(End of Year Evaluation) Reflective Practice Presentation – Part 2

In part one of this post I had reflected on my performance in my reflective practice presentation, it wasn’t really the best experience, but you can click here if you would like to read more about it. In this post, I will be going through each of my slides along with the script I made, but I have added more detail as I am able to go into more depth on my blog, but in the presentation, I did have a time limit so the initial script was more brief. If you have read my previous post then you will know how well the script and time limit worked for me.

For this final year I had set myself goals that I wanted to achieve.

I created two learning plans for both semesters, the reason for this is that with semester one I had more of a plan than I did with semester 2, for instance I knew which competitions I would be doing and had a better idea of when they would be released.

Starting with learning plan one. I wanted more experience and confidence with traditional mediums, as I have tended to work more digitally in the past.

Another goal was to work with more narrative based projects, creating book covers or illustrating stories, as this is an area my portfolio that was lacking, and I wanted to expand.

If you would like to read more about my learning plan for semester one, you can click here.

In the first project, Inktober, I had created an inked illustration every day for the month of October.

I used fine liners for the line work and then with a brush and water, I bled the ink which allowed me to create tone and shadows within my characters.

I chose to illustrate flower girls as this was imagery I was confident with, and a theme which I believed would last me the full month.

Other than viewing previous art for Inktober, there was not a lot of research needed for this project, but I had used reference images of women and flowers to help inform my designs.

By the end of this project I did feel a lot more confident with the medium. There were a few times where the ink may have bled or faces/features may have been drawn wrong, but I was able to fix these errors digitally and I was able to create a zine of the 31 illustrations which I have sold since. If you would like to purchase a zine you can have a look at my store at: www.melon-r.com/shop-1

Moving onto the next project: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I wanted to experiment with multiple printing techniques to give me more experience for potential output methods that I could use in the future. I also wanted to work with more narrative, following the goals set within my learning plan.

For research, I quoted directly from the book so that I could create accurate depictions of the story, rather than creating illustrations from the imagery I already knew. Initially, I was inspired by Sir John Tenniel and his intricate line work but had later found Pauline Baynes, who was the original illustrator of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, had worked in a similar style, but she had incorporated colour into her designs which I did not want to do with my own design so I felt my designs would still be different from illustrations already created for the story.

When I first started this project, I felt I had started strong, using the wardrobe imagery to test out each of the printing methods, I.e. screen-printing, etching, using a laser cut plate and lino printing.

With the inclusion of more projects, however, I do feel I lost momentum and felt like I rushed the pieces to the right in the last couple of weeks/days.

Given more time I would’ve refined the last pieces by creating them in illustrator, drawing the line work by hand then using the laser cut method to print them, as I had felt this was the best and cleanest methods from my wardrobe print tests. I believe the addition of illustrator would have made the pieces more proportional, fixing the errors within the symmetry and potentially making the linework straighter and cleaner.

My next project was the House of Illustrations Book Illustration Competition. I had to create a set of 3 illustrations and a book cover for howls moving castle. Again this was narrative based brief, so it fit within the goals of my first learning plan. The only research that I had done for this project was just reading the book so that I again, could create an accurate depiction of the story, as opposed to working with content I may have already seen, for instance with Studio Ghibli’s adaptation of the book. (If you want to know my opinion of the original book and the movie adaptation, also listing the differences between the two, you can read about that here.)

Not researching other artists and styles may have been my downfall during this project as I did struggle when creating the pieces as I didn’t have a strong concept of the styles I wanted to use. I did, however, enjoy my choice of colour palette, as it is easy on the eyes and translates the themes of the book well, showing the magical essence without it being too being direct. The palace piece is my favourite, as I love the symmetry and perspective and it is how I had envisioned the king’s palace within the book. I have been able to translate my thoughts onto the page.

For the next project which was also a competition, this time for the Penguin Student Design Awards, I created 2 book covers for 2 separate categories; the adult’s fiction which was Norwegian Wood and the children’s book was Wonder.

For research I looked at entries from previous years, looking for common trends that I could potentially apply to my own work. I had noticed that a lot of the covers were minimal, and some had a noise effect applied, this had led me to think of artists such as Maggie Chiang and Alice Monvaillier as I believed their styles would work well among the other entries, so would be a good source of inspiration for myself during this project.

Again, I had read both of the books as research. This allowed me to get a better understanding of the stories so that I could know the type of content I would be creating for the covers, especially considering both books have completely different themes and audiences.

These are the two covers I created. I did complete them within a short amount of time, but I don’t feel as if they look rushed and I feel like these are a lot different from my usual style, as they are minimalistic within the colour pallets and imagery, which are styles/palettes that I have tried to dip into but have not fully achieved until these two creations.

I had struggled a lot with the text and titles, being able to make them readable against the illustrations. In the future, I will consider the type a lot further in advance so that I can work my illustrations around the text, instead of just trying to work the text around the images as I had in this project.

My weaknesses from the first semester were definitely to do with my time keeping and having too many projects in general which ended up overlapping, causing me confusion and stress.

From the first learning plan, I did achieve the goals I had set, working more traditionally and creating more narrative based pieces, so in the next learning plan my goal was to still try working more traditionally, this time using pencils, but I also wanted to create more thought-provoking pieces, that could potentially lean more towards the area of editorial.

I also wanted to use the last semester to focus on my branding, this would mean making a website, business cards, promo packs, merch etc. So that I had a base that I could grow from once I’ve finished the course.

From this point onwards, I vowed to not overlap any more projects, focusing on just one at a time. With the time plan I created for semester two, I was going to work more loosely with it, not having anything set in stone as at that time I still didn’t know when the competitions would be announced.

These are unplanned side projects which I ended up spending more time on than I necessarily had.

The first on the left was a commission piece for my friend.

The second was a ‘draw this in your style’ challenge in which I had to recreate an artist’s drawing in my own style, the piece here being a recreation of Chelsea Gracei’s work.

Then the final pieces on the right were a collection I created for ‘A Canny Collective’ which was a local exhibition that I was asked to be a guest artist for.

Although I had spent longer on these pieces than I should have, I do feel like I gained a lot of experience from them, especially with the exhibition pieces, as there was a whole process of creating the pieces and setting them up within the space, but I also worked on the stall on the opening night, so I was able to gain more experience of selling my own and others work one to one, which is something I do believe I will do again in the future. All of these pieces will also go towards my portfolio, hopefully allowing me to show more range of style, techniques and skill within it.

My goal with this specific project was to create a more thought-provoking illustration, which links back to the goals I set in my second learning plan.

For the Northern Illustration Awards, a competition by the AOI, the brief was ‘monkey.’ When searching Pinterest for inspiration I came across the image on the left, and in the corner saw an orangutan which had been created in a looser style which helped suggest the animal’s fur. I wanted to work in a similar style to create my own monkey, but I did want to use a stronger theme. Thinking of Orangutans, it had reminded me of the banned Iceland advert, in which it discusses the destruction of rainforests (the orangutan’s habitats) for palm oil.

Within this piece, I wanted to show a role reversal between humans and the orangutans, they being the ones that are destroying our homes with such carelessness instead.

I enjoyed working on this piece as it was more experimental and I was able to work more loosely. I was able to play around with different brushes, (in the end, I had used a gouache brush for the fur and a ‘scratchy pen’ for the linework, both from Kyle T. Webster brush packs) and these, in turn, allowed me to build up my own impression of fur, which helped give a sense of realism but the style was still loose and quite painterly for digital art.

I designed this piece to fit within a white page, so it is more minimal in that sense, but this factor could potentially make it more editorial as I could imagine it fitting within a magazine as an illustration for an article.

With this illustration, I had recorded the process and created my first ever YouTube video which was a speed paint of this piece. I do want to carry on uploading more speed paint process videos, potentially giving more information in the form of a voice-over, but one day I do want to live stream as well as/opposed to recording, as I believe I would prefer to talk live to an audience, having an active conversation as I go, rather than feeling like I am talking to myself in a voice over.

The next project was the Wizard of Oz, my goal with this project was to work more traditionally using pencil and then colouring the pieces digitally as I believed it would give me a better choice in colour palette. With this project, I did want to work with a more fun and vibrant colour palette than I may have used before, as I wanted my pieces to suit the colour themes suggested within the story, such as ‘Emerald City’ and the ‘yellow brick road’.

The idea for the mediums and techniques were initially inspired by Tina Nass, but as my project developed and I moved to a more realistic style within the project, I tended to take more inspiration from an artist named Chantal Hores as she still works with the same mediums and techniques as Tina Nass, however her style is more realistic, especially with her characters.

Again, my research had come directly from the book, finding quotes that would allow me to create an accurate depictions as possible, but in this project I did find it more useful as the movie adaptations were not completely true to the descriptions within the book, for instance, the famous ruby red slippers were actually silver in the story.

These pieces have come a long way from the start, as I had originally sketched them out in a layout that looked flat and boring, I later repositioned and redrew the pieces using my own reference photos, as well as reference images online (more so for the animals) which allowed me to create more organic and dynamic viewpoints within my illustrations.

I’m extremely proud of the outcomes as there is a strong narrative throughout, one that I wouldn’t have thought that I would have been able to achieve at the beginning of the year. I love the colours as they are vibrant and express the themes of Oz. I did try to stay away from the known imagery when working on these pieces, and I do believe I’ve created my own unique interpretations of the story.

I loved the style of work and mediums that I had used and I hope to use them again more often in the future. If I find myself in a spot again where I feel my composition or layout of a piece is a bit boring, I will try to take my own reference images again, exploring different viewpoints and angles etc, so that I can potentially create more dynamic illustrations which are less boring and flat in the future.

Branding has a lot of components within it, for instance I needed to create business cards, a website, a portfolio, creative CV and products and all of these would go into a promo pack which would be sent off to potential clients and or agencies.

As far as research goes, I initially started the process of creating my business cards within semester one, so that they could be sent off with my zines. I was inspired by an artist named Isadora Zererino as on her cards she has an illustration on the front and her information on the back, they are also portrait, which is something that I hadn’t seen very often and this is how I wanted my own to be laid out.

When creating websites, I was researching as I was going, looking at how other artists laid their work out, what their buttons were, how they ordered them, and how they described themselves in their about pages etc. For this, I had used Sophie McPike and Nicole Nicholson’s (who is a student in my class and made her site first) websites as inspiration. I also took information from a talk we had with someone from AOI who had explained that a client will make their impression of you within the first couple of seconds of looking at your website, so it’s good to have 6-9 pieces on display on the front page.

On this slide, to the left, I have shown my current business card with my website included which wasn’t present in semester one.

A mini-portfolio, which is actually a paper fortune teller. I felt this would be an interesting piece for someone to receive in my promo pack as it is a unique way for them to view mini clips of my work. On the back, I did provide links so that the receiver would be able to look at my portfolio more in depth, seeing the pieces that I have cropped down for this mini-portfolio in more detail.

The two pieces on the right side are merchandise ideas. On the top is a sketch of a potential pin. I want to create these in wood using the laser cutter in the workshop as ordering enamel pins is not in my budget or audience range at this moment in time. Maybe in the future, if I do build more of an audience, I could have a pre-order or made-to-buy system which would allow me to make a profit and would ensure that none would go to waste.

The second image on the right is going to be a sticker, potentially a little print.

These are pages from my website. I still have work that needs to be added to the portfolio but I will want them to fit within a layout that is organised by colour or theme, which I believe will make the website more aesthetically pleasing to the eye, so I can potentially catch a client’s attention within the first couple of seconds, as the member of AOI had suggested. The website also has a shop which I do plan to work from in the future.

Going into the future, I have applied for a teaching course within the college that will start in September. Before teaching properly, I do wish to have more experience in the industry so that I can teach from my knowledge and experience that I may have gained.

With my portfolio, I plan to visit the AOI to get a review and more information about which direction it should go, if I need to take anything out, if I need to add anything more and so on.

I will also be applying to agencies hoping to get more freelance based work.

I will be continuing to create products and selling them through my website.

I will still try to keep an eye out for competitions.

I will also continue creating YouTube videos, ones that are more in-depth with voiceovers added. I also want to live stream more, having a more relaxed experience, potentially talking one to one with my audience as I create my work.

Overall my goal for the next 5 years is to be a freelance illustrator, working with clients and potentially have an agent. I will also be creating and selling my own work on the side, as well as hopefully teaching level 3 students within a college.

Following on with more self-reflection, I created a couple of diagrams within the space of the year that are up on my blog. This one is an input and output diagram, it describes the skills, knowledge and experience that goes into my work and what is output from it, being anything to do with business, freelance work, self-development and live briefs.

If you would like to read more about my Input-Output diagram, click here.

This next diagram is my reflective cycle, it shows my process of planning a project, the research that goes into it, my action plan, the actual practical work and the experience from said practical work. This then carries on and the cycle starts again.

The explanations of both of these diagrams are on my blog, as I wanted to have an easier explanation for someone who may not understand these types of reflective practices, but may want to understand my process of working, thinking etc.

If you would like to read more about my Reflective Cycle, click here.

20:

This is my bibliography. Thanks for your time do you have any questions?

Although this was more directed at my presentation if you do have any questions feel free to comment and I will try to answer as best as I can!

List of Illustrations

These are all jpeg images of the slides from my Reflective Practice Presentation. Within the slides, I have cited the images that were not mine, so if an image does not have a caption, it is my own work.

Figure 1.Amazon (1994). The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: C. S. Lewis. [image] Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Lion-Witch-Wardrobe-Chronicles-Narnia/dp/0064404994/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1ZYCJ0GH8FLC2&keywords=the+lion+the+witch+and+the+wardrobe&qid=1556748222&s=books&sprefix=the+lion+%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C236&sr=1-1 [Accessed 1 May 2019].

Figure 2.Baynes, P. (1950). Narnia Lamppost. [image] Available at: https://www.paulinebaynes.com/?what=artifacts&image_id=532&cat=69 [Accessed 1 May 2019].

Figure 3.Tenniel, J. (1865). White Rabbit checks his Watch. [image] Available at: https://medium.com/alice-s-adventures-in-wonderland/sir-john-tenniel-s-classic-illustrations-of-alice-in-wonderland-2c3bbdca3a77 [Accessed 1 May 2019].

Figure 4.Amazon (2008). Howls Moving Castle: Diana Wynne Jones. [image] Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Howls-Moving-Castle-Diana-Wynne/dp/0061478784/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1U66801S7NAFP&keywords=howls+moving+castle&qid=1556747151&s=books&sprefix=howls%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C219&sr=1-1 [Accessed 1 May 2019].

Figure 5.Chiang, M. (2018). Reflections. [image] Available at: http://www.hellomaggiec.com/2018/3vwq57poq1ezpl0a78wkarcwx3qiae [Accessed 1 May 2019].

Figure 6.Monvaillier, A. (2018). Bouh. [image] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BhdoARQD1jA/ [Accessed 1 May 2019].

Figure 7.Amazon (2012). Wonder: R. J. Palacio. [image] Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-R-J-Palacio/dp/0375869026 [Accessed 1 May 2019].

Figure 8.Amazon (2013). Norwegian Wood: Haruki Murakami. [image] Available at: https://www.amazon.com/Norwegian-Wood-Tokyo-Blues-Italian/dp/8806216465/ref=sr_1_12?crid=IINWGD0DLUSW&keywords=norwegian+wood&qid=1556746704&s=books&sprefix=norwe%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C259&sr=1-12 [Accessed 1 May 2019].

Figure 9.Kidd, E. (2018). Monkey Business – Trending Characters. [Blog] Emily Kiddy. Available at: http://frame.bloglovin.com/?post=6540277057&blog=3758402&group=0&frame=1&frame_type=none&avpp=true&context=&context_ids=&feed_order=&click=0&user=0 [Accessed 1 May 2019].

Figure 10.Iceland Foods (2018). Iceland’s Banned TV Christmas Advert… Say hello to Rang-tan. #NoPalmOilChristmas. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdpspllWI2o [Accessed 1 May 2019].

Figure 11.Nass, T. (2017). [image] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BcFQm-hHS6I/ [Accessed 2 May 2019].

Figure 12.Nass, T. (2017). [image] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BcFQm-hHS6I/ [Accessed 2 May 2019].

Figure 13.Horeis, C. (2019). [image] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BuG3ws5F53Y/ [Accessed 2 May 2019].

Figure 14.Horeis, C. (2019). [image] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BuG3ws5F53Y/ [Accessed 2 May 2019].

Figure 15.Amazon (2015). The Wizard of Oz: L. Frank Baum. [image] Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wizard-Oz-L-Frank-Baum/dp/1604335424/ref=sr_1_14?keywords=wizard+of+oz+book&qid=1557071553&s=gateway&sr=8-14 [Accessed 2 May 2019].

Figure 16.Zeferino, I. (2019). Business Cards. [image] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BqSkrJllskE/ [Accessed 2 May 2019].

Figure 17.Zeferino, I. (2019). Business Cards. [image] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BqSkrJllskE/ [Accessed 2 May 2019].

Figure 18.McPike, S. (2019). Work — Thistle Be Nice. [online] Thistle Be Nice. Available at: http://www.sophiemcpike.com/mywork [Accessed 2 May 2019].

Figure 19.Nicholson, N. (2019). WITCHITA. [online] Witchita Illustration. Available at: https://witchitaillustrations.com/ [Accessed 2 May 2019].

We need to talk..

Ok, so since the end of Semester one I feel I have been slacking on my blog and not posting as regularly as I had. I believe this is because after the last hand in, I was so stressed that I felt I needed a bit of a break, one that I didn’t necessarily have the time for but kind of took anyway.

In the first couple of weeks I did create two pieces of work, one which was a commission (I believe I mentioned that I would be working on this in a previous blog post, ‘Evolution of the Cat’ click here to read) then the second piece I had worked on was for a ‘draw this in your style’ challenge on Instagram which you can also read about by clicking here. So technically I had been working, but not on the projects that I was supposed to be concentrating on, such as the live briefs and personal projects I had planned, like illustrating The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, focusing on branding (creating a website, portfolio, promo packs, merch and products, etc). brow2

At the start of the year I was also given the chance to have my work in a local exhibition ran by ‘A Canny Collective‘ which I felt was a great opportunity as I gained a lot of experience from both creating illustrations and setting them up for the show, then on the opening night I was working on the shop, so I also gained the experience of selling work in a more personal setting, selling one to one with the buyer as opposed to over a website. If you would like to read more about this exhibition, what I created and how the night went, I have made a blog post about it so again, please click here if you want to know more.

View this post on Instagram

We still open until friday for anyone who didnt get to see the space on Monday! Merch will stay open as well 👏🏻💫 No more beer but we replaced that with some discounted items!

A post shared by A Canny Collective (@acannycollective) on Feb 13, 2019 at 5:02pm PST

SO, now with the work that I’m actually supposed to be working on. I have currently been creating illustrations for the Wizard of Oz but throughout I have been struggling with the styles and techniques that I’ve wanted to use. I did initially create 5 basic sketches which at the time I did see some flaws, but with the pressure of time, I got lazy and just ignored them and thought I was ready for the next stages and that maybe the flaws would get better once I coloured the pieces and added more textures. After a well-needed discussion with my tutor, he knocked some sense into me and I knew that I had to stop being lazy and make the changes that I was choosing to ignore.

From this discussion, I started taking photos of me and my boyfriend to use as reference for the characters and I started using more images of animals and floral elements where needed. It’s fair to say that my sketchbook became a lot fuller as I was sketching different poses, angles and options for each illustration (I think this will be the first sketchbook in a while that I’m actually proud of, as I more recently I have just been going straight into digital work as opposed to sketching traditionally first). Once I was happy with the sketches, I started to create new layouts for each of the illustrations, keeping in mind my talk with David and how I should think about the narrative of the piece when trying to compose specific characters or elements.

After the thumbnail layouts were down, I started sketching the pieces digitally once again and the reference photos I had taken did come in very handy during this process. I then printed the pieces off, showed them to David, mostly for reassurance before I took them any further, he did make some suggestions, for instance with the Tin Woodsman piece, he suggested that I reframe it so that it would be more of a closeup shot, which I do feel helped convey more action between the characters as the previous layout did seem quite open now looking back, which may have looked more calm than what I was intending.

Once I made the adjustments suggested I went to the light box and started transferring the sketch to paper and once lined I’d add in the textures. For this process I used pencil, I started with a 4H for both the lining and the textures, then when I needed darker areas I used a 5B. After testing multiple pencils in my sketchbook, I mostly liked the H’s as they gave more of the texture I wanted, whereas the B’s were more soft so they gave more of a smooth texture.

After I had completed the traditional part of this project, for now, we shall see if I need to go back and do anything else, I scanned in each illustration, set it within the document size that I wanted and now they are ready to colour.

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56174874_642913016143135_6790527549072998400_n

56472531_2346865525547743_7825667259283537920_n

56487410_390402731799532_1058084447707987968_n

56702331_436409510464418_6321873542505824256_n

This is the point I’m currently at, but during the colouring phase, I do want to record the process as I feel it may be satisfying to watch and I do want to start posting speed painting videos online, potentially streaming the process online as well through twitch.

The main elements of my to-do list at this moment in time is to:

Complete my Wizard of Oz illustrations
Start working on AOI’s Northern Illustration competition (more on that coming soon in a separate blog post)
Create an illustration or sequential piece for Cheltenham illustration awards (I will go into more depth and make a blog post about this too)
Focus on self-branding, this leads on to the next point which is..
Creating a portfolio book. I still have the pages from the one I made last year, so in the new one I will just be adding my more recent work, but I definitely want to change my old cover, hence how this links to the previous point as I need to focus on what my brand is and how best to communicate that through a cover.
Creating a website. I hope that I will be able to show my portfolio and have a working shop on the site.
Making work for the final show. I don’t necessarily know what I want to create for this yet or if I’m just going to use work from one of my current projects, but once I get a better idea of the space, how/if we’re framing our work, I may have more inspiration as to what I can create.
The last on this list is merchandise. For the final show, I did want to make new products that I could potentially sell on the night, whether this is new prints, T-shirt’s, enamel pins, badges etc. The reason this is last however is that I feel it should be my last priority as the work above has more consequences if I don’t manage to complete them.

Bibliography

A Canny Collective. (2019) [Online] Available from: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt19GO7lEG5/ [Accessed on 03 April. 2019]

All other work is my own unless stated otherwise.

Input-Output – Illustrated Diagram

As a task, the class was asked to reflect on themselves and their workflow, thinking in terms of an input and output system. We had to think of what goes into our work, i.e skills, research, experience etc. And then think about what all these elements allow me to create within my work, so this relates to my business, creating a product, selling that product, branding, socialising, promoting myself and so on.

Once we had thought about this, we then had to create a diagram. As of the Illustration we were to think about imagery that worked in a similar way, meaning that it would have an input and output system. When I got told about this theory, my first thought was of Cat in the Hat, how they had the ‘KUPKAKE-INATOR!’ in which you could make cupcakes out of anything!

“Anything?”

“Yes anything!”

“Anyythiing?”

“I’ll get you and it’ll look like a bloody accident!”

(Cat in the Hat, 2003)

So, in my head, I imagined the input going all into a machine, then the output becomes the amazing cupcakes in the process.

This idea had developed through the drawing phase, but the concept was still the same, the ingredients are all the elements in which go into my input, then the final cake is my output, each layer dedicated to a specific area in which my workflow leads to.

input inge=red outputsoven output

For the input, the main influences within my work process I believe come from my skills, knowledge and experience. Each of these elements can link back to one another, like how my knowledge can grow from the experience, more experience can help improve on skills, etc. From each of these elements, however, I have expanded on them, showing more detail of what factors go into my work.

With the output, I have categorised things that are produced from my work, and have separated them into layers of cake, the bottom is my small business that I wish to expand on, which includes all of the elements that would go into that, such as branding, selling, packaging, promoting myself, and actually creating the product I would sell. The next is based on freelancing, which I would associate more as a commercial side of my work, as I would be working more one to one with a client/brief. The third layer is based on a global context, i.e. where I could potentially show/sell my work, but it would also mean connecting more with other artists and businesses on more of a global scale. This could be done either through social media or travelling around the world to events like pictoplasma, or even going to conventions like Designer Con, which a few of the artists I follow attended last year. The final layer is Self Development, as I do always try to improve on my work with every piece, whether its trying new techniques, playing around with colour pallets, or experimenting with current trends. I have actually tried to do that with this diagram, as I believe the colour halftone effect is quite popular at this moment in time due to the release of ‘Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse’, so have tried to incorporate the pattern within the shading.

Bibliography

Cat in the Hat. (2003). [film] Directed by B. Welch. Universal Pictures.

Learning Plan: Semester Two

Overall Objective:

Since the last learning plan I created back at the beginning of semester 1, I believe I did achieve some of my goals within that time and have made improvements within my work. My main goal with this year is still to keep on improving, but within semester one I was able to gain more confidence with traditional mediums and printing techniques, I did this through my inktober challenge and the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe project. I was also able to achieve my goal of creating more narrative based illustrations, as again, I had created chapter illustrations for the story of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I made two book covers for the Penguin Student Design Awards, these were based on Wonder (the children’s book category) and Norwegian Wood (for the adults fiction category) and finally, I did make a set of 3 illustrations for House of Illustrations Book Illustration Competition, which were based on the book Howls Moving Castle, which I had also made a cover for.

In my previous learning plan, click here to read, I had mentioned that I would like to potentially create more editorial pieces, so as I could not do this during the first semester, I would like to try create something along those lines this time. I wouldn’t necessarily be illustrating an article, but I would like to create a piece with a deeper meaning, possibly more thought-provoking as this is not an area that I have really ventured in as of yet, but by doing so I may be able to show themes or communicate current topics that I feel strongly about through my work, potentially allowing the audience to get to know me better.

As I had worked on the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe project during semester one instead of the Wizard of Oz one as I had initially planned (I swapped the two around as I felt the LWW project would be better suited to the module as it was going to be more experimental testing out the multiple printing techniques) this semester I will be working on the Wizard of Oz series, and I still wish to work somewhat in the style of Tina Nass, who I had mentioned in a previous blog post which you can read here. This means again I will be working with more traditional mediums, this time pencil, which hopefully I will gain more confidence with.

In my original proposal for the year, I had planned to work on branding throughout the year, and although I did redesign my business cards, created a depop and did sell two inktober zines along with a couple of prints, there is still a lot more that I want to create before finishing college later this year. This includes: creating a website, (including my portfolio and possibly a shop) creating more products, i.e. prints, t-shirts, pins, bags, stickers and so on. Then working on a promo pack which I can send to possible clients/agencies, I believe this will include a creative cv, business card, a print, stickers, a pin and then I want to create a sort of box that will contain all of these elements.

I did have a better experience with screenprinting so I believe this will be the main method used to create my products especially for the fabric based items like the t-shirts and tote bags, for the prints, however, I may use the risograph. In the past when I have created riso prints, I have really enjoyed how the textures and colours turned out, especially since I used a bright pink combined with a deep blue, so when making my prints I may stick with this form of output as when imagining all of my prints together (old and new) there will be a sense of uniform, right now I’m not sure if that is a good or bad thing though but I will give it more thought closer to the time.

Strengths and Weaknesses:

From the last module, my biggest issue was that my projects ended up overlapping one another, which ended up making me more confused and more stressed towards the end of semester two. I believe this was because I was reading the books one straight after the other, so when I should have been focusing on just one project I would be reading a book for another and feeling like I should be taking notes and creating work for that specific story. So this may not be as much of a problem within semester two if I am not working with as many books, but I will still try my best to remain organised and on top of things, and just focus on one project at a time.

I believe my strengths last semester were my book covers for the Penguin competition, I was able to create them within a short space of time and do feel they are of an industry standard. What I underestimated when starting and initially planning this year was the time frame of the projects. I had thought that since the personal projects were of my own doing that they could be done quicker, however, I had found that they were actually the lengthier projects. Since the commercial ones did have set deadlines I believe I had more incentive to finish them, but with the personal ones, as I did not have a set deadline for myself, I believe there was more time and room for doubt and I always felt I could add more or make changes and so on, but that took time and time which I did not have. Saying this, however, I believe the most improvements came from the personal projects as I did become more confident working traditional, specifically with ink, lining my designs with fine liners then bleeding the ink out with water as to create tone within my work. I also gained more experience and knowledge with certain printing methods, I learnt what worked well and what did not, i.e laser cutting plates as one had not worked as well as the other, as the ink had bled into the sections that were supposed to be left white. This project also renewed my faith in screenprinting, you can read about it here, so it does encourage me to use it more as an output method in the future.

Professional Development Plan:

Within the next few months, I do want to create more commercial work, exploring more areas of illustration such as editorial, so that I can expand my portfolio and potentially gain experience from doing so. I will attempt to do this through competitions and live briefs, the only one I am currently aware of and interested in is the Cheltenham Illustration Awards, which I have created work for in the past, but I hope to find more competitions as the module goes on, as some may not have been announced yet and may come out later in the year. If this is the case then I may have to make quick turnarounds so that the potential addition of another project won’t clash with the ones I already have set in place.

As of my personal projects, my goal is to create a series of illustrations based on the story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, so with this project I will gain more experience showing narrative within my work, (in a different sense to how I worked in the previous module, for instance, I want to show the characters continuously from one piece to another, whereas in the previous projects I just drew backgrounds, items or a created a slight suggestion of a character) but in this project I also want to try working more traditionally, using pencil to create the linework and textures within the piece, then I would scan each of the illustrations to colour them digitally, adding the vibrant colour palette that the story already suggests, for instance, the yellow brick road, the emerald city and so on. (I would have also mentioned the ruby red slippers, however, in the book the shoes are actually silver).

When focusing on my branding, I’m sure I will gain a lot of knowledge from that experience as well, as I have never made a website before, I’ve never created pins, screen-printed designs onto clothing and so on. I feel I will also learn more about myself, as to create your own branding I feel you do have to do a lot of self-reflection, thinking about your style of work, what imagery you feel would best suit you, how best to sell yourself and your work through elements such as business cards, websites or creative cv’s. Then there is more thought about promo pack’s, who would you be sending them off to? Agencies, potential clients? You have to consider who you feel your work is best suited to and who would most likely give you a job. All of this I believe will help more once I’ve left college, as I feel it will create a strong base in which I can establish myself as a freelance illustrator, applying to agencies, gaining work, but also selling work like prints, pins or t-shirts etc, on the side as I will hopefully have more knowledge of how to make/where I am able to get these products after this project, for instance, if I am to order pins or any product for that matter, from online, if I have a bad experience I will know not to use a company again, but if it is a good experience I will have a reliable source to create more products with.

Research:

In terms of research, I don’t believe there will be as much as I had in the previous module. With my Wizard of Oz project, I do intend to read the book and take quotes directly from it, so that I can illustrate the specific scenes as accurate as possible. I also intend to research artists, looking more into their process, how they may create their work, and I will try to take in that knowledge and apply it to my own work in my own style.

For the more unknown projects, I believe I will mostly be forming research from social media, for instance, Pinterest or Instagram, finding artists, illustration styles, colour palettes, or images to inspire my own work. When doing this, I do try to go in more depth, researching the artists and their processes, inspiration or thought process behind the piece more. If I do work with stronger themes (as I intend to) I will be doing more research into that theme as well, because although I may feel strongly about it, I would want to know all the facts and information first before creating the piece, so that I could best communicate the issue and strongly stand behind it if someone were to question it or if they wanted to know more information. This information could potentially be sourced from websites, articles, blogs, interviews and so on.

Anticipated Challenges:

Time again may be a big challenge, but I believe with this module I am going to work more loosely with my timetable. In the last module, my projects did overlap too much which did get me confused and did cause more stress as I ended up trying to work on multiple projects at once. Although this was a bad experience, I do believe I learnt from it, as I feel I now have a better idea of how long my commercial projects may last in comparison to my personal projects, as I was able to produce commercial work a lot quicker as I felt I was more critical of my personal work and since I didn’t have as short of a deadline, I was allowed to be more critical, but that allowed me to take more time on the project, time which I did not necessarily have. SO, with this next module, my projects will not overlap with one another and I will only be focusing on one at a time. When I say that I am going to be working more loosely with the timetable, however, I mean that I’m going to try making a loose plan of what I believe the dates will be, for instance, what time competitions will be released, how long I will be giving myself on certain projects, but as this module is more unknown, these deadlines will not be set in stone, and if the competitions are announced earlier or later than expected, it will be alright as I can swap around some of my personal projects times. This may seem like a recipe for disaster but it does make sense in my head. My main goal for the next couple of months is to just solely work on one project at a time, without any overlapping, and if I can do that I will be happy.

Another possible challenge will be with access to resources, especially when it comes to the last couple of months as a lot of the courses within the college will be trying to print or produce products for their own deadlines. This may make it harder to use the print room, the workshop, or the printers within CAAD. So as an attempt to battle this, I will try to produce everything earlier, at least within time for my own deadline. This means printing for my portfolio, producing merch: if I use screenprinting for t-shirts or tote bags, if I create another laser cut plate for prints, if I need to use the risograph. The closer it gets to the deadline I feel it will be harder to use these resources so I will try to plan in advance.

All images used are my own unless stated otherwise.

I Opened up my Own Store!

Using Depop, I have created an account so that I can have a platform that I can sell my work from. If you want to know why I chose this platform you can click here to read my opinions on different selling sites.

As of yet, I have not made a sale through the app, but I have made a sale by working solely through PayPal and messaging the buyer. I was only confident enough to do this because I knew the person, but even then I felt I was being very awkward, as I’m not very business savvy and I am new to this world. But this may improve over time.

So working this way, I still charged the same amount for the product and p&p but in this case, Depop did not take their 10% cut of the payment, but I believe PayPal does still have a charge of 20p per transaction.

Anyways back to the exciting part, this buyer had wanted 2 of my zines, a multicoloured one and a black and white one, and when I had mentioned that I was also selling some riso prints, she had also wanted a wave print. From this buyer, I have made a total of £14.50 (p&p excluded) so I am so happy with this experience.

As I had stated in my previous post, one of the reasons I had chosen to use Depop was because I would be able to have control over the whole process, packaging the products myself and adding little personal touches where I could. So as shown below, are three photos, one of the contents of the order, then the other two are of the envelope. Although I would say the content is pretty standard as to what you would expect when purchasing prints etc, I wanted to personalise the envelope, adding in little drawings of flowers, which would relate back to the zine. I had also added a little ‘thank you’ on the back so that she would see it when opening. These are small personalisations, however, when I had received a personalised envelope from an artist, I felt that they had actually put love into their packaging, an indication that they actually cared about their clients and appreciation in a way.

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I have now sent off the order, hoping that she gets it soon, and hoping that she is happy with her purchase. I also hope that more people will purchase my work, although I was a bit anxious with this one sale, I hope that the more I get, the more my confidence will grow with the process.

This being said, if you would like to have a look at the products I have for sale, you can click here for my Depop account, or you could send me a message on Instagram @Melon.R if you have PayPal and don’t wish to work through Depop.

Online Stores

In this blog post, as I have recently been in the search for places online where I could potentially open my own shop and sell any product I make over the year, I thought others could potentially benefit from what I have learnt and my opinions on certain cites. I plan to keep these descriptions fairly brief, but knowing myself, I may babble, so we shall see!

If you are following along with this blog for your own research into online stores, I would recommend that you do your own research as well, as this information is just from what I have heard or found, and have formed my own opinions on, so they might not be exactly accurate as I have not worked with any forms of an online store before. For me, this will just be a learning process, hopefully learning, developing and expanding my business as I go.

Redbubble

This is a site in which I know one of my friends has used in the past (I’m not exactly sure if he still uses it though), it is a company which allows you to create your own products through their facilities. I believe you submit your design, then choose the products that you would want it printed on, then through redbubble’s marketplace, they are able to sell your work. The company does everything for you, from printing the product to shipping it out to the customer. For its services, I believe they do take a small cut from each of the purchases you make.

I believe I would have considered this as an option, however, I feel it does lose some of the personal factors by the company doing everything for you. One time, I had ordered a couple of Zines from an artist named Nil, or @Badwitches on Instagram, and I did love the pieces I had ordered, but I looooved the personal touches she had added within her packaging. The way she had written the address in pink, and had written ‘Thank you’ on the back, and inside there was a lot of loose heart confetti (which was a bit messy, but such a cute addition), I have even kept the envelope because of how cute I thought these additions were.

It is things like this that I feel I want to do when sending out my own work in my own packaging, adding in little details that could feel more personal for the buyer. I feel that by solely working through the company, it would feel cold in a sense, as I would not be connecting with my buyer in any way, other than them owning a piece of my work, but something that I have not personally put time into creating (yes I would have put time into creating the design, but I would not have spent the time working with the product itself.)

Etsy

From multiple artists I follow on social media, who had sold their work on Etsy, they have ended up moving and using other platforms to sell their work, in places such as Big Cartel, or with their own personalised online stores. I believe this was due to the percentage cut in which Etsy was taking from them. Although yes, I do understand that the company want to be paid a certain percentage, as they are allowing you to sell your through their site, however, I feel for smaller businesses, this cut would have a bigger dint to them as opposed to a company that is getting a lot of regular business.

As I myself will be starting up a small business, with quite a small following, I don’t think this is necessarily the best option for myself.

Big Cartel

This site can potentially cost, but it offers a tier like system, offering more for more money or less for none. If you did not want to spend money on this site, you would only be able to sell 5 products, with one image per item. However I believe through this site, you would still be able to have full control of production, posting and packing etc, making the item as personal as you desired for your buyer.

If I were making more consistent money from my art, enough to pay a monthly fee, I would find that this would be a potential option. However, as I am just starting, and do not know how my work will sell on an online platform, this is not something I would want to spend too much money on right now until I have more information/knowledge of running a business.

Depop

This is typically an app which people sell clothing and accessories through, however over the years, I have seen that someone who I had known from my previous course had started selling her own artwork on it. After a little look, I had found that it almost works like Instagram, as you are able to add tags to the items that you are selling, making it easier for people with similar interests to find your work. You are also able to like items, which allows a person to come back to the post later on, possibly if they weren’t so sure, or if they didn’t have money at the time, etc. But the likes from an item may also boost your post so that it is higher in the search results, I do not know this for sure, but this is the way that Instagram has recently been working.

I do believe that the company takes a cut from your payment when someone purchases your item, but I believe it is small, so I could potentially counteract the cut by pushing up the price a little more. I feel my products are already a lower price within the market, so I believe by pushing it up by 30p or something, it would not make too much of a difference to the buyer.

Another reason why I like this option, again, is that I feel I can connect more with my audience/buyers. I can make the packaging more personal, adding little touches here and there, but the customers are also able to give their feedback as well, reviewing the products or delivery time etc. Although I do think this common on all of the platforms I have mentioned, I feel people may check the reviews of sellers on depop more, as I feel the customer wants to know that they can trust the person they are buying from, so from the reviews, they can see what they can potentially expect from them, whether the quality was good or not, or whether the delivery had taken a long time or short. I believe as with other websites, the more good reviews you get, the more people will trust and want to buy from you too (only if they want too though, obviously).

Own Online Website

I have not done a lot of research into this field as of yet, as I feel there would be a lot of ways you could potentially go about doing it. You could essentially form your own site, which I assume you would have to pay a monthly fee for, then you would have to have a place that could take transactions, allowing your customer to pay and for you to get that money smoothly, but I’m not sure of the ways in which you could do this? I have recently seen advertisements for a site called Shopify, but I believe you have to pay a monthly fee for that too. I would definitely need to do much more research if I were to chose this option.

However, by selling your work through your own site, it would mean that you have full control over your business, the production, packaging, shipping, etc. It could potentially help in all of your business efficiently being in one place, for instance, as well as a shop, the site could have your portfolio of work, a creative cv, links to any of your other social platforms, and information about you.

Final thoughts.

Currently, I have chosen to create a shop through Depop, as it does seem the best option for me at this point in my career, as I am just a small business starting up. But hopefully, as I grow and expand my knowledge of business, one day, if I do gain a bigger following and do have a good regular income from my business, I do hope to run my own website, selling my products on my own, as opposed to working on a third parties platform, potentially paying them some of my profit. I believe by having my own website, my whole business will be accessible within one place, as it will contain my store for potential customers, my links to other social platforms, such as Instagram, or even my blog, both of which I am quite active on, and for any potential clients, I will include my portfolio of work, possibly categorised for easier access, a creative cv, general information about myself, and an enquiry page in which they can email me directly from the site.

Please, if you have any thoughts or your own experiences with these websites or apps, feel free to comment them. As I am only starting up myself and have not had a lot of experience selling my own work before, (no experience at all with any of the sites mentioned so far), I would love to hear from others who have and I will happily accept any advice I can get, thank you!