Talk with Fig Taylor and Portfolio Review!

Fig Taylor is a graphic designer and an agent, she came into Stockport college and gave a brilliant talk on portfolios and what to expect at interviews presenting us with great advice and tips to improve our portfolios.
She told us to be prepared and confident and dress smartly for the part as you will want to make a good impression for an interview.

After a lovely funny talk with the class, we then spoke to her in smaller groups where she actually had the chance to speak with us individually in more depth about our portfolios observing our work, which I found enjoyable and intriguing learning more from an agent.
When It was my turn and I explained who I was and that I would like to create children's books and maybe a children's interior designer, she advised me to research magazines for children and parents whom are expecting to receive a different perspective connecting to a more wide spread audience. She also told me to enter as many competitions as possible as this may help you to get noticed throughout the industry. I explained to Fig Taylor that I am not very good at drawing or creating people my strongest feature is unknown creatures and animals, in response she advised me to try and draw children anyway and to add them into my portfolio as children will relate to them more as they will be interpretations of characters there own age, I especially need children represented throughout portfolio as my work is aimed at children.

Here is an example of Fig Taylor talking to someone about there portfolio;

I also explained to Fig Taylor that I would love to write and illustrate my own children's stories to hopefully publish my own book. She expressed that to write and publish your own story can take a long time, I have to make sure I create a storyboard/roughs a synopsis and the main characters. Will they be based on animals, myths, folk-tales, fairy-tales etc. What do I want to do with my story? What age range is my story aimed at for instance 5-7 year old's. If my story is aimed for an audience of young children will it be too sophisticated? or too grotesque?.

A key factor I mostly took on board was to be open minded to not dis-regard the ideas of packaging and advertising, she told me to explore other areas as my work could be used for a developing life style such as; food and drink. If this was to happen I could then add this subject matter into my portfolio.
Another tip she advised is to always make sure that my printouts are not too dark in my portfolio and to make sure I have the best quality as I would want to make an impression.

Fig Taylor advised to have a look at this book if you can as it is useful throughout your journey of creating a portfolio.

Listen to Five top tips by Fig Taylor!

Portfolio 2 with Anna Violet

Anna Violet is a freelance illustrator based in Chorlton, Manchester. She illustrates children's books, book covers, portraits, decorative maps and local scenes. Her clients are national trust, Carus publishing and Oxford university press.

Her work explores the method of ink, pencil and vibrant colours I feel are watercolour. Her images are unique representing the innocence throughout her characters capturing that playful instinct during her progression of work.

Here are some examples of her work;

Aesops Fables - The fox, the crow and the cheese

Jungle Book tiger prowl

This is my favourite image that she has produced of a fox that was published in AOI images 34 annual 2010

Blackbird -published in Spider magazine April 2013 as one of four illustrations for a short story the blackbird and the worm.(S.Krensky)

I find Anna Violets work very inspirational, I especially love the pose she creates throughout the animals portrayed.
I thought I would send her my portfolio , in hope she would advise me on how to improve it and make it better, in which she kindly did.

Anna Violet explains her main experience is on local scenes and children's book illustrations, so this will be the main angle in which she responds to my images. She expresses the point of being subjective and how her favourite mediums are ink and pencil, so has a downer on other mediums. This worried me slightly as I work with the method of collage and thought Anna Violet wouldn't be interested, however she proved me wrong and gave me some brilliant advice.

 She first starts off by telling me that she loves the handmade-look I have created throughout my backgrounds and paint marks and my lively childlike/naive compositions. The transparency, colours and boldness of Visual world invent works well. Especially as she expresses that she is a sucker for black backgrounds too. Although she wasn't sure what my image was trying to say.
 Her favourite image throughout my portfolio is the composition of Grandad Bink in the Boat, Violet found the energy of the water marks and the effect of torn paper is very effective, especially the way my character is tucked-up in the boat this makes everything seem part of the sea.
She then asks me a question if I've been influenced by an artist called Alfred Wallis, in which I wasn't as I've never heard of him before my influence for this image was found objects of boats I found around my home and artists working with monsters and exploring innocence and fear in an indicative playful state for example; Sara Fanelli, Judith Kerr, Picasso and Klee.

However when I researched Alfred Wallis I could clearly see the connections of my boat compared to his creations exploring different styles of boats gushing along the ocean. Here are some examples of his work;

 Furthermore, My wind in the willows characters looked intriguing she thought I had great lettering too. She liked the soft muted palette and ink work but isn't sure this would appeal to the children's book market. Wondering if the cloth textures need to be more integrated. She suggests I should desaturate the whole of my Badger character and add colours that go across different mediums. Or maybe using a different fabric that fits with badger, thinking about the black and white stripes that badgers have. Violet responds to my wind in the willows characters in needing to be more childlike (no moustache, bigger heads etc.) showing obvious emotions/body language so the reader and child can empathise with.

More over Anna Violet expresses she is confused with the chair represented throughout my image of Baby Bink however likes the use of thread with the painted background suggesting to make it clearer on a bigger image. Then swiftly moving on to my Nana Bink on the phone image which Anna Violet feels the textures and line works well giving off a scary effect. This is great I'm glad my Bink Character made an impression although Nana Bink is meant to look worried so will improve this emotion by adding her worried wrinkles to make a better expression that hopefully gets her emotion across to the reader and various audiences.

Violets comments are great which I will defiantly take on board throughout my own practise and portfolio.

Ending with the point that she is looking forward to seeing my work at the show next spring!

Portfolio review by Rosie Wilman

My Mentor Rosie Wilman gave me a lot of great advice in presenting my portfolio to be more professional, by considering the space I use for my image making sure it is central and there are no shadowing lines at the sides that will intervene with the presentation of my image. Rosie feels the way I have recorded my Pdf portfolio is working well, showing the progression between projects. She has suggested that it would be nice to have a page that shows my working method, representing how I go from a sketch to the finished thing or how I've developed that idea.

Here a few examples of what she means;

Looking At these two examples she has produced I now understand a lot better the point she is trying to get across and I am willing to try this throughout my own portfolio showing my own progression throughout my work. I didn't realize that this would be an interesting factor to represent during my portfolio. 

Rosie has also suggested to include some of my tree family people in my portfolio as she thinks there ace. Expressing the point to always keep adding to it, improving my work making sure I am able to talk confidently about each piece so that I am ready for portfolio visits.

She was also very helpful in guiding me throughout my critical Journal that I am writing alongside my practical work, reflecting on my processes that I come across. As I am struggling to put it all together in a way it makes sense academically linking quotes and chapters together as well as my reflection of my own work.
I am trying to receive as much help as I can,  Rosie was a big help she has given  me a few key artists/thinkers to look at. Such as, Mark Rothko and his idea of 'colour theory' linking this to my own practise in the way I use muted backgrounds throughout my images so the characters in front of the background stand out. Using bright colours for example I have used red and yellow throughout one of my images that I have created of 'Grandad Binks Boat'.

Here are some examples of Mark Rothko's work;

Muted Blue's

This is Mark Rothko in front of one of his muted images in black and white.

Muted Red's

And here are a couple of my own images representing mute backgrounds contrasting with the image in front; 

Baby Bink Hiding behind a chair as she's scared and frightened.

Worried Nana Bink on the phone.