EXP: Peer Feedback

The peer feedback session went okayish today, I haven't really got properly into my EXP as much as everyone else has and I'm beginning to panic. I almost didn't come because I was ashamed that it's taking me longer than everyone else to reach what I want to do with my final major project but all of the comments I got today were actually helpful so I am glad I came in the end.

The most noticeable comments were how my sense of colour is really coming through my work and how its progressing my storytelling forward.This is mostly down to me experimenting with gouache. I dipped my toe with it last year, but I've started to progress naturally back to it. Other comments included about how my painting was the strongest out of everything this year but also about how my Colours May Vary work showed progress with colour too.

EXP: Spot Illustration expansions Buttercrumble&Donut Press

After sending Kathryn my initial concepts, she asked me whether I had the time to illustrate a second question/answer form that she had received from a wedding illustration company Donut Press. It's a little bit more than I was bargaining for especially with the YCN brief deadline coming up soon but I think I can manage it! The donut Press Q&A was a lot shorter than the Buttercrumble one, so that was a relief.

EXP: Buttercrumble question/answer sheet

This is the question/ answer sheet I was talking about earlier, I've annotated it with my immediate thoughts after reading it, Hopefully I can work off these annotations to make some reasonably good spot illustrations for this brief.

The reason behind doing this brief is because I want to make more editorial work but at this point I think I've left it too late to do an illustration a week (well too late to have any kind of noticeable progress in it, 4 weeks doesn't feel like enough). Being able to make spot illustrations like this will give me the quick turnaround brief I want, but also allow me to consider colour palette (which is a main aim I wanted to achieve this year) as well as creating characters.

EXP: Buttercrumble working out

Kathryn had a deadline for print 3 weeks after we first spoke so it made sense for me to start straight away. I highlighted the question and answers sheet that was given to me picking out the main bits that stuck out to me, phrases such as "have courage" "start the day with a smile" 'sweetness is our weakness'.

Going off the main quotes I started to illustrate around them, my first thought with courage was a lion (probably some Wizard of Oz connotations going on in my brain there), and to tie it in with the breakfast theme I put it on a cup of tea. I delved more into the kitchen ware and thought about cutesying it up. The Buttercrumble Twins came across very cutesy and sweet in their interview so I wanted to capitalise on that really.

Next up was drawing the twins themselves, I already know that I want to take the pencil work into photoshop and work into it to further my digital/analogue skills. I used ink to keep my drawing loose when drawing the twins, I sketched different composition ideas out to think if there was a more interesting way to represent them. Kathryn had mentioned how red lipstick was something they used as their trade mark so I tried to think about using that.

The drawing of the hands was the only thing I could think to tie to their answer about being creatives that deal in all areas (illustration, graphic design etc).

I'm going to send these over to Kathryn and see which ones she wants to take forward and what to leave. She wanted a lot of creative control in the making of this zine, the only thing she isn't too bothered about is the colour palette which works out well for me.

EXP: FMP moving forward

The last few weeks after my tutorial with Patrick have been really slow, I storyboarded a fair bit of my idea but as I was storyboarding more and more I realised that this was feeling like a novel than it was a short comic. Then with all of the embroidering that was going on, I stopped working on it and have only started to think about it again.

I spoke to Ben because he was walking around and shared with him this problem, I'm worried that this is going somewhere unattainable. Ben was actually a massive help, He looked at my work and said that instead of creating these proposals, Why didn't I work towards making a small indie comic and then from that a proposed anthology for the end of year show. This actually made a lot of sense to me, none of my work is remotely marvel or dc looking so proposing a comic to somewhere like OK comics or Travelling Man actually wasn't too bad of an idea. Ben also told me about the Observer Short Graphic Novel Prize, it wont open for entries until this coming october, BUT with months and months of making infront of me, I could potentially turn my "nightmares" comic into a regular thing and enter it

https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2016/nov/06/colin-turnbull-a-tall-story

(this is the winner for last year).
Also thoughtbubble run a competition to a have a place in their anthology, placing a page or creating a mini page from my comic/zine would be a good idea to enter here as well! There are prizes but to be honest I just want the publicity at this point, Thoughtbubble anthology is such a good way to get people to see your work. I have until the end of July to make work for this so it's very do-able.

I also know that we're going down to D&AD london and I really would like my comic zine to be the creme de la creme of my portfolio. It would be good to have some printed off on GOOD stock, and bound to a really good standard so I could leave some with clients that I'm really interested in working for. 

EXP: Movie cards

This was something I did for fun although it might become a weekly brief (im not too sure). As I am a big movie fan, I frequent the cinema around 3 times a month (sometimes less or more depending on the quality of films out). Creating movie cards like this is a good way to have fun with drawing and produce a little insight to the film. I went to see beauty and the beast this week so to start there made the most sense. I sketched out some compositions and then placed it like so. 

THis last one is the final resolution, I had a lot of problems with the curtains looking too similar to her dress so I changed the opacity and re did the windows themselves. It took me a day to do which is good if I decide to make this a every week brief because I know it doesn't take up too much time. 

EXP: Buttercrumble Briefing

Today I spoke to a second year graphic designer about doing some spot illustrations for a small zine she is making for her cop. It is a quick small brief with a 3 week turn around and I've been looking for one like this just to add into my portfolio for editorial pieces. She has sent me the copy of the questions that she asked Buttercrumble ( A design duo in Leeds ) and has asked me to illustrate around each question.

The first thing I did was research into the duo, this was mostly to get a feel for what kind of colours I wanted to use (as I'm really trying to refine my colour palette usage with each project I take on).

After looking into Buttercrumble it became pretty clear that bright colours, maybe even pastels would work best with them. Their work is very playful and simple so I wanted to emulate that in the work I'm going to make. I don't want it to look too much like their work, but just hinting acknowledgement. 

One thing that Kathryn wanted was a illustration of the couple, I already know this is going to be the biggest challenge for me because they are twins that each have their own style I'm going to have to think about how to do the same but different. 

EXP: The Event launch night

The event night turned out really well actually! I came from 7-8:30 just to speak to a few of the creatives that I had invited from agencies (who were all really impressed by the work we had produced and scooping up business cards).  The work all managed to be hung and woohoo my 8" piece fit inside the frame which I was so pleased about, it ended up standing out from the backing and I thought it really did add something extra to the line up. It was really nice to see everyone's work all together and all of the different interpretations of out of order.  I can only hope now that in the next week somebody will buy my work (I overheard one person asking whether one of my pieces would make a good mothers day present so I am hopeful!)

Here is a bonus picture of me looking ready to charm some creatives! 

EXP: Taking my business cards to CMV

I rushed down to CMV with the rest of my business cards for the event night, I could'nt get a slot with James at the print room so I had to go drop in. They did turn out nice, plus it was a quiet drop in so james had time to talk to me about what the best paper to use was (matt paper in the print dungeon is best). They came out nicely, I did also manage to get my website up and running too so that meant that I could add that onto the back of my business card!

It was a good thing that I was late with business cards, just because I had changed my mind on pricing. After talking to tutors I realised that I had priced my work too low (especially since there was a 40% commission rate) because the time that had gone into it was almost double what everyone else had spent on it, (there was a solid amount of hours put into each piece, the least amount of time was 3 hours to make one).

In the end I decided to go with - £25 for the 4" 
                                                     £40 for the 6" 
                                                     £50 for the 8".

It might seem pricey for the 8 BUT i spent like 10 hours on it? I mean if you count the planning before hand and the research into trees, it was ages! Lucky for me, the guys down at CMV completely understood the wanting to up my prices (they had been £10 cheaper before) and encouraged me to value my work more.

EXP: Out oF OrDeR: Finished in the nick of time

It really was a rush last week to get all of the embroideries finished, I suppose I'm glad that I didn't have another brief running alongside because even though it's seen as a "hobby" art form, embroidery is so freaking hard. The only plus to it is that you can organise all of your threads upfront and pick out colour palettes!
I already have a good camera to take photos on (not that I ever use it, I really should) so I took some professional looking photos of my work. I did this just incase they don't sell at CMV, I will be able to put them on etsy or potentially an art market! I also want to add this collection to my online portfolio which I have actually started making now (as spoken about on my PPP blog). Unfortunately I'm not happy enough with it to put it onto my business cards yet but I will be attaching my instagram on there so that will have to do.
I'm using the photos I take to put as the back to my business cards, that way people who can't afford the big hoops will maybe take a business card, follow me on instagram and then buy some of my smaller embroideries.
I know that my tutors arent best pleased with the fact I've taken up embroidery as my medium, I think it's because it does stray from what is considered illustration. With embroidery art you still have to consider your audience and the composition though so at least there are elements to it!

Here are a sample of the photos I took, they came out really nice and hopefully will come out even better when they are printed onto business cards!!

EXP: The 8" hoop is finished!

I just have to blog about this because I am SO PROUD right now, this is my 8" hoop. The decision to make 1 x 8, 2 x 6 and 4 x 4 inch hoops was based partly on I like even numbers, but also because an 8 inch hoop would fit well within the designated IKEA photograph frames. I've spoken to Georgie about how I'd like it to be hung because she's on the hang team I wanted to give her a heads up (as most people did prints which are easy to frame, this might need a little thinking around). I suggested that we potentially put some kind of hook into the frame at the back? Or potentially one of those foam squares to hang it. I'm not 100% sure how it will go down so I've told georgie that if she's really struggling it doesn't have to be hung and it can just be packaged up neatly like the rest of the collection. (Secretly hope it will be hung up though). 

This has by far taken me the longest, the leaves use 5 different colour threads - a bright red, an orange, a dark red, a mustard yellow and a auburn brown. I got really stuck when it come to the ground part of it because I wasn't sure how to tie it into technology so I started by embroidering some rocks, I was speaking to my friend and she suggested turning them into 90's computers (as so many of them got thrown away). This idea was such a great input because it now fits into the theme perfectly!

FMP: Dream culture

Ive started to think more about dream culture and the idea of a separate world we enter in our dreams. This comes from researching into what exists already with regards to visiting a different world, when researching more and more I've realised it's quite a common thing. With Alice In Wonderland, that whole concept is a young girl who has fallen asleep and fallen down the rabbit hole, she goes on this wondrous adventure and at the end we are left wondering whether it was real or all just a dream? 

This theme carries across into other books too, J.M Barrie's Peter Pan entertains the idea that a boy can fly and takes children on adventures, it too embraces the idea that this only happens when they should be asleep. 

C.S Lewis also had this dream culture come through in his work, although his also tangled in with the concepts of death, it is talked about within the characters that they shared the same dream of Narnia therefore it must be real. It also alluded to that the 'true' Narnia, Aslan's Narnia is the equivalent to heaven as all of the characters from previous books, including those who perished in real time England were there. 

I kind of like the idea that there is more than just one world and that we can live through dream worlds, I like the idea of creating something that makes you question which is the real world or whether it's a dream. It's definitely something I will been looking into. 

EXP: Horizon Zero Dawn Influence

So as I've been embroidering I've been watching the walkthrough on youtube of a new game called Horizon Zero Dawn, now I know what you're thinking, What does this have to do with Colours May Vary or your embroideries.
WELL, my embroidery idea kind of in part came from watching this series and I've only just realised that it is influencing me to embroidery these scenes. Apart from being a very visually stunning game, with concept art that is really inspiring (I'll blog it on here later) it asks a lot of questions to the gamer. What WOULD the world be like if technology was the ruling force and we had to embrace nature? The game bases around a world that is over thrown with mechanical monsters and a new born race of humans with no prior knowledge of the human race (they have no idea of what skyscrapers are etc) and are forced into working alongside nature rather than against.

My embroideries are trying to harness that idea, that we are missing out on nature and we are going against the natural order of things (we are out of order). I'm doing this by stitching really precise buildings and then messy flowers over the top and a gorgeous skyline behind (that we might otherwise miss!)