Guru Night!

Mentor - Rosie Wilman

Rosie has just recently Graduated from Stockport college with a 2:1 in Illustration that she has been studying for three years which is what I am in the process of as I'm in my third year now. Rosie loves producing illustrations for children and hopes to be a children's book illustrator .

Here is a link to see her website:        Rosie Wilman

Rosie gave me lots of advice and an insight into what working with an agent is all about.She has had many agents some nicer than others sometimes they make you work to a shorter deadline so have to work faster but this might mean the outcome of your work may look great. Rosie has created a few children's books that I think look great!
Sometimes your agent might change things and might print out differently - in some cases you may have to stand your ground and in the end your agent might like the choices you made!

Here are some of Rosie's work;

Another tip she gave me is that if you raise money for DND and agencies will help get you known by fundraising.

Rosie also gave me a few other artists to look at that might help me throughout my practise and influences throughout my art ethic of collage and mark making, such as Holly Mcloughlin whom creates fairy collages.

Here are a few images of Holly's Work;

Her work is so spine - tingling its fantastic it fills me with such Joy and an emotion of admiration, the composition's she creates are so imaginative, I can see the great connection this would have with children.

Here is a link to her website:           Holly Mcloughlin


Another artist Rosie suggested is an artist and illustrator called Sara Fanelli, she works with collage, typography and  playing around with layout exploring interweaving different objects with a variety of items she might use. Her work is very playful consisting of other various formats she may use throughout her work like etching, drawing, printmaking, cutting up things and finding various marks or making her own to project throughout her work. I have bought her book ' Sometimes I think, sometimes I am' it has a lot of fantastic unusual quotes referenced by various artists which most of them link to each different composition on the page giving the image more meaning. This book has helped me in the way I perceive the materials I use and to find similar mark makings to help me throughout my own practise.

Here are some electrifying compositions that I just think are outstanding;

This image I feel is very similar to Holly Mcloughlin.

Here is a link to a fabulous website about her:            Sara Fanelli

Lecture with Ian Whadcock!

Ian Whadcock is an illustrator, designer and educator he has worked in many things such as, magazines, politics, financial advertisements etc.

                                                          This is Ian Whadcock

Here are some examples of his work!

Ian talked about commissions he has done and gave a lot of great tips and advice for instance;

• you need to feel confident in making the right decisions for the right reasons.
• you have to be open to receive criticism 
• Be diverse don't keep to the same style as it might weigh you down, you can have a vast range of styles that you like to work with such as drawing, collaging, painting etc. 
• your career when you leave uni can change throughout the years taking different paths, dipping in and out of commissions and maybe ending up going into teaching. 
• Don't be frightened of taking risks as sometimes you need to take them to learn more. .Be open to the idea of change and being someone else. 
• The only tool that is ever relevant is a pencil once you put pencil to paper your off, but if you don't jot down your ideas then your not going to get very far. 
• If you get commissioned to illustrate a dull text don't reject it turn it into something beautiful. For instance; even though some projects might not seem exciting lots of people may see the work you've produced or buy it and the pay may be great. 
• 'Drawing with scissors' is great for escaping traps you may fall into. (This quote also relates to Henri Matisse.) get to be curious! 
• Quote by Ian Whadcock; ' Doodles can help be a great way for patterns or ideas and there not there for you to be playing with the materials but because the materials want you to play with them'. 
• At times you have to be brave and stand up for yourself .There are times when you need influences but sometimes you just need to DO! .things that are dull maybe the best source of inspiration. 
• photograph everything 
• be always collecting , researching keeping an archive .have random likes 
• be proud of what you do! .document your own journeys for fun you never know what may happen with them. 
• Rewarding work that you could do is throughout volunteering it gives you a sense of achievement. Quote by Ian Whadcock; ' The Only thing Unique is YOU!........make your own world ...........be playful....' 

I'm hopefully going to take some of these pointers on board!

Hopes, Fears and Opportunities!

During a group discussion my tutors spoke to me and my peers about what we might expect for the future and to help us when we leave college, reflecting on our hopes and fears.
They gave us some really good pieces of advice, for example;
- you need to have Inner confidence especially when getting in touch with agencies and contacting people in the outside world.
- Try and have a structure, make sure you keep in touch with friends whom are also illustrators and are in the same position as you when they leave Uni.
- Stop worrying about marks , just relax and DO WORK!

I have quite a lot of hopes for the future, one of them is to succeed third year with a substantial amount of work that gives the WOW factor, something that makes people stop and actually take in what's going on throughout my images. I hope I can archive a 2:1 for my degree so I can maybe consider taking a teacher course as I love working with children observing them creating images throughout there free, playful innocent nature, learning more from them. One of the key things I would love to do is to create a children's book and maybe more. All this came from the inspiration and joy from my younger sibling Crystal whom is seven years old. Another hope I would like to grow and connect with is my inner confidence, as I am quite a shy person especially when it comes to presentations and interviews.

My fears for the future surround the capability of me not achieving my hopes for instance, failing my course in illustration, not having enough confidence to contact people especially talking to people in the industry. another one of my fears is messing up my twenty minute presentation for third year reflecting my progression of work and key influences represented throughout my Journal, as I'm always mega nervous. Another fear I have is being a unsuccessful illustrator and if ever chosen by an agent will be unable to make the deadline, I hope this will never happen and I will always meet the deadline but it does make me feel quite anxious.

I have been very lucky to come across some great opportunities in my life during my degree at Stockport college, as I got to have the experience of meeting people in the industry. For example meeting Rosie Wilman at Guru night. I also have opportunities in going to lectures of those who are in the art industry and are out there making a success of themselves exploring the challenges they have faced throughout their career's. Another opportunity I have had is learning about myself more and investigating what I am capable of throughout my own practise learning new skills and techniques and learning more about my inner child that is portrayed throughout the reflection of my journal.

My aims for the future is to engage with more people in the industry, to find out about more lectures and events that are happening, I also aim to be more academic when doing my writing trying to be more professional. Another aim I wish to achieve is to maybe share a studio with other illustrators or graphic designers when I leave Stockport college and experience working together on different projects we may come across or just helping each other out.

Objectives

My objectives are to hopefully attend all seven lectures by different speakers this semester at Stockport College. Also to attend a few more events that are happening outside of college. Another objective is to research and find out how much studios cost and how much prionters, photo-shop,  illustrator and indesign costs. Maybe once I've found a good group of people to work with we could split the cost between us for computers  and printers.

My Plan of Action

• Email and contact people in the industry.
• Research and explore key events and be more involved.
• Research, plan and be optimistic.
• Try and save as much money as I can for the future.

Timetable of Action

Key lectures

Monday 1st July - Owt Creative, David Baily, Malcolm Garrett, Craig Oldham

Tuesday 24th September - Speaker Ian Whadcock

Tuesday 29th October - Illustrator Holly Wales

Tuesday 3rd December - Founder of Dwelle, Ric Frankland

Tuesday 14th January - Design/culture writer, Robert Urquhart

Tuesday 28th January - Manchester Holden and sons studio

Tuesday 18th February - Morton Newspaper printers, Steve Scott

Tuesday 25th March - Paper passionist, Deborah Wigglesworth

Summer Project-Level 6

Beyond the book                             Scary Stories

In level 6 I am asked to work on a self directed project to find my own stance on themes which are more open to interpretation. I naturally went towards an authorstrator approach coming up with my own ideas and themes constructing them together. I chose to explore the word of Scary stories inventing my own story with random unusual characters that live a spontaneous world where on monsters exist there are no humans represented.

I started researching various scary nursery rhymes, films and books learning how children react to them exploring the mystical representations that they present communicating to an audience of how moral misbehaviour can have disastrous consequences. This made me think a lot about how we tell children these scary stories act so they do as they are told and listen to you when they are naughty and have done wrong.

Here are a few things I have been looking at as a starting point;

Marine Warner - No go the Bogeyman

 

Throughout these pages I have highlighted things that I feel are relevant that need to be explored further that are linked with fear and horror. This will also be used as reference to what has been influencing me throughout this project.

 
 Throughout Warners prologue of this book she has shown images that she has referenced as scary and what might children might fear.

Here I have looked at images of what the bogeyman could look like also exploring nursery rhymes and the image next to it is a composition created by my 6 year old sister of her interpretation of the bogeyman.

 
Here are a few of my images that I have created exploring scary creatures and creating animals then putting them together to create something new experimenting with hybridity. However I felt this wasn't going where I wanted it to go so tried a different approach.

 
So I started investigating monster stories that were created as children's books for a new direction to attack this project. I Knew I wanted to use paper based materials throughout the use of collage but where to begin.

Here are a couple examples of children's books I looked at;

These are representations of friendly monsters!

This Book is called 'Eric' I found this creature very inspiring and unusual especially the viewpoints that a produced to make the audience feel how small he is exploring scale.

OWT Creative

OWT Creative - The Notions Of Success, Failure and Inspiration!

Discourse/Pub Chat - Monday 1st July 2013 

Manchester

Deaf Institute

The first in a series of talks from emergent and established practitioners with Malcolm Garrett, Craig Oldham and David Bailey.

I was very excited for this event to happen as I've never been to one before. It was held at the 'Deaf Institute' restaurant in Manchester. I've never been to this place before so was really excited to see what this building was like and what it looked liked inside.

I went with my boyfriend as I didn't want to go alone and it was a great surprise to see one of my tutors there and a friendly women from college. After we sat down and got a drink the event started.

It was a great experience!

First to talk was a practitioner called David Bailey he is a photographer became a photographic assistant at the John French studio, then photographer for John Coles studio five before being contracted as a fashion photographer for British Vogue magazine in 1960. 

Here is David Bailey; 

He spoke about how you cant have perfection without imperfection as imperfection is our life's design.

 He also talked about how he worked for designers republic in Sheffield and its good to make mistakes and to think about scale when you work and to be ambiguous.

I thought he also gave a great piece of advice to;

Quote -  'Don't go straight to a computer, especially when answering a brief - Use Your Brain!'

David also spoke about whether design is important?

Persian rug-makers made imperfections so they didn't offend God. Perfection may not be a good thing. If everything is perfect, what else is left to do?

I asked my boyfriend what he thought of this coming from a scientists perspective he said this links to 'Entropy'. Entropy is the measure of disorder of a system. The universe likes things to be disordered an this is a lower energy state.

I didn't quite understand what this meant so he gave me a simple entropic example:

Imagine if you had 3 balls, all red; the only way could arrange them is: RRR (there is only one arrangement)

If you paint one blue, then the possible arrangements are; RRB, RBR,BRR (now there is three different arrangements)

If we paint another red ball, but make it green, then we can have: RBG, RGB, BRG, BGR, GRB, GBR (now there is six different arrangements of the balls)

We can arrange the three colours in six ways, this is far more favourable, so would be a low energy state.

To move something from a disorder to an ordered state, you have to give it energy. Energy can not be created or destroyed, only converted and transferred. Therefore in order to give something energy, you must take it from somewhere (or yourself).

If you don't have energy, it leaves you either depressed or working like a robot automaton. I took this in the way that a high energy state leaves everyone with no energy leading to 'robot mondrony' and depression. I thought this was a very interesting view. 

we then had break and the second person came on the small stage to speak about the topic of Failure.

He was quite funny and he swore a lot and he said right at the beginning this is just who I am so if you don't like it then this talk isn't for you. 

He is called Craig Oldham he is a British designer based in the UK. Oldham has produced design work in design, film, tv art, retail, sports, entertainment and education.

Here is an image of Craig Oldham; 

He wore bright red pants so from the duration of his talk people kept getting distracted by them and suggesting funny comments like his pants choice was a total failure.

He spoke about not to be afraid of failure and to embrace it don't be scared of it. 

Be open minded and take risks!

Quote; ' Doubt is better than certainty'

He also gave four good steps to when your designing/working etc and they are;

• Be experimental - explore
• Do lots of research/ take risks
• Be original and unconventional
• Try to think of the Alternative

He said that appropriate experimentalism is good, fun, interesting and exciting, but it might lead to failure.

Don't be different for difference sake, be different to make original and innovative choices.

I asked my boyfriend what his view on this discussion was and he gave me a great question/statement that really gets you thinking; 

     'If there was no failure; how could we appreciate Success?' 

which I thought was a great rhetorical question that gets your mind wondering.

Furthermore we then had another break and they saved the best to last. 

Malcolm Garrett a British graphic designer has worked for music artists which he's most recognized for producing the front covers of albums for musicians such as 'Simple Minds', 'Duran Duran', 'the Buzzcocks' 'magazine' and 'Peter Gabriel'. He was an early convert to exploring the opportunities and challenges of design with digital technology and his London studio was the first amongst its peers to go totally digital in 1990.

This is Malcolm Garrett; 

His topic was to speak about inspiration, however throughout his talk he touched upon all three topics of success, failure and inspiration.

Malcolm spoke about many things, he mentions how inspiration comes from anywhere and everywhere, Malcolm's inspiration comes from many things for instance; at the time when he was growing up 'Thunderbirds' was the big thing and when he watches them it reminds him of good times and memories, this is what inspires him.

He also mentioned that one of his inspirations is pop art with 'Andy Warhol's' images of Marilyn Monroe with the repetition of colours that are bright, vivid and colourful. He also loves the idea of 'pop art influencing the art of pop'. Which was then placed in an art movement like Post-Modernism and Dada. 

Especially as now his work is not only symbolic but iconic. For example the album cover he created for the Buzzcock's 'Orgasm Addict' it was simple yet it gave meaning to the album.

The women he worked with whom designed the collage on the front is called 'Lynder' and without who input the cover wouldn't be great.

Here is an image of the Buzzcocks front cover; 

Malcolm said; 'If you can draw icons with its graphics its Iconic.'             also

                     'Whatever inspires you changes your culture.'

I think these are two great quotes that a quite spine-tingling and inspirational. 

when working for a client, you cant do great work for them that they don't won't as their a partnership! so, 'Keep it Modern, Keep it Bold.'

Success is a double-edged sword, new ideas and technology do not replace old ones, they are simply their to provide new opportunities and directions to move in.

To  help move forward!

In conclusion, it was a fantastic experience, I had a lot of fun especially as it was very interesting and I can't believe I saw Malcolm Garrett he's so cool. I enjoyed learning something new and taking away with me some great pieces of advice!

Throughout my projects there are bound to be ups and downs, success, failures, success ,failures and lots of inspiration but that's life.

So if your struggling with something as Malcolm Garrett says; 

Quote; 'Go backwards and find the problem and see if you can solve it!' 

Teenage Market!

On Sunday the 28th April I decided to take part in a fun event called the teenage market I thought this would be a fun unique experience to see what other people thought of my work and to see if anyone was interested in buying it. I hand-crafted and designed colourful cards I put a price of 25p for each single card and a pack of 4 for a pound. I also had extra images that were just 5p, it was a great experience to explore, I got major excited when a customer came along and bought my cards all together I had 7 customers which I thought was quite good for a first attempt being on a stall.

Here is a leaflet advertising Teenage Market;

This is the front of the leaflet. 

This is the back of the leaflet.

 Here are some examples of the cards I created for the event;

I also hand made my own business cards I printed 96 front and back then I glued them together then laminated them all.

Here is an example of my business card front and back showing some of the work I have created;

front

Back

Overall I thought taking part was a fun enjoyable nerve racking experience and one day I might do it again however with lots more different things to offer!

Try it, its a Great Experience!

VINTAGE!!!

I randomly typed into the computer the lush word 'Vintage' to see what came up and I found this amazing website called the vintage festival when I browsed on there website i was in love its amazing the fashion the style the events the music it looks outstanding. I hope that one day in the future when I have enough money I can go to it to explore and have fun!

Here is a screen grab of the cool website;

 You have to watch this its brill :) x

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DZwqTadPLbY



Here is a link to the website go on it and check it out if your as much of a VINTAGE LOVER like I am!

VINTAGE FESTIVAL