I’ve never been one to be grounded in reality; I’d much rather be creating fantasy worlds filled with strange creatures and grandiose landscapes than to happily observe the mundane and every day. My work is my own personal, visual escapism and it’s through the creation of my own characters and stories that this escapism truly becomes the core essence of my practice. Creating highly detailed images is how I make these worlds tangible; if I can’t see myself stepping into the image then it’s not detailed enough! This fastidious approach requires a lot of patience but in creating these detailed worlds my work attempts to draw the viewer into them.
Over the past three years my work has made considerable changes: I began with a vague idea that drawing was what I wanted to do but the context in which I wanted my work to be situated wasn’t settled yet. However the themes of nature and fantasy have been themes that have been consistent inspiration for me. I know that this all stems from growing up in a rural town where I drew from the creatures and landscapes around me. I can remember being completely fascinated by even the smallest of things and how all these creatures could have their own stories and adventures, which is something I still carr y on into my work today.
Animals and the natural world will always be where I initially became inspired to make art. I can remember watching hours of David Attenborough documentaries learning the names of all the strange creatures and grandiose places. I also remember wanting to become a zoologist but I soon realised that drawing would be more rewarding than standing in a river with a clipboard counting fish.
For me there’s nothing quite like a beautiful book. I’ve collected a few along the years and I’m not sure if it’s just the wonderful, tangible quality of having a whole story in your hands, or the way a book can always reveal new things every time you read it that makes books so fascinating for me. I really enjoy collecting concept art books that showcase the beginning ideas and the development of characters or places; as this is often the most creative stage.
From T.V shows to films to games, animation is a big part of my artistic brain food. After completing my own animation I understand how thrilling it is to have your own character brought alive before you, and I think as a medium nothing does it better at capturing that thrill than animation.
Until the third year, I had never really been confident in character design. I was amazed by those who could pull characters out of their heads and throw them head first into their own adventures, and I knew that this was something I really wanted to achieve in my own practice. I was comfortable in illustrating animals but depicting people especially wasn’t something I knew how to do in a way that was more stylistic. However after becoming immersed in comics in my second year I became even more driven to create more characters in my own authorial narratives.
In the Pre Major Project I decided to focus my practice on character and narrative development and engage in different briefs that would help strengthen my abilities in these fields. I ended up illustrating four scenes and within each image I tried to include a different viewpoint and character, whilst retaining a similar colour scheme. I tried to refrain from using full on shots of the characters because I want the viewer to feel as if they were in each world and, sort of voyeuristically, spying on these characters and their actions. Whilst I enjoyed creating these scenes I knew that without an overarching narrative they lacked a context and I knew this was something I wanted to create for my final major project.
I have always enjoyed the immediacy of drawing and through the many years of developing my skills I know that working with graphite will always remain as my illustration strong suit. Versatile and forgiving in nature; for me working in graphite is one of my favourite ways of achieving highly detailed imagery that conveys an ethereal quality in my work. I love the texture that graphite creates and how using tonal gradients and certain techniques can create highly atmospheric images.
However I’ve never truly had the fortitude to stick with a certain media for the entirety of my artistic career, and over these past three years I’ve enjoyed experimenting in gouache, paper cuts, screen printing and three-dimensional work. I really think that having a varied skill set helps broaden my creative opportunities and not keep me limited in what I can do. The use of colour is something I dip my toe into creatively now and again, although I tend to opt for a limited colour palette with muted tones that complement and not obliterate the detail of my work. However I do recognise that strong colours can have their advantages and I am looking to push my practice further with a more adventurous attitude to colour!
The Pre Major Project gave me the greatest opportunity to explore narrative in new ways and it was particularly relevant with the creation of ‘Umbrella’: a small, wordless comic that myself and a few fellow students began in which a story is created and illustrated by one person and then followed on to the next. I found this collaborative way of working refreshing and a great way to forge a story in a relatively short amount of time. ‘Umbrella’ proved to be so enjoyable to create that we ended up doing another larger and longer narrative in the Final Major Project entitled ‘Kelp’. These two small stories proved to be an invaluable treasure trove of narrative and compositional techniques that I would carry on into the Final Major Project, and in essence were the reason I decided to create my own silent comic.
For my Final Major Project I decided to pursue my own narrative in the form of a thirty two page comic. I began with various character designs and decided on a story that reflected my love of all things fantasy and ethereal. The story is based on a girl having a dream and journeying out into her surroundings, encountering strange creatures along the way. Creating my own story was difficult but I found it rewarding to have a completely authorial work which has really pushed me to make more stories in the future.
I chose to illustrate the story in graphite as I knew I had the skills with it to create a story that was highly detailed and atmospheric. One of the most challenging parts about this unit was depicting the main character in a way that I felt was idiosyncratic enough, which I think I finally succeeded in after a lot of character development. I chose to hand bind the book which was a very rewarding process and gave me great insight into how books are created.
Throughout the third year I’ve taken the opportunity to enter a few competitions as I think they’re an engaging way of creating new work that has potential to get acclaim. YCN Student Awards: Cath Kidston Making repeat patterns was already an activity I loved doing so when I heard that the YCN Student Awards Cath Kidston brief involved creating patterns I jumped at the chance. I submitted two designs that I thought would fit the company aesthetic and it’s really encouraged me to keep creating more! Crowd skateboard design I created a design for the company ‘Crowd’ for their skateboard design competition. This involved choosing one of five words to illustrate, in which I chose partnership. I wasn’t one of the winners but it was an interesting competition that pushed me on my use of composition. Macmillian Prize I submitted the first few spreads of my book to the Macmillian Prize competition which was one of the most exciting competitions I’ve entered so far. In retrospect it would have been more satisfying to have the book completed but it’s still encouraging to know that even if I don’t win my work could still get seen by a major publisher.
In 2013 I submitted my work to be a part of the Just Us Collective, and I was lucky enough to be picked for the 2014 collective along with 49 others. This has been an amazing opportunity for me to share my work within a bigger creative platform and has given me the chance to be a part of Just Us publications and a London exhibition. Getting into the collective has made me realise that entering any creative competition is worth the shot, win or lose.
Over the course of the third year I have had the opportunities to be a part of a few exhibitions and promotional events. In November 2013 I took part in my first London Exhibition, ‘A Thousand Words’, which was an amazing opportunity to showcase my work to a wider audience. This year has also given me the opportunity to fundraise for the course’s final year show and over the last few months I have gained experience in selling prints, t-shirts, zines and other things at stalls and silent auctions. I was also part of a group of peers that curated the exhibition ‘Explore’ in Boscombe, in which we had an ongoing silent auction to fundraise for our degree show. This gave me important experience in how to position and hang various pieces of work in an appealing way and was a great way to collaborate with others.
After gaining experience from fundraising, this year has given me more confidence to apply for events to sell my work. Recently myself and three peers ran a stall selling our work at ‘Pictogram’ event in Bournemouth, which meant creating business cards, ordering tubes, paper bags, plastic sleeves and other items to prepare our work to sell. We were also lucky enough to get selected for a table at ‘Alternative Press’ in London - a comic and small press convention. For this I created copies of my book to sell, small zines, screen printed t-shirts and prints. This gave me further opportunity to promote and sell my work to a vast audience and to network with industry professionals. The event proved rather sucessful and was the most high profile event I’ve been a part of so far, as well as a great moral booster! I ended up meeting/befriending a lot of creative people and made contacts for events in the future which Im very excited about.
My website is in essence my online port-
I use my blog as a pick and mix of all my
folio, so with it I’ve tried to keep it the
creative on goings and various inspirational
most professional place to view my work.
happenings. I feel that although my website
When I first started making it I wanted
is my professional platform for my work,
to achieve a website that was simple, yet
my blog is a place that fully represents my
still retained the personality of my work.
personality and creative process. To keep
In hand rendering all the aspects of my
it concise, I carried on the design from my
website I think I’ve created a space that
website into my blog so there is continuity
reflects the detail and essence of my work between them and used a simple theme to in a professional environment.
put emphasis on the images I upload. I try to refrain from ‘re-blogging’ other ’s so my blog only contains my own work, I think this helps avoid confusion when viewed by others.
Twitter for me is a great place to show everyone that you’re not a creative robot and you do have a personality along with your work. Personally I think it’s important to show potential clients that you would be great to work with as well as posting current projects to support this. I find twitter to be an interesting platform to invite industry professionals to view your work and over the course of my twitter profile I have gained a few followers that could provide opportunities for my work in the future.
Before I got Instagram I was wary of its reputation of food pictures and selfies, but after taking the plunge I have found it to be a useful tool to document work in progress and inspirational observations. I find that Instagram still retains a genuine creative atmosphere which I think Twitter is lacking with everyone just shouting tweets to garner attention from the industry. Having an Instagram account also provided me the opportunity to share my work through a Just Us Collective take over, where for a week I showcased my work and inspiration from their account, thus giving my work greater outreach than I could have done just by myself.
I am currently in the process of setting up my own Etsy shop where I can sell all my prints and zines online. I would like to publish more books to sell so since I created ‘After Dark’ I am looking into starting a kickstarter to fund its publication. I feel that crowdfunding has become an amazing tool for independent creatives to fund their ideas when money is tight, and as a cash-strapped student I can identify with having a lot of ideas and not enough in the bank to let them see the light of day! Though I know that if I want the kickstarter to be successful I will have to make a well produced video clearly stating how much money I will need to publish the books and what the rewards for funders will be.
Having my work on social media has also given me the chance to be contacted by sites that wish to feature my work. Most recently I got contacted by Design Juices after they found my work on Twitter and I completed an interview with them about my work and what inspires me. As well as gathering a few new followers, having a feature is a great moral booster and knowing that people are interested in your work really fuels creating more.
Getting your work seen and promoted is important but I recognise that being professional is the icing on the cake when it comes to getting clients attention. There are a few things that I’ve done to help with this: I have made business cards that are up to date with my current work and showcase the work that I am most proud of and best represents me. I have included my website, email and social media to show that I’m available to be contacted across a variety of platforms. I have made a digital portfolio that shows the best of my current work and can be easily emailed to clients. I am also in the process of creating a physical portfolio as I recognise that if I want to be involved in publishing and print then a tactile way of viewing my work is very important. I am also going to invest in creating a small ‘zine’ portfolio that can be mailed out to clients. Knowing that I wish to be involved in character and narrative design means I will be contacting a broad range of clients ranging from publishers to even game developers and I will be keeping an organised list of all those I contact. However I know that if I am contacting a range of clients from different sectors of the creative industry my portfolio will have to reflect that. I am also in the process of creating an invoice and a C.V that will be personalised with my own logo and illustrations.
Knowing that I am leaving University is daunting but it is also exciting at what lies beyond. I won’t be naïve in saying that it will be easy: like many of my peers I will travel back home and attempt to abolish my current student poverty by working part time (hopefully at a Waterstones where I can sneak my own books into the shelves). However becoming more financially secure will be the springboard in investing even more into my illustration career and will help fuel new projects and help with self-promotion. I don’t think I could ever give a concrete answer about the direction my work will take after graduating as there are so many different things that interest me, so much so that in a few years’ time I may be working on something I hadn’t initially expected I’d be involved with. With my work I feel it’s important to be adaptable and have an open mind for my artistic direction, so I do plan on applying for internships at publishers, animation studios, art agencies and more so I can gain experience in a variety of fields.
One of the most benefitial experiences that University has given me is my peers. With the sucess of the collaborative projects I intend to form ‘Flapjack Collective’ with Flo Zealey, Maia Fjord, Louis Craig-Carpenter and Hope Sloan. Being in a creative group will prevent me from becoming too alienated in my own work and I’m excited to see what we can make together. Looking back at what I have achieved in the past year has truly inspired me with even more ideas for the future. I am now eager to create more books and push my work out even further. Graduating from University is just the creative boost I need to show the world what I can draw.
(Which is mostly dragons and wizards, but the world always needs those.)
Work Experience:
Exhibitions and Events:
Big Sky Horsham - Sales Assistant
-High Noon Show, London, July 2014
2007-2011
- Degree Show, AUB, June 2014.
Education: 2011 – 2014 Arts University College Bournemouth -
BA (Hons) Illustration
2009 – 2011 College of Richard Collyer -
A Level – Art Graphics (A)
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A Level – Art and Design (A*)
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A Level – Environmental Science (D)
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AS Level – Fine Art/ Life drawing (C)
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AS Level – English Language and Literature (C)
-Brighton Open House, May 2014 -Alternative Press Radical Bookfair, Bishopsgate London. 10/05/14 -Pictogram, Sixty Million Postcards, Bournemouth. 20/04/14 - ‘Explore’ at Six Gallery, Boscombe. 03-16/03/2014 - Silent Auction. AUB. Nov 2013/Feb 2014. -‘Undiscovered Talent’ at Havas Media, Covent Garden, London. 15/11/2013 - ‘Words & Pictures - Illustrated Narratives’ at Bournemouth International Centre 7-14/04/2013 -Open Space Gallery, Bournemouth. 12-13/03/2013
Skills: -Skills working in pencil, gouache, watercolour and paper cut work. - Knowledge and skills in perfect, hardback and saddlestitch book binding. - Confidence working in Photoshop CS6, InDesign CS6 and Adobe Illustrator. - Helped curate small exhibitions and has basic knowledge of framing and hanging work.
Figure List: http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/the-ticket/css/Coraline%20voiced.jpg http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/monument-valley.png?w=1024&h=1365 https://animeobsessed64.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/bhjm.jpg http://www.jephyr.net/uploads/1/7/4/0/17404733/338989890_orig.jpg http://tseenster.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/birdking.jpg https://d2nh4f9cbhlobh.cloudfront.net/_uploads/galleries/25465/spirited-away-2a.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gYaxGASAQjY/UcwQ58WmoGI/AAAAAAAACzc/Z5FXSonVbCU/s1600/nausicaa.jpg http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140317213020/lotr/images/2/27/976275_529187847116825_1 152610988_o.jpg http://artseverydayliving.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Adams_The_Tetons_and_the_ Snake_River4.jpg http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/360/4/b/adventure_time_title_intro_card_by_grimessu-d5paxuk.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X2Ok8z-r198/U0lG4JO2lzI/AAAAAAAAIos/eJe8fmKqas4/s1600/LeoEspinosa_Illustration.jpg http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4nu5lGviv1r4jen8o1_500.jpg http://johannasvisions.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/nebraska.jpg http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130605111233/coraline/images/1/1b/Walk_Around_the_ World.jpg http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article9112791.ece/alternates/w460/p51-grand-budapesthotel.jpg https://twitter.com/burstofbeaden/status/459119503410868224/photo/1 http://gamingbolt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Limbo_Screen01.jpg http://onceuponasketch.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/httyd_art001.jpg
http://img-cache.oppcdn.com/img/v1.0/s:33725/t:QkxBTksrVEVYVCtIRVJF/p:18/g:br/o:2.5/a:100/ q:90/1400x720-tB05bcfjkz2s2VcG.jpg/869x720/e5a94ae6865a1596300596c4c5855d84.jpg http://24.media.tumblr.com/e6b3ef25b111a8f7d77cac19a35ca05a/tumblr_mveehfD0da1ss9lz5o3_1280.jpg http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&docid=31M8f5 uqfb0EOM&tbnid=Xu-TyS21qhJLgM:&ved=0CAIQjBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.screenrant. com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fhow-to-train-your-dragon-concept-art.jpg&ei=tLxwU8X6Da n17Abtm4HwAg&bvm=bv.66330100,d.ZGU&psig=AFQjCNEA7yeOFRtDjGsyH5wFtwOcKPML8w&u st=1399983665890523 http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ln61w8M3dL1qlswfuo1_1280.jpg http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/224760/ss_8c7f652e48345442a0b6346777aa5ad1789 6e1aa.1920x1080.jpg?t=1383936243 http://arrestedmotion.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/882475_497649860299011_407630296_o. jpg http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/123/2/9/red_xii_and_cait_sith_by_lx_sieghart_c1-d3fht19.jpg http://hdwallpappers.com/images/wallpapers/The-Aristocats-classic-disney-wallpaper.jpg http://gamingsnack.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/The-Legend-of-Zelda-Twilight-Princess-Wii600x300.jpg http://www.bedetheque.com/media/Couvertures/Couv_190182.jpg http://www.designer-daily.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/AtTheDriveIn.jpg http://cdn2.digitalartsonline.co.uk/cmsdata/slideshow/3470200/FeinmharuRachelMBray.jpg http://inspirationhut.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Fine-Art-Print-Artwork-by-Daniel-Danger-1. jpg http://37.media.tumblr.com/9190296a713f407a980e1d54f3d9eda1/tumblr_mpeycgDXM21r6fkiko1_500.png