KATHERINE PEEVER
CONTENTS Who am I? Process Influence and Inspiration My Practice Experiences Networking Social Media Branding Portfolio Ambitions
WHO AM I?
“We are no longer surrounded by people but by objects.� Jean Baudrillard
Working almost exclusively with hand rendered imagery, I try to recapture what it is about the world and our culture that interests me the most. Playing around with pencils and colour pencils I enjoy experimenting with colour and mark-making whilst always trying to retain a sense of intrigue with detail. Recently scale and negative space have become a huge part of my work as I am fascinated with how size can give an image some significance and curiosity. I have always enjoyed working with collage and recently my work has taken a bit of a turn and I am now experimenting with converging collage and drawing together. Collage has always been a big part of my work, but I have found it difficult to incorporate it into my practice, it has usually been something very personal that stays within my sketchbooks. I am very pleased to have found a way of integrating it into my practice.
Topics that tend to feed my work are those regarding culture and lifestyle, in particular
PROCESS
the consumer culture that we live in. I am fascinated by; branding and advertising and how certain brands have developed their own
Throughout every project my ideas alter and
connotation separate from the intended use of
develop quite a lot from my initial concept,
their product.
this is what holds my interest, new ideas and research inspires me and helps me push a
At the beginning of a project I have a habit
project further. My initial sketches are always
of getting very engrossed in the research, I
very rough so that I can visualise my ideas,
really enjoy finding out all I can about a subject
I have been conscious to make sure I work
matter, this can sometimes have a negative
outside of my sketchbook in order to free up my
effect and distract me from putting pencil to
work which has been very beneficial to me, it
paper. In level 6 I have been very conscious
allows me to play around a lot more with scale,
of this and tried to draw as much as possible
negative space and composition.
at the start of a project, whilst not getting too distracted by the research side of things.
I love keeping track of my inspiration and documenting it in the form of a blog, I have found this very useful when searching for inspiration. The ease of access means I can easily scroll through my blog and find what I was looking for, being able to easily re-blog and post new images is a great way to quickly document something that catches my eye. I also keep any images I find on business cards/postcards/leaflets/posters as inspiration on my wall, this merely brightens up my working space so I can keep inspired whilst working.
INSPIRATIONS AND INFLUENCES Living within a creative environment has definitely helped to keep me inspired and enthusiastic about my work, my time at university and living amongst other creatives gives me the opportunity to gather various opinions and advice, and also it is great to be able to feed off others enthusiasm. I try to visit London as much as possible and any exhibitions that grab my interest, I make an effort to visit the degree shows each year to get a taster for what is to come. These trips have been a great experience, not only to view the fantastic work being produced by young creatives today, but to get a sense of how illustration fits into an exhibition space. For the past two years I have also been to visit Pick Me Up at Somerset House, which has been a huge influence each time, it is amazing to see the variety of work being produced at the moment.
“I think the block is healthy, it means you’re thinking about stuff. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to think... sometimes sitting in front of a mac can be the worst thing.”
Greg Eason, advice on the ‘creative block’
MY PRACTICE
“Identity becomes a reflection of ‘lifestyles’ that are closely associated with commercial brands and the products they label...” Benjamin Barber
Throughout level 6 I have been investigating the topic of consumerism, My Negotiated Practice unit was based around contemporary consumer issues, in particular how supermarkets market certain foods to certain demographics. In reflection I needed to think about the message I was trying to illustrate, I realise now that I was not confident enough in my own concepts, which showed in my final images. I therefore needed to ensure that in my Major Project I was confident with the idea I wanted to convey. This unit helped to spark my curiosity about brand marketing, which assisted in feeding my Extended Major Project. During this unit I looked into the identity of some brands and how the public perceives them, in particular how the perception of smoking has changed dramatically over the past few decades. The topic of cigarettes began simply from a love of the old-fashioned packaging; from this I decided to take a nostalgic look at this seemingly lost art form. This project then developed into a look into the culture of smoking throughout the 1930’s/1940’s/1950’s, and in particular, how smoking was used in films. My research for this included watching numerous film noir movies, which was a new territory for me as I had never taken much of an interest in the genre, however I discovered that these films create such an interesting atmosphere using smoke, shadows, silhouettes, that I could not resist trying to recapture elements of this in my drawings.
EXHIBITIONS 2013
‘Grey Matter’ Drop Project Gallery, Bournemouth Silent Auction, AUB Arts Bar, Bournemouth ‘Naked’ Open Space Gallery, Bournemouth Curated by third year Illustration students ‘Secret 7’ Mother London Gallery, London Work exhibited and sold at auction.
2012
Exhibition and stall, Flirt Café, Bournemouth
2011
‘Tropic’ Café Boscanova, Boscombe
2010
‘Bespoke’ Café Boscanova, Boscombe ‘This is Summer’ 60 Million Postcards, Bournemouth ‘This is Adventure’ 60 Million Postcards, Bournemouth
EXPERIENCES During my time at university I have made a conscious effort to involve myself with additional projects and competitions. The Secret 7 exhibition in London was part of a competition that I participated through Talenthouse, where various vinyl sleeve designs were exhibited and sold to raise money for Art Against Knives charity; it was great to
be part of such a good cause however I sadly could not make it to the opening night. In order to help raise money for the final degree show in London, a group of fellow students organised a Silent Auction in which I put a piece up for auction. In level 5, alongside displaying work at Cafe Boscanova, I also designed the posters and invitations to advertise the event, which helped me, understand how to work with text alongside images.
My first real experience of working towards a professional brief was the D&AD Student Awards 2012. The brief was to illustrate one of the top film releases that year for the cover of Little White Lies magazine. I chose Super 8 as this was my personal favourite of the selections, I feel now I was fairly na誰ve and in hindsight I know I could have created a much more sophisticated image, however I am pleased that I chose to enter such a prestigious competition as it helped give me experience and confidence in working towards a brief outside of university.
“Do good work- but this might not matter if you don’t know how to talk about your work confidently� Arabella Lewis-Smith
NETWORKING As nerve-wracking as it was, I decided to attend
It was a great experience and I feel as if I am
two of the Meetdraw events, which put me in at
prepared for more networking events to come
the deep end and quickly made me realise that
in the future. The experience taught me that I
I needed to be more prepared for events like
have to be very confident when talking about
these, as they are a fantastic method of meeting
my own work; through tutorials and critiques at
potential clients. The first event that I attended
university I have gained confidence in describing
pushed me to ensure I was more organised
who I am what and what I do, however it is a
and professional for the next event, I knew I
different experience when you are trying to
needed business cards and to present myself
impress people from the creative industry.
much more formally than I had initially realised.
I was apprehensive about getting a Twitter account at first, mainly due to the fact that I didn’t understand the purpose, but within weeks
Also,
of joining I was hooked and could already
commissioned
see the benefits. It is, for me, the easiest and
article, the ability to communicate through
best way to keep track of what other creatives
twitter has been of great benefit to me.
through
twitter to
I
illustrate
was a
recently beauty
are up to, I follow many illustrators, graphic designers, agencies, blogs, bands, galleries
I am also very conscious of keeping my blog
and many others that I find interesting. Through
up to date, personally I enjoy following blogs as
twitter, the blogging website Business Boom
it is a quick way of seeing what other creative
got in contact with me to do a post about me
are doing, so it is important for me to update
and my work, this was my first experience of
regularly, and keep an active online presence.
something like this, I therefore found it hard to know what to write, but it was good practice for me to learn how to write about my work.
SOCIAL MEDIA
BRANDING To create a strong online presence, I needed a correlation between my website, blog and twitter and any other promotional items, so I wanted to create a cohesive identity for myself. I initially wanted to create a logo that would be on any online platform, business cards, CV, letterheads; a kind of signature. At first I found it difficult to create something that encompassed my work in one small logo, but I settled on a drawn collage of my initials that represents my current work. Throughout all of these platforms I have chosen to keep the background white and use quite a lot of negative space, this is because I use quite a lot of negative space within my work, so that the design fits well alongside my images.
PORTFOLIO
A physical and an online portfolio are extremely important, it is what a potential client will look at to decide whether to use you or not. It was important to make sure my website was eyecatching without being too distracting from the work itself, the design of it also needed to reflect my work. I chose to use Cargo Collective to host my website because I was fairly familiar with it and I was aware that you have a lot of freedom to make it your own. Due to my lack of knowledge about web design I chose not to make my site too complicated, I am aware that anyone visiting my site will make an opinion within the first few seconds so it is necessary to make my work easily accessible.
I gained practice piecing together my physical portfolio when I applied for The Prince’s Trust Drawing Year. For the application process I was asked to put together 10 images that represented my drawing skills. Although the images I chose are not the images I would choose for my professional illustration portfolio, it was interesting practice for me to select and edit my own work. It is essential that I choose the best and most suitable images for my portfolio, I believe this will take a lot of practice and I will be constantly editing as my work develops, and depending on the client I will need to modify my portfolio to fit their needs.
I chose a very simple layout and design, and a colour scheme that complemented my chosen I will undoubtedly edit it as my knowledge of
“A client will spend 5-10 seconds on your site before they make a decision to keep you on record.”
CSS and HTML develops.
Paul Ryding
logo. I am pleased with the layout, however
AMBITIONS As I am coming to the end of my university experience I now have the opportunity to use the skills and knowledge I have gained to become a professional freelance illustrator. My work has changed and developed a lot and I am excited to see where the next few years take me. Jerwood Drawing Prize I plan to enter the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2013, I visited the excellent exhibition this year and it really inspired me and helped influence my Major Project greatly. I am very interested in the various perceptions and interpretations of drawing, for me drawing is the most direct and immediate form of visual communication and the majority of people lose their urge to draw after childhood, this competition helps celebrate those who have held onto that urge. Moving Out I hope to be able to move away from home to be in a creative environment; ideally I would like to be in commuting distance from London. My dream would be to share a studio space with other creatives; after leaving university I will undoubtedly miss being surrounded by artists. I hope that this would also lead on to some interesting collaborations. Getting my work seen I have begun to start sending out emails to agencies, magazines, blogs etc, I hope to start mailing out promotional material to potential clients. I believe the best way to ensure I receive freelance work after university is to get my work out there for people to see. I am keen to begin promoting myself as a professional illustrator, and I believe the degree show that we are organising in London is a fantastic stepping off point. By ensuring the invitations go out to the right industry people, we as a group will be opening ourselves up to get noticed.
“Keep drawing and be nice to people.” Luke James
RELEVANT LINKS Katherinepeever.co.uk Katherinepeeverillustration.tumblr.com Collecting-Inspiration.tumblr.com Katherinepeever-consumerism.tumblr.com @KatherinePeever Business Boom