About me Before I came to UK, it does not exist such an illustration course in any art colleges and universities in my home country. In similar art colleges in China, people learning Chinese traditional painting, oil painting, mural, calligraphy, and other visual majors which are in a extraordinary traditional culture forms of art. In comparison, Illustration is an exotic art form with a special young history landed China in the near past. In my 3 years study at Arts University Bournemouth, I have suffered different language teaching and culture, hard lessons, distraught homesickness. Now I can say, the 3 years learning experiences in AUB will become the most precious memories in my student life, I am proud of studied in here. It changed my opinions and ideas of art, and also inspired me to found new learning method. It helped me formed good habit, even changed my lifestyle. It told me to be more creative.
Experience In my early drawing experience, I thought a good drawing must have smooth lines, appropriate use of colour and accurate composition. I used these basic principles that I thought of to measure the quality of a drawing work, and I soon came to understand that this kind of seriously attitude made me lose the joy of drawing. Through a lot of reading and practice, as well as the theoretical study and learning of contemporary art, I came to understand that drawing could be simple but strong, free but rhythmically, substandard but follows emotions. I started to try new ways to drawing things. I used to draw line sketches by pencil for the first steps of my illustrations, erase the excrescent and incorrect part of the drawing, then continue modify and erase, repeat like this again and again. I think this is because I was not confident of myself and I cared too much of the skills of drawing but lost the joy of process. This made me waste a lot of time. After that I was trying to use brush pens to make random works with beautiful colours, brush pens make people keep doing their work and can not going back, this changed my habit of drawing effectively, I began to enjoy different ways of using brush pens and different meterials to create lines, shapes and shadows, it makes me incomparable excited just like discovered the new world.
Process & Solve problems At the beginning of this year for my negotiated practice, I decided to use watercolour drawings to describe a story about two girls and their imagination world. I used watercolour pencils and ink to create the girls’ portrait, the magical creatures and the diverse environments. I was so enjoyed of outlining the details of the girls‘ hair, skin, lips and hands, I drew them on A2 size papers to make it look great and beautiful. But soon I got feedback in the later assessment from Joel and Lisa, they told me my works look colourful and pretty, but people can not see anything happened in my illustrations, there was no narrative in my illustrations. I thought this is a big problem, because I suddenly understood my audience do not understand what am I drawing, that means my illustrations make no sense. This made me questioned myself for a really long time, I began to doubt myself of been an illustrator. I pushed myself to think about why people feel confused when they looking at my works. Lise told me that my biggest problem is that I always hiding my work and been shy to share ideas. This made me decide to change. Her words reminds me every tutorial we had with different tutor from level 4 to level 6, we got feedback and comments from tutors and group mates, we met new people and we saw others’ works, such education system helped us a lot to learn and improve ourselves, and continuous thinking.
Inspiration
When I turned to my major project, I decided to make some changes. I chose darwing with watercolour to express my ideas and stories. I did not just want to draw beautiful images but wanted to be a story telling illustrator. I want narrative in my illustrations, and want my works to be attractive. I chose my Egypt travel to be the theme of my major project, and I drew the stories and scenery I have been through. I love travel, and I interested in different culture, I think I made the right choice because it gives me the motive power to complete the things I wanted to do. I hope to show a real Egypt in my illustration work and this made my major project has content and narrative. I used strong colours to build an Egyptian world, which is a mixed of modern and historic, humanistic culture and war’s world. I saw their barren desert but small markets and stalls on the street 24 hours; I saw their poor people everywhere but the rich ones covered gold on their doors. I saw Arabic people in Cairo but a captain on the Nile told me the real Egyptians got green and amber eyes. I wanted to draw all things and stories I knew about Egypt. When we had tutorials with Joel and Lisa again, they questioned me about the format and outcome. It made me wake up from keep drawing different forms of illustration works. They told me it is time to think about the final outcome and the format. I was really thankful for every tutorial I had with different tutors, they always point me the important things I have missed when I was doing my work.
Website & Online portfolio
I created a personal website, put the works I liked on it, then send the links to my friends and relatives. I got different feedback from them in a short time. I think this helped me a lot because I received different point of view about the website and my work, especially those very detailed comments which told me every small audiences’ preferences, even in the style of calligraphy on the website. Communicate with different people encouraged me a lot, it helped me to know how important discussion is, It also let me know the market demand for illustration in the same time.
IT support The IT classes in AUB which we had with Ed in our second year is very useful when people want to edit their illustrations to a more professional level. I used photoshop to modify small mistakes I had in my illustrations, and trying to work them into a same format. Linda.com also helped me solved some technical problems. I used to believe that real arts are created by hands, they are manual, hand-painted, and natural. But I soon recognised new computer technology and software helped artist complete their works in a more effective and convenient way, it saved time and made things have more possibilities.
David Meng (Chronicles of Narnia, District 9) says the only thing more important than pen and paper is Photoshop: I don’t like to think that any tool kit is needed for concept art beyond a pencil and a pad of paper, but you are definitely at a disadvantage if you don’t use some form of digital imaging software. If everyone else is doing full color digital work (and they are), then black and white sketches can be like bringing a sword to a gun fight. At that point, programs such as Photoshop or Painter are the kind of things needed to produce color work fast enough to meet the demands of modern filmmaking. Manser adds, “Photoshop is the one necessary program for digital concept art. A second hand computer will run it pretty well to get you started.”
To be narrative, To be a
story-telling illustrator
Career & plan for future
I did some business card design and print them out, when I hold my cards I feel that I become more professional than any times before.
I love to draw travel illustrations, I think that is because in my opinion, with the developemt of society, lauge numbers of tedious works added into peopel’s everyday life, they got extremely easy to feel tired and disappointed. In such a case, travel beca,e a highly beneficial way to help people get relaxation and gave people the opportunity to disconnect from their regular life. The new experiences increased people’s knowledge and widen their perspective. I always enjoy to draw the scenery I have been through, the really novelty but normal things, they recorded my own experiences and shows my speicial way when I thought about it. I hope to be an illustrator who particularly focus on travel and culture illustration drawings, to show people different customs and worlds. I would like to work for geography magazines and travel magazine, and many other life style related industries. I would like to have my works edited for product packaging design and many other life style related events and shows, like drawing post or magazines for travel agency or airport/airlines, or for tourism introduction. I belive this could encourage me work more hard if my works can help more people to know a new world and a new life style.
I enjoyed all the lectures we joined through the 3 years in AUB, guests told us their childhood, their dreams, their study life and their career success. They talked about their inspiration and special study ways. For me, this is a way to know the artists’ real thoughts, and also a method to build my own knowledge and realisation for art itself. From join different lectures I understand good artists know how to present their works in a professional way. I knew I was deficient in giving a speech, that is not because I knew nothing about my project but because I am afraid of making mistakes when I was an non-native speaker. I need more presentation practice and confidence training. I am grateful to the university for giving me the chance to study here. 3 years student life made me a completely different person.
Relative links: Xueyun.co.uk Email: apricot56989558@163.com