MAT WAUDBY PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Chalk, pastel, pencil, ink, paint, any form of paint, free paint, free pastels. Several layers of colour built up one colour at a time, a printmakers approach to drawing based image making.
Trees, fields, mountains, nature, cars, vans, planes, buildings, houses, skyscrapers, signs, letters, grass and more trees
I’ve always been an outdoors type. When other children were playing computer games in their youth my brother and myself were exploring and fighting in fields, woods and the mud hills on the estate we lived on. Mixed with boy scouting and seemingly a family full of gamekeepers, a keen interest in the outdoors and nature was fostered in me from a young age. This has been transpired into my work with trees, fields, mountains and camping all reoccurring themes within my work. The location of Bournemouth has been a key factor in my work as it’s easy to quickly get yourself out of town and lost in the vast arrays of natural habitats residing around the locale. I get invigorated through the process of venturing into the outdoors, whether that is by train, bicycle or bus. The journey is usually just as important to me as the destination. The fact the you can see the change in scenery is something which I greatly value within our country and try to use this in my work with various different environments current within my drawings. My recent trip to America has fuelled my love for different environments. I was lucky enough to experience scorching deserts, giant redwood forests, broken cliff
lines, snowy mountains, acrid mountains, industrial sprawls, and freezing cold rivers and lakes. This gave me a vast collection of photos drawings and memories to draw on for my illustrations. I would say that currently this love of travel and new destinations is the biggest inspiration in my work. Another inspiration that is closely linked is mans effect on the environment around them. The deeming of what is beautiful and essential.
“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment” Ansel Adams
While I am not chaining myself up to nuclear power plants or preaching about corporate consumerism I do believe that to be conscious of the natural world is something that I strive to achieve in both my illustrations and life. This is also a topic that is becoming more prevalent in the modern world and can only help my illustrations. Bicycles are a massive part of my life, whether it is BMX or road bikes. They allow me to go to places that I would otherwise not visit and encounter strange situations that I would not otherwise be in. This idea of weird and funny anecdotes is something that I have recently started addressing in my work with short picture stories on single pages. This new interest in narratives has lead me to look ore in-depth at publications such as Nobrow and Anorak. I particularly like the playful vibe that these magazines give off.
I like to work in a free and open environment, using medium such as pastels and chalk to create broad textural imagery, refining the detail with leadless pencils and occasionally building the separate elements using adobe Photoshop. The appeal of chalk and pastel stems from my printmaking background where colours are built up layer by layer. This way of building images has followed through to my image making with drawing materials. The chalk and pastels create texture and colour that cannot be achieved any other way. The fact that they are not refined mediums to use creates happy accidents and adds a sense of adventure and playfulness to my work.
My Extended Major Project was split into two distinct projects. The Print room commission and my own authorial work based around a book about calamities. The Print room Project was a large commission that needed a significant amount of dedication and time to finish. It ran from the beginning of January to Easter/mid April. The commission was to install printmaking based work into a restaurant that had previously been a local newspaper office. The link between print and the building was obvious so a small collective of printmaker illustrators and myself were tasked with transforming the wall space. This project began in January, immediately at the beginning of my extended major project. I felt that in my previous project I had built up a significant amount of momentum working in pencil and moving away from printmaking. While I was initially excited to turn my newfound drawing style to the print room I quickly found myself producing work that was similar to my previous efforts and felt like a step
backwards rather than forwards. I was perhaps naïve in believing that I would not slip into previous habits. As I was increasingly frustrating myself with the medium of lino printing I realised that my lack of enthusiasm stemmed from the type of printmaking I was doing. I have done lino block printing for close to three years as a primary part of my practice. While I knew the medium inside out, I realised that through using a process I knew so well I was never going to push my own personal boundaries. I therefore moved into different processes such as mono printing and silkscreen printing. These techniques allowed me to recreate textures and imagery that had previously worked in in my negotiated practice. Mono printing is only a step away from pencil drawing. It involves rolling out a colour, putting the paper on top and drawing on the back. This process worked well for me as it allowed me to build up colours in separate layers and use pencils to draw the imagery. This process reinvigorated my creativity and got me excited about making imagery for the project again. The process of mono printing lead me into silkscreen printing. I’ve done screen-printing in the past however I had never been showed how to do it properly. Because of this I’d always resigned the process to the back of my brain and believed that it just wasn’t for me. However I decided to give it another go for this project. I managed to persuade my good friend Elliot Coffin (another illustrator in the printmaking commission) to spend an afternoon with me on the process. This really helped me out and allowed me to understand the process and was a great step forward. The prints I produced from here onwards I thought were both suitable for the commission and advancing my personal practice. The project got me thinking about what it means to do authorial work and what it means to do commissioned work. I had previously believed that the two were very similar, that people would commission me for what I wanted to do, not what they wanted. For the majority of this project I wanted to create imagery using mediums that were not print based, however the key underlining point of the commission was
That the work had to be a print based output. I feel like the personal struggle to produce work that I was both happy with and suitable for the restaurant, was a task that although difficult, taught me how to work through creative black spots. This project has taught me a great deal about the organisational and business side of exhibitions and instillations, predominantly the need to be direct with clients and all parties involved from the beginning of a project and the need to sign contracts. This became especially clear at the end of the project when the commission began to spiral out of control with many parties involved, communication breakdowns, misunderstandings, time overruns, a general air of informality and a feeling that the project was initiated for the promotion of an establishment over the artists. While these experiences may have been tough to handle at some points it has educated me a great deal about the commercial world and I would approach similar projects considerably more wary in future. However the project left me proverbially ‘chomping at the bit’ to continue in direction I had been working in before the project began and seeing the final pieces up on the rather large walls was undeniably thrilling.
When the Print Rooms commission was complete I moved onto a self-initiated brief for the remainder of my EMP. I originally intended to create an A-Z book of calamities, however I quickly realised that with the time left I would not be able to create considered images that I would be happy with. I therefore decided to do a book using only the letters of the word calamity. This allowed me to spend more time on the images and have time to develop them. As previously mentioned I was, “Chomping at the Bit� to get started with this project. I was excited to go back to the end of my negotiated practice and continue where I had left off. Through a happy accident I found that working with oil pastel and chalk and then working the detail in with a sharpened pencil was a way of creating images that gave me both the textures I wanted and the detail necessary. I intend to alter some of the images and the method of printing the book after the project hand in but I am happy with the final outcome.
Naked Exhibition was an exhibition undertaken by fifteen third year students. The aim was to create a considered, quick pop up exhibition featuring a more select group of illustrators than is normal with student shows. The show was extremely enjoyable as the theme was rather immature with strict guidelines to the number of pieces and their dimensions. The show proved to be a weekend success with the opening night packed. This show demonstrated how fun an authorial lead show with close friends could be. I had an amazing time. Also the chance to do a poster for the exhibition and a short promotional video from the opening night proved to be an enjoyable and not too serious task.
Johnny Appleseed was a joint commission I undertook with my fellow printmaker Robin McKenzie. We were asked to provide a folksy, print based image of the infamous American folk hero Johnny Appleseed for a book based on cider. The project was a good way to understand the working methods of book illustration and working collaboratively with another illustrator. For ease of design we split the image into a border and a central image. While I would have enjoyed doing the commission individually, due to my workload it was a helping hand to work with another illustrator and beneficial to both of us. The border I produced was grounded more in my second year exploration of lino cutting and printmaking however I took away many important lessons from the commission such as how to deal with clients, talking about money and working with another illustrator.
The Internet is a massively important tool to be utilised by illustrators. It allows us to spread our work for minimal cost and maximum reachability. Throughout this year my online presence has grown. Through using my blog on tumblr, setting up a specific Mat Waudby Illustration page on Facebook, my big cartel and my website I have noticed more interest in my work. I intend to set up a twitter, as this seems like a more professional base to talk about my work more informally and merchandise myself.
WEBSITE My website functions like an online portfolio, allowing people to quickly and efficiently access my work. It is clean with no gimmicks and features only the work I am most pleased with.
FACEBOOK My Facebook allows me to generate a following and update them with reminders of items from my shop, new work and new commissions. It is also a great way for people to share my work and is more personable.
BLOG My blog allows people to quickly filter through posts to see which ones appeal to them. The great thing about tumblr is the social network that goes along with it.
SHOP My shop just has a small number of items such as t-shirts and prints as I do not want it to spiral out of control. It is a nice way for me to make extra money
LINKS matwaudby.com matwaudby.tumblr.com www.fingerprintclub.co.uk matwaudby.bigcartel.com www.facebook.com/MatWaudby?ref=hl