I’ve always been told a story has a beginning a middle and an end and when deciding what I wanted to talk about today, it made me question what is my story and more importantly where am I in it - you could say this is the end, the end of level 4, the end of my first year at university that had a beginning September, a middle Christmas January time, and this is the end I’ve made it to summer. But I’ve also realised I could say this is the beginning on to my middle at level 5 and my end at level 6 but then it goes one step further and I’ve come to terms that this really is all my beginning in the hopefully long timeline of my story of me as an illustrator - this point, these three years are the very beginning and the middle and the end are a long way away… So in my beginning part 1 of 3 which has come to an end (please try to keep up) I’ve decided on a list my own list of rules 8? statements my DIY give it a go manifesto But this has come after lots of thinking… There is one main over arching discovery that has happened during my first year and that is realising I’m no longing ticking boxes for grades. Pretty much all of my education before getting here has been leading up to well getting here… I was always hard working and aimed to get the best grades I could to give me the best options for university and now I’m here… So what next… It’s pretty scary I guess - there is no clear next step - I actually remember saying to Patrick in my interview when he asked where do I see myself at the end of these three years that I would be doing my masters - at that point I just figured that would be the next step in this sort of educational conveyor belt and that I didn’t want to not know and be left going round and round the conveyor belt like unclaimed baggage - but what I’ve come to realise is that this is my time this is my prime time to explore and not be working to reach an end point but working to discover and be driven by processes and playing and making mistakes which then turn into outcomes - being allowed to take those risks I’ve always been scared would mess everything up and swerve off one path and on to the next… and it be ok This thing that has happened then - this realisation has informed my practice in terms of me allowing myself to take risks, make mistakes, to understand that my work doesn’t always have to be right and one way I’ve done this is through changing the way I view illustration - the lengths of the illustration I knew before September stretched from Nick Sharat to Johanna Basford - pretty and decorative and nice - the illustrations I knew of belonged in books but through a wide range of briefs set this year I’ve explored the different areas and even allowed my work to be ugly wrong and wonky. I’ve opened up to what illustration can be and come to terms that I want to use illustration to communicate… It was during visual narratives when I had my transformative moment - it was a talk with Matt after beating myself up over my work - I knew something wasn’t right.. It was pleasing to look at but I couldn’t figure out where else to go with it - to make it something more… It was talking to Matt I realised my illustrations for my picture book were nice but just of things not of something happening and his simple suggestion to knock one out on the ‘pay for the dentist’ page in my book really just made a light bulb switch on above my head. It just made sense - it clicked - it went from
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