Month: April 2020

I started by following the instructions and taking a photo of myself, at the moment my hair is near white, and blends in with the background which was interesting, and fun to paint. The first medium I choose to use is acrylic inks and to paint it, because it is the medium I know best and have on hand at the moment.

I was quite surprise how well it looks like once flipped. I have a lot of experience painting portraits and I believe that is what made me so successful in this first attempt. Now I am going to paint myself again, using the inverted image as reference and see how well that goes. Before moving onto other mediums.

I was surprised mainly how the variety in tones I got out of the four images. With the copy of the positive image of the first attempt, I noticed instead of painting what I saw, I painting what I knew, and how things should look. I paint a lot of faces, and I know where shading should be and how. So sometimes I forgot to paint what I see but I painted what I knew should be.

Task 1 – Look at the modes of enquiry questions, specifically 4-6 and reflect on the answers.

I feel so unsure in my practice and at the moment I think my answers give me more questions instead of answers. I do not know whether I want to go into the industry or back into the food. The last few days I have then questioned whether I should do something with food in this project, however I love art and illustration because it is different to that, and it is a separate part of me, and I am unsure if I would want to mix that, but may be worth exploring.

Task 2 – Answer the following questions

Field of study: How will the project communicate your critical / industrial intent or direction?

Brief: What is the problem you are aiming to solve or communicate? Aims and

Objectives: What do you hope to achieve by the end of this project?
I am unsure on the questions above however that answers this question, I want to be able to situate myself within a practice. I want to have an idea, or ambition of where I want to go. Of course it won’t be perfect, but I want to be able to have a clearer thought, so in the future if I was answering the previous form again I would be able to answer those questions a lot easier and quicker.

Task 3 – Look at UAL Careers and Employability and look at the opportunities

It may not help for this task, however the idea of being mentored by a professional in industry actually fascinates me, and I believe that could be an incredible opportunity to grow.

Having an exhibition is the university is something I have looked into in the past and I have applied, however wasn’t accepted. I would really love to be able to put on an exhibition at the university or at a gallery and be able to promote my work to the world.

Task 4 – Use other websites to look at opportunities

Maybe because of the current time, there is only a couple of opportunities on the website for illustrators, and it was more geared towards graphic design, and honestly they didn’t fit me. Especially as it was more about website building, social media, and it’s not something I am strong enough at the apply for, as well as it isn’t something I enjoy.

Task 5 – Who would you like to work for, where would you like your work to be seen?

At this point in time 19/04/20 I want to see where my project goes first, and see what interests me before approaching or thinking about this, because I come to a bit of a dead end at the moment, and the instinct isn’t there. Once I have developed my project a little further, I will come back to this task and task 6 and complete at that point.

• Create a list of key words related to Illustration and Visual Media that are personally important to you.

Experience, narrative, emotion, expression, development,

• Can you identify clearly any recurrent themes or interests in your work to date?

Mental Health Issues, Mythology, Nature

• What are your strengths and weaknesses within your practice?

Portraits, Watercolours and Ink Paintings, Print-making specifically letterpress, however also Screen-printing and Etching (Hard-ground and Photopolymer).
In the more research side, I think I am strong in the development of ideas and working out whether an idea can work, and then pushing it into a successful idea. I feel like I am good at expressing emotion and making the viewer/audience think, and I am not scared to put my own emotions and experiences in my work.

I frequently struggle to come up with the initial idea after receiving the brief, I then can beat myself up and then get stuck on the fact I can’t come up with anything instead of then pushing forward to come up with an idea which could be successful. Sometimes I just have to either continue researching or sometimes even take a break and just wait until that spark of inspiration just hits me.

• What books, magazines, texts, artists/designers, resources etc. have you regularly referred to during your time studying at LCC?

Even though I am not a typographic artist, I keep referring to Jenny Holzer’s work, it’s something how strong her messages come across and really make the viewer think. Also as I have become more fascinated with letterpress and therefore typography and it has made me think about how to include my typography in my work in an effective way.

Candice Tripp is another Artist of late I have been referring to recently, her style, and how she screen-prints I find intriguing, because I have been trying to find a style of screen printing which worked for me, because of yet I have struggled to find a way to turn my images into screen prints.

• Which areas of art and design practice do you have ambitions of working within and why?

This isn’t something I have thought about. When applying for this course, I was not really applying for the idea of getting a career out of it, but it was doing something for myself. I always had the dream of studying art and/or design, and after a dark period of my life I decided giving applying a shot, as in the past I thought I would never be able to get into a university because I have no qualifications and never studying art in the past.

I picked illustration over fine art, because if I did decide to make art my career at some point, I knew it was more commercial and I would be more likely to make a career out of it.

Because food has been and still is a huge part of my life, I have considered going into recipe book design, however looking into the field there doesn’t seem many opportunities there, and still not sure it would fulfil me.

Printmaking has been such a big part of my time at LCC and I know I want my final major project to involve it. And it is something which interests me to study further. However, a career in printmaking does make me nervous, because it seems less commercial and is on the more fine art side. However, I can’t necessarily see myself in the future making work for clients, as I create images for myself and spreading an individual message.

Last year, as a self-initiated and independent project, I created a limited-edition hand printed book. I made 50 copies, 10 hardback and 10 softcovers, each of 80 pages, printed using letterpress, screen-printing and lino printing. Then each copy was hand bound and finished with a hand printed cover which was done using letterpress, which included using a metal plate I had made of one of my illustrations. The book told my story of Sexual Assault and the PTSD I suffered afterwards with all the money going to the charity Solace Women’s Aid, the charity who supported me from my journey after I went to police to only very recently. The book itself has only so far raised over £300, but I have raised in total over £3000.

This is a demonstration of work I want to do more of in the future. Work that means something, but also the huge amount of effort, and time to make something truly special.

Therefore I have thought about going into publishing, I have a passion for books and am intrigued by the design and creation of them.

I still am looking for where I situate in the Art and Design world.

• During your time studying Illustration and Visual Media, what has most pleasantly surprised you about the subject?

Print-making thoroughly surprised me in a great way, it brought a new fresh burst of light onto my work and the way I make and produce it. It made me consider new ways of working which made me think about how to create an image and not just what the image looks like.

• If you had to make a choice which stage of your practice you prefer a) Research or b) Production?

Please briefly explain why.

My favourite part is working out how I am going to take my research and produce it. I love being able to transform an idea, a story, a narrative in my head into an image. Producing that idea is what I love, I need to do the research to be able to achieve the result I want and the work I put in before hand and transforming that, even before I start production is what gives me the buzz to paint and create.