Guest Artist at A Canny Collectives Exhibition

This was an amazing opportunity I was offered, to be a guest artist with a group named ‘A canny Collective’, who are running an exhibition showcasing their work within a gallery space, all pieces of which have the theme of Valentines, as they planned for it to run on the same week, starting on Monday the 11th.

The group themselves had planned everything out, viewed the space, cleared it out, fixed it up a bit, thought about how they were going to advertise it, made posters/flyers and stuck them up and handed them out around town and within the college, made social media pages and posts, and they just planned out everything that you could think of, that they wanted to have done for the opening night and the gallery space in general.

If you want to read more about their process or experience, you can read about it by clicking:

here for Katie Marshals experience
here for Phil Hughes
here for Nicole Nicholsons
and here for Adam Rowlinsons

In a couple of weeks running up to the exhibition, the group had gone to see the place and had tried to plan out where their own work would be set up. They had then realised how much open space they would still have, so had decided to recruit guest artists to fill the extra areas. This had meant that me and another artist called Igor Tavares, would showcase our work at the event, Igor actually live painted on the opening night so there was a next level of entertainment in a sense.

So with the theme of Valentines, I wanted to focus on self-love in the form of body positivity. Although I feel strong in the message of body positivity, everyone having confidence within their own figures, there was an ulterior motive with these designs, as I wanted to use this project as to better my skills with anatomy, but as I had a shorter timeframe to work with, I decided to illustrate in more of a minimal style.

Using reference imagery and following a tutorial/guide from a video by an artist named Chelsea Gracei (which I had discussed in a previous post, click here to read) from my base sketch, I had formed simple lines to suggest the individual bodies, showing the curves or muscle tones of the specific character. These would then contrast well against the white silhouette of the figure, which was composed against a floral pattern in a circular or diamond shape which would best fit the specific figure.

I do like these illustrations as I feel they are strong, very feminine and I believe they are empowering as they celebrate women of all different figures. I enjoyed working on these pieces as they are more minimal than my usual work, and I feel they are strong, focusing solely on each specific body shape. I did not give these figures any facial features, as I wanted the audience to potentially relate themselves to a certain figure, whereas I believe by giving them faces they would have been less interpretable I was proud that I was able to create these pieces within a short amount of time as this opportunity, to have my work exhibited within a local exhibition, was too good of an offer to pass up and I’m so appreciative of the group for giving me this chance.

In the future, I would like to expand on this mini project, creating even more body types, potentially drawing more men, as people of all genders, ages etc, do struggle with body positivity, so I would like to make my work all-inclusive, representing people of all different body shapes, no matter what gender, age, ethnicity, etc.

The opening night was good, I was happy to be working on the stall, selling my own work as well as the other artists. I am more of an introvert, so I enjoyed taking a backseat with all of the social interaction. It would have been a good chance to network with other people, but I had enjoyed gaining the experience of selling work one to one with the customers, as it is something I would be interested in doing again in the future, setting a stall up within a market, or even selling at a convention. By working on the stall, I was still able to interact with the people at the event, especially when they would ask if I was ‘Mel, the artist behind the figures’ (I believe they got my name from the zine catalogue that the group had made, so I was taken aback at first like ‘waiiit, HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME?) so I feel I did still gain some of the networking side of the experience, but maybe in a less forward sense, meaning that I was not making an effort to go out and socialise but my social interactions ended up happening more naturally.

In conclusion, I do feel I gained a lot of experience from taking part in this exhibition, whether it was working to a shorter time frame, working with themes I do feel strongly about and showing a positive light on all body shapes and sizes, printing and helping set up the space or selling one to one on the stall. I loved being a part of this exhibition and I am so grateful to the Canny Collective group for giving me this opportunity.

If you would like to follow the group, I have shown one of their posts below, but if you would like to follow the artists individually, you can click here for Katie Marshall, here for Nicole Nicholson, here for Phil Hughes and here for Adam Rowlinsons. They are amazing illustrators, so I do recommend giving them a look.

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

Reading List

Hughes, P. (2019). Week 22: Ready to Rumble. [Blog] Vonfrankenstank. Available at: https://philhughesillustrator.wordpress.com/2019/04/19/week-22-ready-to-rumble/ [Accessed 20 Apr. 2019].

Marshall, K. (2019). A Canny Exhibition: How it went. [Blog] Nostic Art. Available at: https://nosticart.wordpress.com/2019/02/20/a-canny-exhibition-how-it-went/ [Accessed 28 Feb. 2019].

Nicholson, N. (2019). The Team Behind A Canny Collective. [Blog] Witchita Art. Available at: https://witchitaarts.wordpress.com/2019/01/24/update-a-canny-collective/ [Accessed 28 Feb. 2019].

Rowlinson, A. (2019). Valentine’s Exhibition – Set Up. [Blog] AHROW Art. Available at: https://ahrowart.wordpress.com/2019/02/04/valentines-exhibition-set-up/ [Accessed 28 Feb. 2019].

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.

Selling Within a Store

My Aunty Dawn, not really my aunty but my mams closest friend who is basically my aunty, who I actually see more than my real relatives, has recently opened her own store in Stanley, which is called Purple Dragon, which sells unique gifts, which are quite gothic, spiritual and very fantasy inspired. This includes crystals, skulls, tarot cards, cushions, cups, journals, and there is even a section of her shop just dedicated to incense, which is another business she owns called House of Incense.

She recently came round and was talking with my mam about the shop, in which I inquired about the possibility of selling my work in her store. If this was anyone else, I probably would not have been as forward or as confident to even ask, but I showed her some of the prints I still had left from last years exhibition, and she said that she would take two and see how they would sell.

riso print

I then showed her some of my other work, and she has chosen a few other pieces that she would like me to print off, again she only asked for 2 of each, to see how they would sell, and she would let me know how it goes. The prints in which she wants are as shown below, and do give me a better understanding of what she would like to sell in her shop, and gives me a better idea of what else I could create for her if the prints do well and if she wants new designs. As you can see, she likes the colour green!

I’m so excited about this opportunity and do hope that the prints she has with her now do sell. If so, this will be my first experience with selling work outside of the college, and will potentially be the first steps in which I take to forming my own business and selling my own work. Aghhhh I’m excited about the future, I just need to print out the other illustrations she wants, and get them to her. I will keep you informed of how this venture goes.