NATHALIE MOORE
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P R O F E S S I O N A L P R A C T I C E
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION INSPIRATION ARTISTS EXTENDED MAJOR PROJECT COLLABORATING & MAKING AUB LIVE BRIEF GETTING OUT THERE PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS NEXT STEPS PUBLICATIONS EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS RELEVANT LINKS
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Drawing is a tool for creative expression comprised of a visual language, which is unique to the creator. It takes time to develop this language as an effective communication tool. Practice does make perfect and hard work pays off. Drawing is at the core of my practice and underlines everything I do. It is the most direct way to make an observation and make sense of the world around me, whether its a quick sketch or a detailed observational drawing. Within my practice, I incorporate beautiful and weird imagery rendered in bright colour palettes with obsessive amounts of detail. I also try to inject humor in the more playful aspects of my practice. I aim to reach like-minded people who are open to new ideas and experiences that have the desire and an interest to make examinations and observations about the world around them.
I N S P I R A T I O N The eyes are directly connected to the brain. Looking is a fundamental part of my practice and helps me to grasp an understanding of the world around me. I enjoy noticing those little things in life that prompt you to realize your own existence.
‘Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak. But there is another sense in which seeing comes before words, It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.’ - John Berger
Inspiration does not come to you. Getting out there and seeing the world is the only way to truly find inspiration. I have always remembered various tutors throughout my years at university saying that staring at a blank piece of paper will not give you inspiration. Visually recording the things I see when i’m out and about through drawing and photography allows me to generate and nurture ideas particularly in the initial stages of research.
ALL IMAGES TAKEN BY NATHALIE MOORE
SEE FEEL TOUCH TASTE CONNECT
BUDDHIST MANDALAS In level 5, I spent an extensive amount of time into researching Buddhism. I became fascinated by the spiritual and ritual symbols known as ‘mandalas’ used for spiritualist teaching. The mandalas themselves are not considered to be art at all, but they are beautiful brightly coloured images that contain painstaking amounts of detail and embellishments. The use of circles, geometric shape and graphic use of line has aesthetically provided me with inspiration when creating my own work. The use of the circle has provided me with a shape in which to compose my work. Working within the confines of a circle has taught me how to edit and contextualize imagery within my work. The way in which the circular viewfinder of a microscope only shows a portion of an object, the circle shape in my work acts in much the same way. Breaking the shape of the circle allows for interesting experimentation with compositions.
MUSIC
Listening to a diverse range of music helps to provide me with inspiration particularly psychedelic progressive rock from the late sixties/early seventies such as GONG and Soft Machine. The progressive nature of the music can allow one to feel as though one is being taken on a experiential journey of the mind. It spurs me to create work that I might not necessarily have created prior to listening to this kind of music. The album artwork for psychedelic bands echoes this genre of music. It is vibrant, surreal and often weird.
Last year I was fortunate to the get the chance to see David Hockney’s ‘A Bigger Picture’ exhibition at the Royal Academy and it was simply mindblowing! His ebullient depictions of the Yorkshire landscape put an emphasis on the light and shadow visible in the landscape by incorporating the use of intense and vibrant colours. Seeing this exhibition made me think about the vitality of the things around you and how the perception of what you think something looks like can be completely different in reality. In his painted landscapes he perceives tree to be blue, the roads to be magenta and the lustrous skies to be purple. Seemingly the colour palettes he uses for his paintings are complementary one another. I have tried to do this somewhat in my work by using limited colour palettes. I find this helps to create dynamics within the image and make it striking. As often in the past my colour palettes have been muddy and murky looking. Only by really looking at the landscapes around him was Hockney really able to see what the camera cannot capture: a sense of depth, perspective and intensity of light. Everything we see effectively becomes a memory, some becoming more poignant than others hence why the act of looking is important to me.
‘We see with memory, and memory is now’ - David Hockney
DAVID HOCKNEY
‘The invention of the camera has changed the way we see things. Part of me wanted to be able to capture the world around me in a different way – Painting’ - David Hockney
Yuko Shimizu Shimizu is a fine example of marrying Eastern and Western cultures having been brought up in Japan and is now based in New York. It is her compositions that I admire most about her work as she experiments with unusual view-points and is not afraid to give her work the space that it needs to provide the viewer with maximum impact. Her work is surreal and sexy and lends itself to traditional Japanese prints by using strong strokes of line with digitally enhanced washes of colour. She also has a minimal colour palette which again enhances her images, which is something I am trying to do in my own practice.
I came across this French illustrator whilst browsing in a bookstore in Spain. Her work is rendered in beautifully muted tones of gouache juxtaposed with delicate pencil drawings. So essentially she became my initial inspiration for painting in gouache and spurred me into buying my first gouache set. I find her work particularly intriguing as she is inspired by traditional fairy tales such as Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and mixes elements of comedy with a poetic dreamy style.
R é b e c c a D a u t r e m e
‘The divine source of existence of all existence is evident in a vase of flowers’ Aldous Huxley
The writer Aldous Huxley has been a great source of stimulation for me this year. I became interested in his visionary views of the future of the world and admire him for his openminded beliefs about perception, religion and art. I believe the future of the world to be an uncertain place and at the fast pace of technological advancements; it is worrying what is likely to happen in the future, but does create great stimuli for my creativity. His essay ‘The Doors of Perception’ is his experiential account of taking the hallucinogenic drug, Mescaline and how it changes your perception of the world around you.
‘A perceptual present made up of one continually changing apocalypse.’ - Aldous Huxley (A description of Huxley’s experience under unfluence of Mescaline)
In essence I believe Huxley to be talking about the beauty in every aspect of life. We are alive! We are here! Living in the now... Within my practice I take something ugly or grotesque such as a dead frog with its entrails bursting out, and turn it into a thing of beauty by using elegant brush strokes and vibrant colours.
REFLECTION During the negotiated practice unit, I found that I struggled to convey what I really wanted to communicate in the media that I had chosen, and was somewhat unhappy with how the project turned out. I did however learn a lot during this unit such as realizing when my work is or isn’t working and how to edit work effectively for its context. I realized that my worked lacked consistency and tended to be rendered in quite muddy and murky colours. Simple shapes with tone and shading did seem to work and I should have elaborated more on this aspect. Applying what I know now to my current work allows me to work in a more objective and productive manner. By taking the time out to stand back and actually look at my work objectively, it becomes evident the things that are working and the things that are not. ‘Looking’ is an invaluable part of my illustration practice.
EXTENDED MAJOR PROJECT For the EMP I wanted to focus on a subject matter that I could engage with for a substantial period of time. I took an initial interest in the perceptions of seeing and was inspired after reading Huxley’s essay the ‘Doors of Perception’. I wanted to make people aware of their own environments and seethe things that they wouldn’t normally notice from tiny fragments of glass that glitter in the sunshine, to the purple sky during sunset. Originally I wanted to focus on the beauty of the mundane in a heightened state of perception, but in reality I wanted to relate the context of the work to myself.Thus I decided to base it on the context of my mundane journey to University:a journey filled with contemplation and wonder, which is triggered by the visual stimulation that surrounded this journey. Most of the time, I found this journey to be boring and dull.
I wanted to find various ways of looking at this journey and used various methods to approach it. I looked at bird’s eye view maps on ‘Google maps’ to see what it looked like. As a comparison, I also had the opportunity to look through a friend’s powerful microscope at f some samples that I collected on the journey to University. These samples ranged from moss that surrounded a lamppost, petals, chewing gum and even dog faeces! It was literally a whole other world where organisms and bacteria thrive. This microscopic world is unseen by the naked eye of the student walking in a dosed unaware state. I relish the joy of inspiring people to take time out to look around and understand. By taking a scientific approach to this project I was able to look at both the microscopic and the bird’s eye view, as well as things that can be seen everyday for example the cat that is always sat on the wall or the abundance of chewing gum on the ground.
FLOWER PETAL (1000X)
MOSS (800X)
‘No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.’ - Oscar Wilde
CHEWING GUM (800X)
DOG FAECES (1000X)
GOUACHE AND P A I N T I N G couple of months. One of the most important parts of the process is mixing the colours properly and making sure you have exactly the right tone of colour. I use a lot of white paint when mixing as this gives the paint the rich vibrant colour. Gouache is a substance that dries incredibly quickly and unlike acrylic allows you to work into it again once it is dry, but it is often tricky to achieve the same tone of colour when the paint has dried. I often test out the colour of the paint on a piece of paper before using it on a painting. Tools of the trade are also particularly important for precision painting. Investing in good quality paintbrushes has allowed me to produce images with meticulous amounts of detail. Once I have decided on the subject matter that I intend to paint I sketch out the image in pencil onto paper. Using reference images I begin working out the colour palette. Currently I base my limited colour palette on CMYK colours, but use purple instead of black. I look at the light and shadows of the image and start with the lightest colour, yellow and slowly start building up the detail. Most paintings usually take 2-3 days and even Mastering the technique of painting with gouache has though it is quite an intense process, I find the act of definitely developed and progressed over the last painting itself quite therapeutic. It has taken a long time to come to terms with how to create my work. After three years of experimentation I have come back to paint, through gouache. I enjoy using gouache as a medium because of the smooth even texture of the matt colour is easy to apply to a surface and can be painted over if a mistake is made unlike a pen drawing, which is less easy to alter after the marks have been made. Whilst using gouache I learnt a lot about colour and composition. Working with a limited colour palette forces you to consider more carefully the relationship each colour/object has with one another.
‘Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.’ - Pablo Picasso
CO LL A B OR A T I N G & M A K I N G. . . As an illustrator it is important for me to work with other creative people to enhance my creativity, as part of my practice. ‘Mystery Sachet’ is a creative collective of which I am now a part. Over the past couple of months we have initiated several workshops, one of them being a GIF workshop, which I had never experienced before. Being surrounded by the creative energy within in a group helps to inspire your own creativity, as seeing what other people are making and doing makes you subconsciously analyse what you have created. Having your peers around you also helps you to showcase and discuss one another’s work objectively and constrictively, which can sometimes be difficult to do for the lonesome illustrator confined to the walls of their bedroom.
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To personally tackle the task of fundraising for our end of year show I decided to make some felt finger puppets which were in keeping with the theme of our fundraising event ‘90’s kids party’. This initial spark of physical creativity has led to the making of more puppets, love puppets and naughty naked fingering puppets. I enjoy making this work that has a sense of humour as it integrates elements of play, which in turn inspires creativity. Over the last year this element has become an integral part of my practice, as it has added another aspect and dimension to my work. It also becomes an enjoyable experience for the viewer as it allows them to interact and create their own ideas and narratives about the work.
AUB 24 LIVE BRIEF JIMMY’S ICED COFFEE In January 2013 I was involved as part of a team with the AUB live brief for Jimmy’s Iced coffee where we had 24 hours to come up with a marketing and promotional campaign for the iced coffee brand. We were expected to collectively pitch our idea to Jimmy (the creator
of Jimmy’s Iced Coffee) and his design panel. We worked in small groups to formulate ideas and strategies for the task in hand. I found this experience insightful in finding out what the creative marketing industry could be like with respect to deadlines and working effectively in a group. Being able to present our idea to a panel of creatives was nerve-racking, but rewarding. Despite not winning the pitch I learnt that a lot can be achieved in 24 hours and there is a definite
sense of creative energy cultivated during this time. For our pitch we created a comedic parody video about who Jimmy is and what people think of his iced coffee. (Watch the ‘Who is Jimmy?’ youtube link in relevant links)
GETTING OUT THERE B
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Given that being a freelance illustrator is like having your own business I felt it was important to create a brand for my own illustration identity. I needed to create a logo that represented the core elements of my practice: painting, colour and shape. I also wanted to indicate the core context of my subject matter: life. So I used the nucleus of an animal cell from one of my paintings and used gouache textures for the background.
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An online presence, in this digital age is vital for success. It does not matter how good your work is if no one knows you exist. People must see your work in order to give you work. T
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I have been using Twitter since October 2012, and have found it to be a useful platform for interacting with other illustrators and people in the design industry. For example it is far easier to ‘tweet’ a message to an illustrator and receive an immediate response rather than using e-mail. Linking my blog and website to my Twitter page has also helped me to gain online recognition for my work.
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At the start of my third year I created a new blog on Tumblr as a platform to showcase my work in progress and gain a reaction and feedback from my peers and others interested in my work. I make posts several times a week so as not to overload my followers with an overload of work as I feel each post must have a distinctive status. The blog is also linked to my Twitter and Facebook page for maximum disclosure of my practice. Being able to see my work in a chronological order also helps me when reflecting about my practice as it allows me to think logically about progressive steps to enhance my projects and practice. Blogging also allows me to talk about my work and explain why I have done things the way I have and the meanings behind my work. In effect it is a digital sketchbook.
W ebsite The interchange ability between online platforms that in turn lead back to the website is important for the contemporary illustrator. The website acts as the professional digital portfolio and is where people that are intrigued by your practice should be led. My website is up and running on Cargo which is linked to my own domain name. This process was a steep learning curb for me as I had never undertaken any website design before. It took a lot of persistence and pestering friends in order to create something that I was happy with. Seemingly the best things in life are the simple ones and I wanted to keep the look of my website clean and easy to navigate around. I am considering opening an etsy or Big Cartel shop for my bespoke handmade ‘Naked puppets’ as I have not seen many products like this before and I feel that there is a potential market for them. In turn this will be a link to this from my website. As well as having an online portfolio, I also have a physical Prat Pampa portfolio for when it is necessary to talk to clients face to face.
P RO M O TIO NAL
M AT E R IA L
Promotion should be an ongoing activity within an business cards, it was important for me to consider other illustrator’s practice, as both technology and the methods of self-promotion that have a shelf life so that people could take and keep the promotional material as practice develops and changes over time... an object and reminder of the work. Since starting level 6, I have had a batch of 100 I am in the process of using the laser cutter to make a series business cards printed to give out to people during of badges and key rings that can be used as promotional networking events and social occasions where it seems materials as well as being just an aesthetically pleasing to suitable to do so. It was important for me to carry a object. I am also getting some stickers and postcards sense of professionalism whilst talking to other creative printed at MOO.com to supplement the business cards. professionals. I have ordered some more up to date business cards for both the Bournemouth and London Ideally I would like to make some promotional envelopes exhibitions. As I have already purchased business cards with screen-printed designs printed onto the front and from MOO.com I decided that rounded edges worked back, which will contain promotional materials and well to enhance my work as it crops the images to give possible use of the Rissograph printer to produce some them a contemporary look. As well as producing a set of promotional posters ready to mail out to clients.
EXHIBITIONS This year I have really been trying to get my work out there physically as well as digitally. Exhibitions have been a good way to do this as you can engage with the audience viewing your work, which is an uplifting and satisfying activity particularly when your work is complimented. NAKED EXHIBITION - OPEN SPACE GALLERY (2013)
Earlier this year I had the opportunity to exhibit my work in ‘Samovar’ Tea Shop and Gallery in my home town of Ely. This experience has given me more confidence and a better understanding of pricing and the professional presesentation of work with regards to framing. This experience has sparked a lot of interest in people wanting to buy my work.
SAMOVAR TEA HOUSE AND GALLERY EXHIBITION (2013)
L ive drawing I have taken part in a few live drawing events to improve my confidence in front of the public and to work with others. It’s a nice feeling to have a loose rough idea of how to fill alarge white board. The collaboration with others seems to stimulate and heighten my own creative flow, thus creating work I probably wouldn’t create under normal circumstances. LIVE ART AT STUDENT UNION ARTS FAIR (2013)
NEXT STEPS Over the summer I am to be a part of the ‘drop project’ Student Union art gallery based in Bournemouth to gain some experience in curating and of the running of a gallery with the potential to exhibit my own work. I am also planning to have a meeting with a design innovation company based in London and Brazil to see how I can improve their design aesthetics and communicate more visually. In the immediate future I intend to be a freelance illustrator and hope to live in Brighton or Bristol with other fellow illustrators. I hope to keep the collective ‘Mystery Sachet’ creatively thriving and begin work on some extensive group projects as well as carrying on my own authorial work. I would one day like to see my work seen in a commercial setting, perhaps starting off with t-shirt design. Something that is important to me to do in the near future is to go travelling (particularly Japan and South America) to discover and learn about other cultures and gather rich sources for inspiration that I can apply to my practice.
ULTIMATELY…Determination and hard work is the key to success!
PUBLICATIONS 2013
SECRET ZINE (TWO)
1000% BUTTITUDE
RELEVANT LINKS www.nathaliemoore.com www.nathaliemooreillustration.tumblr.com www.twitter.com/nathalieamoore http://www.samovarteahouse.co.uk/ WHO IS JIMMY? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQA4vmyrIOM MYSTERY SACHET – FASHION SHOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27ZCX6Eng5k
PAST EVENTS 2013 SILENT AUCTION exhibition and sale. The Arts University, Dorset OPEN SPACE NAKED exhibition. Open Space Gallery, Dorset WORDS AND PICTURES exhibition. The Bournemouth International Centre, Bournemouth SAMOVAR TEA SHOP Gallery and sale. Samovar, Ely, Cambridgeshire 2012 SUMMERTIME exhibition and sale, Cafe Boscanova, Boscombe EQUINOX exhibition and sale, Cafe Boscanova, Boscombe MOONTREE GALLERY exhibition and sale, Moontree Gallery, Boscombe 2011 WISH YOU WERE HERE Postcard Exhibition. Branksome Dene Chine, Poole HIBERNAL exhibition and sale. Cafe Bosanova, Boscombe
www.nathaliemoore.com