it viable for sale. Whether I will be able to do this in response to a live brief or whether I will have to complete it as a self directed project is something that I will have to look into. 

Sock Gallery Open Exhibition Private View

I attended the private view for the Sock Gallery Open Exhibition this evening and I felt it was a positive experience. It was really great to see the gallery so busy and being able to see the other work on display. There was a wide variety of work but paintings still dominated the gallery. Mine was one of a few monochrome pieces and I believe it was the only one completed with pen and ink. This gave me a bit of a boost because I felt like I was doing something a bit different to the other artists. 

The standard of work was excellent and I really enjoyed having a look around such a wide variety of work, it was impossible to tell who was an amateur and who was a professional. 

I had expected people to be more sociable and chatty at the exhibition but I did spot a few familiar faces through through various connections including people I met at ‘Art This Way’ a few weeks ago. There is a clear artistic community in Loughborough that I feel I could become a part of as time goes on and I continue to get involved in creative events in my hometown.

Wallpaper at Ragdale Hall and Spa

I spent the evening at Ragdale Hall’s thermal spa where I was supposed to be relaxing but I couldn't help but notice their amazing wallpaper. I really wish I could have taken some pictures but unfortunately photography was not allowed in the spa areas which is understandable. The colours were so calming and the painterly style of the artwork was so fitting for the location. The size of the repeating print was larger than most wallpapers which made it appear even more impressive on large scale areas. Most of the pattern work I have done so far has been quite tightly packed so it might be an idea to break out from this and experiment with something larger and out of my comfort zone. It took me back to my applied illustration module from last year where I was trying to bring the outside in, to combat high stress levels, and these examples seemed to do exactly that. It has really inspired me to get my watercolours out and start working with something a bit looser and more fluid.  

Fortunately I managed to get a few snaps later on but not from the main spa area that I was most impressed by. The fish pattern captures the fluidity I was talking about previously. I think simplifying my imagery down and not getting too involved with details is something that could really benefit my work sometimes. I probably need to loosen up every now and then. The dragonfly pattern is more textural and appears more detailed because of this, i’d say this is more stimulating than calming. I really loved how the strong blue and pink had been brought in to an otherwise monochrome pattern. This stood out to me as a lot of my work is mainly black and white and introducing colour is something I often struggle with.