Proffesional Practice
Samuel J Carney
Contents Sam Carney
Working Process My own worst critic Inspirations Personal Inspirations Artistic Inspiration I made it with my hands Business Competitions Website Moving on
Sam Carney Sam is an Illustrator and Image-Maker who loves observational drawing in all of its forms, his images aim to capture real places, real people and real things. He has a diverse portfolio that ranges from traditional portrait work to architectural landscapes and automotive. He has a curiosity for travel, adventure and anything outside of his normal experience, allowing this to feed directly into his detailed ink illustrations. Responding to the world as he sees it working in the field or from the studio. He has an apreciation for all things handmade and loves to make his own zines and bespoke books. Heavily interested in the contemprorary reportage drawing scene he likes his illustrations to hold his interpretation of the story and hopes to really develop this aspect of his work post-graduation.
“An intellectual
says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.� Charles Bukowski
Cited from Brainyquote.com
Working Process My illustration is inspired by people and places and is fuelled by a love of travelling and touring, I always try to visit the places that I am drawing if not to take drawings directly then to photograph and experience the place or event that I am working from personally. This personal involvement is very important to me and is something that I am very mindful of when making work. I have needed longer than some to establish some sort of visual language, and to find some way of placing my love of observational drawing within an illustrative context. I have reached a point where I am happy enough with my practice to really start enjoying producing work again, having much more understanding of the way that I respond to subject matter and have control over the result. I have a very process driven practice, the way the drawing is made is far more important to me than how the drawing looks, it can have mistakes, wrong perspective and so on as long as it is an honest and uncompromised response to what I’m seeing. To help me achieve this I use inks directly onto the page with no sketching out so that every line is permanent and builds the drawing up. I find this permanence makes every line important to the story of the drawing and shows thoughts and choices being made. I like to work at a larger scale; it frees up the marks and gives plenty of room to really work in the details, and for a huge variety of line weights. I think the larger size also gives space for the drawing to grow on the page, which is really important when working from observation in the field or from a photograph. It leaves room for mistakes and enough white space to balance the drawing. Although drawing is my primary way of working I like to explore new ways of producing work and I like to have fun testing my drawings through different processes. I’ve also had a chance to enjoy some printmaking this term and collaborated with a fellow student on a Lithograph. Working in new ways is a great way to keep things interesting and will be good to keep in mind during difficult commisions of creative dead spots as a way of reinvigorating my working methodology.
I enjoy precision and my love of process often translates into a love of making things and working out how things are made, especially books. Bookbinding has become a hobby of mine this year and it is one of my favourite ways to present my drawings. I love to make my own sketchbooks and I find making something myself from start to finish to be one of the most satisfying ways to produce an outcome. I don’t like to say I have a style but I think my work has developed an aesthetic that is a result of the way the work is made, rather than a look that I set out trying to achieve. It started in my sketchbooks as a response to trying to find tools and a way of working that is remotely comfortable to use when working outside and developed in the studio with those foundations in mind becoming more refined. This is another reason why I feel like its important for me to spend more time out drawing again to make sure that as the process is refined, it doesn’t become too comfortable or still and to keep the subject being observed at the heart of my work.
“I search for the realness, the real feeling of a subject, all the texture around it... I always want to see the third dimension of something... I want to come alive with the object.� Andrew Wyeth
Cited from Brainyquote.com
“Don’t think.
Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things” Ray Bradbury
Cited from Brainyquote.com
My own worst critic I guess this is probably true of many practitioners, but I think at times my self-criticism has become a very destructive force. I always think it’s good to be ambitious and to look for the improvements that can be made but during my second year I started making a habit of beginning this critical reflection process before finishing pieces, this made finishing projects with any kind of positive attitude very difficult. For a long time I felt like I was completely out of control of my practice and I couldn’t find a way to remedy it. It took a long summer break away from my work and coming into the freedom of third year to allow me to free myself and find what I needed to progress. My process and way of approaching drawing changed dramatically during the autumn term. I kept my love of detail and draughtsmanship but altered the way that I approach a subject. I broke out of sketchbooks and started making multiple large drawings. I found that completing new drawings every day, shortening the distance between the experience of the subject and making the drawing, not getting trapped in the planning process of final images was a much more satisfying way to work and I was much happier with the results. One of the ways that I see my work continuing in the coming months is to start producing larger scale work in the field, breaking out of the sketchbook when working away from the studio and building my confidence working out in public places as I feel like doing more work from life and less from photography would give my work more depth and richness especially when looking at people but my work is at a level where I am ready to let it develop freely while I work on my confidence.
Inspirations
Personal Inspirations
Lee
Fig 1: Bruce Lee Fight pose
Be Shapeless
. Be Formless. Like water. When you pour water into a glass, it becomes the glass. When you pour water into a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can flow, or water can crash.
Be water my friend
I have a couple of people who over the years have Bruce LeeCited from Bruce Lee The Lost Interview February 2014 inspired me and have influenced the way that I look at life. The first, much to the amusement of anyone who looks at the background image on my phone, is Bruce Lee. Lee’s philosophies have great meaning to me; he was a prolific writer and wrote about the ways that one should approach challenges. He believed that an approach free of fixed ideas and notions was best to provide discovery and learning and that mistakes are a vital part of learning. He also wrote about being true to oneself and how this is crucial to achieve happiness. I really like these ideas and I find thinking in this way can be quite freeing, to think that making a mistake whatever it may be, is not a negative thing but part of a journey that you are making as a person means that you can make choices with less thought about the consequences. Having had problems with stress and anxiety in the past I found Lee’s writing to be extremely helpful in dealing with many different aspects of my life and I will continue to take inspiration from his life and teachings. Fig 2: Bruce Lee Portrait
Young
Fig 3: Neil Young Portrait
Fig 4: Neil Young with guitar
The second is Neil Young. Loving his music to what would be considered by many, as an unhealthy level is only part of the reason Neil has made it into this book. His way of thinking about himself and how his work links to his life really strikes a chord with me ‌.. did you spot it? Anyway, without exception he would follow the musical course, when an inspiration hit him he would leave whatever project he was working on to follow the new course, believing that his inspiration was a gift that could be taken away at any moment. He would never worry about projects getting derailed and used his wilful nature to his advantage to help him move on from projects that failed or indeed succeeded. He advocated not letting his creativity get distracted by success or money and did everything he could to avoid becoming stagnant because of it. Young is a great creative influence of mine, his love was for music and he would never let the corporate touch that. Never letting money get in the way of making the music he wanted to and if I can take any of these traits and apply them to my own illustrative practice I can only see that as beneficial.
Artistic inspirations
I have many artist inspirations, but I usually separate them into two categories: classic artists and masters and contemporary practitioners.
Freud
Fig 6: Woman Portrait
Fig 7: Man in Macintosh
Fig 5: Lucian and Kate Moss Freud believed in working with the subjects of his portraits in front of him. he was very concerned with the process of making a painting and the relationship that builds between an artist and sitter during hundreds of hours of painting. Even David Hockney commented that freud would complete his paintings much faster if he mixed some of the colours before starting, but of course Freud never would. I enjoy Freud’s paintings almost purely from knowing how they were made. With hours of intense and unfiltered obsevation. There is something so true and uncomprimising that comes through in his work. It is a side of my own practice that I want to develop, taking away the filter of a camera lens and working in situ to bring my work closer to the subject. Although Freud was a slightly more questionable character than I would hope to be!
Wyeth One of my favourite masters is Andrew Wyeth, I have boundless respect for both his work and his philosophy. He believed in the power that close study of an object or subject in person has on the Fig 8: Ship artists understanding and how this is then transferred to the drawing or painting. He would do intimate portraits and aimed to capture the deepest essence of the subject whether it was a person or a hillside near his house with the morning light on it. His sketches are often done in preparation for more detailed paintings but capture things in the rawest way and are, I think, more interesting. He was a master at capturing movement and texture making his Fig 9: Wyeth at Olson’s drawings some of the most life-like I have seen. the atmosphere in these sketches is so perfect and he was incredibly well in tune with his surroundings. This understanding and sensitivity makes his l andscapes very believable and makes the old farmhouses and outbuildings charaters in themselves
Fig 10: Wyeth at Kuerner’s
Rogers
Fig 11: Saint Paul’s (Lucinda Rogers) One of my more contemporary inspirations is Lucinda Rogers. Rogers is one of my favourite contemporary illustrators, aside from having draught skills and an unrivalled understanding of form, she has the utmost control over her line weight and uses it almost effortlessly to compose the page and provide areas of focus within her drawings, the devices she uses within her work to build areas of, she works from life, standing on the street, working from corners and doorsteps to create her beautifully observed pieces with a real feeling of place and character. She has done some fantastic reportage projects over the years and has a wonderful way of finding the stories hiding within urban environments. With some of her best known drawings coming from cities like London and New York. She is clearly not afraid to work in crowded environments, an area where I really want to develop my confidence.
Fig 12: Leather Works (Lucinda Rogers) Her Scenes have a human quality that is unmatched by any current illustrator, unlike someone like George Butler who travels to the stories she works at finding the stories on her own doorstep Fig 13: North Eastern Motors (Lucinda Rogers)
Butler
Fig 14: Market Scene (George Butler)
George Butler is a rerlatively young journalistic and reportage illustrator who has used his drawing to travel widely, documenting warzones, refugees, cities and just about anywhere his extensive and adventurous travels have taken him
Despite having a very specific way of working he has a very varied portfolio and seems happy to turn his hand to just about any subject matter as long as it has the human experience at its heart. His confidence in letting his illustration work take him anywhere, sometimes into extremely dangerous locations is something I find very admirable and his work is at the forefront of the drawing as reportage movement that is so exciting at the moment.
Fig 15: Turkey (George Butler)
Fig 16: Chai Tea Man (George Butler) I have great respect for George and his work and I want to push my reportage work to the next level so that I might have the chance to take on similar challenges to him and become part of the group of illustrators pushing drawn reportage back into the public consciousness.
Mistakes
are always Forgivable, If one has the courage to admit them� Bruce Lee
Cited from Brainyquote.com
I made it with my hands This was a great little exhibition to be involved in. It brought together practitioners from many different disciplines from traditional print making and drawing to paper construction and collage and united them under the theme of a celebration of the handmade
It was really interesting get people together who all have a fundemental interest in the handmade, with the industry increasingly governed by digital media and with less emphasis on the traditional crafts of artists it was great to see a group of creatives unite around handmade work. It was also a exhibition that made me see a different side to the drawings that I am making, that they themselves are handmade objects that can be appreiated on thier own, out of context, as works of art with no support from text. something that has informed some of the choices I have made for the presentation of the pieces for my final major project.
Website I have set up a website that is functional but I am improving it all the time, it has a clean, simple look that makes sure focus is on the drawings and not the online platform. As well as a contacts page with links to all of my online platforms it has a home page with my latest work and projects. I will have this changing and updating as I make new work to make it like a slightly more formal blog page, the idea behind this is to keep the website fresh and current and to make me look busy as an illustrator, giving the customer something new to see each time they visit the page and keep interest high. It then has a gallery style archive page for older work and projects in it for customers to browse and to show other aspects of my work. Again I will keep this changing and as new projects are archived older projects will be removed to keep the site from getting cluttered. Another page on the site that I am keen to develop is the online store, allowing customers to buy originals or prints and other items through the website and I plan to develop a small range of gifts to sell. I would like to develop the craft side of my practice through a range of handmade sketchbooks that I will also sell on the website.
Website www.samcarneyillustration.com Blog samcarneyillustration.tumblr.com Facebook www.facebook.com/samcarney
Business I have designs for different kinds of business card as I think it is important to have different business cards to suit different needs. The first set of designs is for a standard style business card for sending out with prints or for general use. The second design is for a folding business card that doubles up as a promotional tool, it has two ends with my name and contact details on it but folded in between the two ends is a sheet with multiple thumbnails or one larger print on it so that a potential client can see a more of what I do without having to access me online. I imagine this design being sent with my promotional mail outs. When it comes to contacting magazines and blogs with my work I can be a little shy but I realise that it can be very rewarding so as I get the business side of my work organised I am starting to feel more proffesional and prepared to contact people with my work for magazine and website features. It is something that I will really focus my attention on in the weeks after hand in to try and get my work out there more and build up some interest around what I’m doing. I think this will be beneficial in many different ways even if the increased interest just gives me a bit of motivation to keep busy with work.
“As you go through life you've got to see the valleys as well as the peaks.� Neil Young
Cited from thrasherswheat.org
,
Moving on
It’s all about that next step now and although I don’t have any solid expectations for how things might happen I do have some plans in place, which should hopefully start things off. I applied for the drawing year at The Prince’s Drawing School, a postgraduate scholarship that would really help me explore the place of drawing within my practice further. Unfortunately I wasn’t accepted for a place on the full year scholarship but I was offered a shorter-term bursary of three months at the school with access to tutors, classes and a studio on London’s Oxford Street, starting in September. I plan on taking full advantage of this opportunity. It will be my first step into the London arts scene a prospect I am really excited about. It will be an amazing chance for me to fully immerse myself in the art culture that London supports and I think it will be a great time for the advancement of my work. I also want to use this time, aside from attending the classes on offer at the school, to produce new work, network with other practitioners to form helpful relationships that could lead to involvement in projects and collaborations and begin to contact potential clients and art directors and buyers. Sending out promotional material and arranging meetings to hopefully start getting some commissions. I will contact different types of potential clients but I want to keep the focus on my love of people and places so I will focus on editorial and journalistic commissions from clients like The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph and even National Heritage. Based on advise from a recent meeting with art buyer Gina Cross I would also send work to food and produce publications, clients like Waitrose, Channel 4 food and other special interest magazines. However I see the most important thing for my continued development as an illustrator is to keep drawing in any capacity and to visit new places one way or another, to keep giving myself new inspiration and new resource material for my work. I want to continue to explore with my drawing through travel and I have some ideas for small projects to take on over the summer months to help with this. My move to London will be one of the biggest adventures of my life so far and I’m sure this will give my journalistic and reportage work an exciting boost. I plan to stay in London for as long as I can afford to in the first instance and would only move away if the finances won’t allow me to stay. I will work a part time job to help with the bills while I build contacts and gain more illustration work but I also have some family who live close by for a bit of support if times get tough.
Competitions
Although I haven’t made a habit of entering competitions whilst on the course I have some competitions that I plan to enter after graduation. The Derwent Art Prize, where the only restriction is that the work must be made with either graphite, charcoal, or water soluble pencils, mediums that I haven’t used fully for a while but I am looking forward to producing some new work for this competition, and the Jerwood Drawing prize which is centred around contemporary drawing practice in the UK, something I am heavily interested in as a practitioner. The deadlines for these competitions are the 9th and 16th of June respectively. I think that these competitions have deadlines in the right place to keep me producing new work after finishing university they will provide two relatively short briefs that I can work to and in the case of the Derwent prize the challenge of using different materials. Another advantage of taking part in competitions like these is the exposure they can provide and the potential for further opportunities and commissions if my entries are successful. Fig 17: Derwent Art Prize Poster (2014)
Signing off Third year has been a very important period in my work, it has been a time when my passion for making work has come back and I feel proud of what I’m making again. I’ve been able to let my practice develop freely within the projects and used the time, especially in the Major Project to refine my working method and drawing skills, whilst trying to identify what about the process is successful and what is not. I have come a lot closer to identifying what it is that makes me want to draw and create and what interests my practice as well as developing the presentational aspects of my work and the level of finish I am able to achieve to a much more proffesional standard. In that respect this year has been crucial for me as an artist and through it I have formed some much clearer ideas of where I want my practice to go in the near future.
I think I have gained more of an insight into where my work fits into the illustration industry and the kinds of commisions and clients I will aim to get work from. I an excited to keep making self initiated work and have some ideas for short projects that will keep testing my practice and keep me busy through the summer months. Moving to London will also give my work a huge push and provide a wealth of new inspiration and drawing opportunities. So all thats left to do is get out there, put all of this to use and I’m thorougly looking forward to taking the years lessons into my proffesional life.
Inspirations page images (working from left to right) Andrew Wyeth Portrait [online image] available from: http://topics.time.com/Andrew-Wyeth [12th May 2014] Barry Sheene [online image] available from: http://zona-rapida.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/barry-sheeneel-hunt-de-las-motos.html [12th May 2014] Ronnie O’Sullivan [online image] available from: http://sportinglife.aol.co.uk/news/article/22893/7485548/o-sullivan-sets-up-maguire-showdown [12th May 2014] Hockney Montage [online image] available from: http://www.andreyavivaldi.com/HSAC_2011/COLLAGE/collage_what_is_collage.html [12th May 2014] John Dory [online image] avaiable from: http://www.emptykingdom.com/featured/dwight-hwang/ [12th May 2014] SLR with film [online image] available from: http://www.slrcameratips.com/2011/11/why-you-shouldswitch-from-film-to-digital/ [12th May 2014] Aerial Engine Diagram [online image] available from: http://motorcycley.com/motorcycle-2/2014/04/ harley-motorcycle-engine-diagram.html/attachment/harley-motorcycle-engine-diagram-100 [12th May 2014] Octopus [online image] avaiable from: http://www.emptykingdom.com/featured/dwight-hwang/ [12th May 2014] Bob Dylan [online image] available from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2499933/Bob-Dylans-homemade-iron-gates-display-Londons-Halcyon-Gallery.html [12th May 2014] Vintage Bike Race [online image] available from: http://fastisfast.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/early-bicycle-race.html [12th May 2014] Lucinda Rogers [online image] available from: http://sandysrow.org.uk/index.php/2012/05/lucindarogers-prints-for-sale/ [12th May 2014] Neil Young On The Beach [online image] available from: http://www.collectorsroom.com.br/2010/10/ historia-de-zuma-um-dos-maiores.html [12th May 2014]
Figure List Figure 1 Bruce Lee fight pose [online image] available from: http://www.wallwides.com/wallpaper/ wp-content/uploads/2013/02/16/8687/Bruce-Lee-Wallpapers-Movie.jpg [12th May 2014] Figure 2 Bruce Lee portrait [online image] available from: http://starspage.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Bruce-Lee-Wallpapers-3.jpg [12th May 2014] Figure 3 Neil Young portrait [online image] available from: http://www.panicposters.com/neil-youngoakland-poster.html [12th May 2014] Figure 4 Neil Young with guitar [online image] available from: http://galleryhip.com/on-the-beach-neilyoung.html [12th May 2014] Figure 5 Lucian and Kate Moss [online image] avaiable from: http://timelightbox.tumblr.com/ post/17209487872/lucian-freud-and-kate-moss-in-bed-2010-a-new [12th May 2014] Figure 6 Woman Portrait [online image] available from: http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/lucian-freud/ ali-1974 [12th May 2014] Figure 7 Man In Macintosh [online image] available from: http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/lucian-freud/man-in-a-mackintosh-1958 [12th May 2014] Figure 8 Ship [online image] available from: http://jperrault.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/my-andrewwyeth-painting.html [12th May 2014] Figure 9 Wyeth at Olson’s [online image] available from: 2http://www.reynoldahouse.org/collections/ object/farm-pond-study-for-tempera-brown-swiss?display=default [12th May 2014] Figure 10 Wyeth at Kuerner’s [online image] available from: http://davidowenartstudio.blogspot. co.uk/2012/12/andrew-wyeth-at-kuerners.html [12th May 2014] Figure 11 Saint Pauls [online image] available from: http://lucindarogers.co.uk/london/The-north-sideof-Saint-Pauls-Cathedral.html [12th May 2014] Figure 12 Leather Works [online image] available from: http://lucindarogers.co.uk/london/Leatherworkers-at-Hyfact-Ltd-Links-Yard.html [12th May 2014] Figure 13 North Easterm Motors [online image] available from: http://lucindarogers.co.uk/london/ Eugene-at-North-Eastern-Motors.html [12th May 2014] Figure 14 Market Scene [online image] available from: http://www.georgebutler.org/library [12th May 2014] Figure 15 Turkey [online image] available from: http://www.georgebutler.org/sketchbook [12th May 2014] Figure 16 Chai Tea Man [online image] available from: http://www.georgebutler.org/library [12th May 2014] Figure 17 Art Prize Poster [online image] available from: http://illustrationcardiff.wordpress. com/2013/04/12/derwent-art-prize-2013-call-for-entries/ [12th May 2014]
Bibliography Andrew Wyeth. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. available from: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ quotes/a/andrewwyet408622.html [May 12, 2014] Bruce Lee. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. available from: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ quotes/b/brucelee383809.html [May 12, 2014] Charles Bukowski. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. available from: http://www.brainyquote.com/ quotes/quotes/c/charlesbuk386416.html [May 12, 2014] Ray Bradbury. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. available from: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ quotes/r/raybradbur400604.html [May 12, 2014] Thrasherswheat (1996) (n.d.) [online] available from: http://thrasherswheat.org/ptma.htm [May 12, 2014] War God Sports (Feburary 26, 2014) Bruce Lee The Lost Interview - Best Bruce Lee interview on the Pierre Burton Show available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI2lskWpZEQ [12th May 2014]