Contents
Introduction Inspiration Process Past Projects Flourish / Young Enterprise The Net The Future Self-promotion
4 5 9 11 13 15 17 18
I NT R O D U C T I ON
I suppose it started with an interest in escapism. Growing up with a large family and low income, life at home proved, at times, a bit of a struggle. I used to watch a lot of cartoons, draw from collectable Japanese anime cards, and would get lost in video games and film, and by the imagination that fuelled them. During primary school, I was often told off for the thumbnail sketches I drew onto work papers in class, though this did little to hinder my desire to draw. I would take a bunch of papers to the playground benches most lunchtimes and I would sit and draw characters from my favourite TV shows. Eventually, classmates would come to the benches to draw too, and it became accepted as the space for lunchtime drawing. I don’t know if the tradition continues today, but I like to imagine that it does. After miraculously surviving primary and secondary school education, I was left with my creative energies running quite low. At
the end of my first year of college, I met someone studying art that convinced me to start drawing again and to apply for the art and design course for the coming year. I took up the suggestion, which thankfully got me out of the A-level I had chosen of Maths with Mechanics and back on track with art and design. The potential of strangers became a source of wonder. Likewise, my empathy for things, people included, that I did not know a great deal about, had grown and had nurtured a liking for discovery, for learning and connecting with the things I am unfamiliar with.
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I NS P I R A T I ON
There is a recurring theme throughout my work; that of strong emotional bonds. My final major project explores the emotive potential of common scenery, as well as interiors such as Dorset’s last second-hand bookshop in Winton, highlighting the objects in a drawing where the personal connection lies. It is also why a lot of my inspiration comes from literature, particularly fiction. I admire the work of traditional fine artists such as Klimt and Schiele. It is largely in the drawing, in the way that they use abstract shapes and marks to compose believable imagery. I will happily spend time trying to imagine what impulse decided to make this line wave slightly out of place, and that line extend just slightly beyond its realistic boundary. It is this kind of thing I observe most in galleries and exhibitions. My drawings, as of yet existing predominantly in analogue form, tend to take on a traditional appearance. 5
The work of Lucinda Rogers appeals to me also. She has a very careful control of line, and uses line thickness in just the right amount to suggest the form and weight of an object or the depth of a scene. Ceri Amphlett produces work that seems completely analogue and also works well when put on a screen, which is something I am gradually trying to get better at. I am inspired by the pursuit of a world whose beauty is hidden behind the common perception of things, a world that sometimes shines through cracks in the haze of reality.
Thomas Edison’s last w o r d s w e r e “ It ’ s v e r y beautiful over there”. I don’t know where there is, but I believe it’s somewhere, and I hope it’s beautiful. - J o h n G r ee n
pr o c e s s
The way I work fundamentally involves I have started to use colour pencils more the use of pencils. I find that pencil allows frequently as a way of adding vibrancy me a great amount of control over my to my work. There is also a sense of lines and tones. It also reflects a level playfulness about them, being a dominant of sensitivity with which I approach my tool in children’s drawings – primary image making. My subject matter often school never seemed to be in short supply includes things of a sensitive nature, and of good old, cheap colouring pencils, pencils compliment this approach. When I though I am glad to say I have upgraded start working on a drawing, I like to start the quality of my colour pencils since then, by scratching something opting for Swisscolor and on the side or in the Koh-I-Noor pencils which No great artist margin of the page. This give more of a soft, oily e v e r s ee s helps me get an initial line texture, especially on things as they feel for the drawing, a heavyweight paper. r e a l l y a r e . little like testing the bath If he did, he water before submerging I have developed a keen w o u l d c e a s e t o yourself completely. skill in Photoshop, be an artist. My focus during my particularly in layering up - Oscar Wilde. final major project is on my textures and drawings. observational and still life For my work on the drawing. I allow my perspective of things book design project for Franz Kafka’s to, with some imagination, twist and bend metamorphosis, I largely used this process, what I observe to create something new that as well as the winning illustration I did for is visibly tinged with my own perspective, a Threadless design brief, taking inspiration emotion and impulses. from the level 5 trip to Amsterdam. 9
For the Convergence / Divergence unit, I produced an interactive web-comic assembled in Adobe Flash, gaining a little know-how into Flash’s system of frames as well as researching code that allowed for special effects in the web-comic. My recent experimentations include the use of drawing inks, as an effective way of making expressive marks quickly and to great effect. It is these tools that I aim to focus on for the time being, making the best work I can with them, as I find it is best to keep my mediums consistent, though I am excited by the prospect of having a career’s time in which to play and discover new tools and ways of working that further compliment my illustration.
I know I cannot paint a flower. I cannot paint the sun on the desert on a bright summer morning, but maybe [...] I can convey to you my experience of the flower or the experience that makes the flower of significance to me at that particular time. - ge o r g i a o ’ k ee f f e
Past Projects
For the Level 5 Narrative unit, I used my project to develop work based on Angela Carter’s ‘The Bloody Chamber’ that I would submit for the Folio Society’s book illustration brief. I consider this one of my most important projects of the entire course because it marks the time at which my use of digital process peaked, and why it did so. Looking back, I can see how the ease and convenience of working digitally had taken away much of what I now consider my key strength. The issue is this: I was using Photoshop as a substitute for good drawing. What I did draw amounted to quite little, and what I ended up doing was importing a few select drawings and then relying too heavily on shape-making tools, colour fills and photographic and digital textures. Today, I can see how very different my approach would be, given the same brief. I realise that working digitally is best done when there is ample physical work done 11
before moving to digital, where my task in Photoshop would be to simply arrange visual elements into a form that is pleasing. In addition, I look forward to illustrating a text for a competition or personal project in the near future. Where I had worked predominantly from imagination and easy reference material, I would instead use my skill of observational drawing to compose work, challenging myself to find associations between the text and real life objects or locations.
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I was informed of the Young Enterprise scheme by a fellow architecture student, and so with him, other architecture students and a graphic designer, we formed a fully registered company, The Egg Den. The function of our company is to provide design services in one full package, saving the need for clients to 13
search multiple places to realise a given project. Aside from this, we aim to run exhibitions promoting emerging and current artists, as we have done recently, running the Words & Pictures exhibition at the Bournemouth International Centre. Working as the curator for this event was a great experience as I got to talk with the
F l o uri s h / y o u n g e n t e rpri s e
Canary Wharf. The view was astounding. The ten succeeding groups who took part in the start-up company scheme attended and presented their business model and current progress, pitching to a panel of judges and potential investors as well as the rest of the room.
submitting artists and got to know more about them and their work. Being able to say I had worked as a curator made a great addition to my CV. Recently in London, Young Enterprise hosted an event on the 39th floor of One Canada Square, a skyscraper building in
The Egg Den came out without an award, as we lacked information regarding exactly what our projects would cost and what they may return. We were down on market research, but the judges were greatly intrigued by the concept of our enterprise bringing artistic creativity to commercial businesses, running and hosting events, and generally promoting art within everyday businesses. In this way, we stood out by being the only arts based company, showing that, with some work on our money managing, there is certainly room in the business world for a group like ours.   14
The Net
Finally, I have a website up and running. A website marks a key step toward the professional world of illustration. However, simply buying hosting, a domain and choosing a theme is the very beginning. Already since checking all those boxes, I find that I can spend great lengths of time adjusting and trying out new layouts and looks and uploading new work.
various publishers, or keep up to date with Talent House briefs. Twitter in particular will be valuable tool for keeping pro-active after graduating in June.
In addition to my website, I have also upped my activity on various social media outlets like twitter and tumblr, with which I aim to make connections with fellow artists as well as maintain relations with the people I have got to know during my time on the course.
- ghost in the shell
Twitter, underestimated for so much of the time I was aware of it, is proving to be another one of those magical places on the internet. Following the right people or groups can reveal great opportunities, like the chance to exhibit in a Brick Lane gallery, submit work for competitions by 15
T h e n et i s v a s t a n d i n f i n i te (1995)
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T h e F u t ur e
Recent inspiration has come from seeing the results of the Jerwood Drawing Prize. I was amazed to see the extent to which the process of simply drawing is being celebrated. Seeing the submissions at the AUB Gallery, I thought that it is as if the concept of drawing had exploded and given life to these many different interpretations. I aim to submit work for the 2013 JDP, as well as applying for the Drawing Year at the Prince’s Drawing School. Being involved in the start-up of The Egg Den has had some exciting prospects. After taking part in the Young Enterprise competitions, we aim to grab a place exhibiting work at Sommerset House in 2014 and other venues. Where initially I saw the end of the Illustration course as a daunting prospect, as my work builds and I learn more about myself and my process, the initial fear is dilutes with the excitement of becoming an independent artist. Social media and the 17
internet provide endless possibilities for getting my work out in the open. Moving on to an even more positive note: of the many e-mailed opportunities for getting student’s work out in the open, regularly forwarded to us by our tutors, one in particular had stood out, in which the sender, Head of print at the Alexander McQueen design studio in east London, was looking for someone with detailed handdrawing skills that I knew I possessed and was able to show in a portfolio. I replied, sending over some custom made images displaying and describing a bit about my process with example images. After sending a follow-up email about ten days later, I got a reply asking me to come down to London for an interview. Arriving before the designated time (as one knows one had better, listening as the countless inner voices of parents, tutors, friends and various levels of the psyche
reiterate the importance of doing so). The day started with the portfolio review, where I talked through the work and projects I had brought. This included two unfinished drawings that I put in with the intent of using them to explain where my working process stands right now.
After the interview I was shown around and I began my trial day. Everyone was lovely and I am very lucky to have landed the internship position.
Self-Promotion 2013 Dottodot Exhibition, London Alexander McQueen Design Studios Internship Illustration Silent Auction Words & Pictures Exhibition at the B.I.C. 2011 Equinox Exhibition Threadless (‘City Loves’ Design Challenge) - Winner DreamBox Exhibition 18
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Be c a u s e i f y o u a r e m a k i n g m i s t a k e s , then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more i m p o r t a n t l y , y o u ' r e d o i n g s o m et h i n g . So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make new mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever m a d e b e f o r e . D o n ' t f r ee z e , d o n ' t s t o p , don't worry that it isn't good enough, o r i t i s n ' t p e r f e c t , w h a te v e r i t i s : a r t , or love, or work or family or life. W h a te v e r i t i s y o u ' r e s c a r e d o f d o i n g , do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever. - Ne i l g a i m a n