A bit of light reading.

One of the best things about doing a degree course is having access to the specialist art and design library.  The books are one thing, the many, many wonderful books, but the library also stocks all of the best art and design magazines, current issues and archives.  These are brilliant for research, but I for one sometimes forget that they are there to be browsed at any time, for inspiration, ideas, information and industry 'what's hot' reportage.

I spent the afternoon browsing some of the magazines on offer and have to admit to losing track of time.  Perhaps one of the most useful magazines is VAROOM!, the Association of Illustrators (AOI) journal.

 Copies of VAROOM! are always widely available in the Art and Design areas around the University, as we are lucky enough to have associate membership of this organisation by being students.  The magazine holds information about exhibitions, who is winning awards, current competitions, studies of particular illustrators and sometimes interviews or academic articles.

Illustrator magazine tends to showcase four or five illustrators per issue, giving several full page colour spreads to each.  The magazine also has interviews with practicing professional illustrators.  Reading some recent interviews led me to discover the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, an organisation with global presence and annual conferences each year held in New York and Los Angeles.  Subscription is very reasonable at around 80 US dollars and there are various financial grants and awards that can be applied for.  Students can submit work and if selected can win sponsorship to attend one of the conferences, all expenses paid.  A fantastic opportunity!

Uppercase is a Canadian indie art magazine, showcasing illustration, craft techniques and is full of colour and inspiration.

Frieze deals with contemporary art and culture and lists every significant international art exhibition.  I wish I had known about this magazine when I was travelling to Malmö to work, in a previous job, as several exhibitions were listed there and in Copenhagen, a short train ride away.  If you are planning to travel this Summer I recommend checking out the magazine to see what might be available.

Novum is a German / Anglo duel language magazine more aimed at Graphic Design, but beautifully laid out.

There are many more magazines that offer a visual feast; Love, Vogue, Wallpaper and Interior Design to name a few.  My advice would be to indulge yourself in an afternoon's reading.  You never know what might inspire you, and of course, these magazines are employing illustrators, some in house and some for editorial and article submissions, so if you want to be ahead of the game, be aware of the industry press.

H. x

 

 

Right Now...

A lot of my work is very nostalgic. The patterns and colours of my childhood make an appearance in much of my painting.  The image on the left, which currently forms the blog backdrop, was created in Gouache and shows a Charles Carmel carousel horse galloping across a landscape influenced by a 1970s wallpaper pattern. The swirling pattern on the right, representing the streams of experiences that we have to gallop over or through in life, is taken from the grain of the wood pattern in a wedge heeled shoe I loved.

Influences are key, but it is important to keep our work current and fresh.  Choosing to attend University, and not just to produce my own work as I had previously done, was a deliberate decision, in part designed to open up my circle of influence. To learn who is current? what kinds of images are popular? who wins awards? who exhibits? 

There are many design awards, for example the coveted D&AD 'pencil' awards for design and advertising offer exposure to both professionals and fresh new talent annually. Look here for an archive of previous winners. The entries are inspirational but as an illustrator, not an area I am likely to enter.  So where to look for further inspiration?

Oliver Kugler

The Associate of Illustrators (AOI) is the natural home for illustration awards.  The overall winning entry for 2015 was from Editorial Illustrator, Oliver Kugler. Kugler created a series of Illustrations in response to a brief from Médicines Sans Frontières depicting the circumstances experienced by Syrian refugees, in order to bring a more accurate picture, literally, to a wider audience. There are synergies in the way in which Kugler and I work in that there is a personal story in each image. Kugler visited the camps and recorded interviews, ate with and lived among the refugees. The images are personal and show the extraordinary and the ordinary moments in the lives of the subjects.  

Benji Davis

This image by Benji Davies won the Children's Books category and is again a very personal subject matter, dealing withholding a grandparent and remembering someone. Davies works largely in digital. My preference is to work in paints and inks, but through discussions with professional illustrators I am learning the value of both techniques, combined for speed and efficiency of editing.  More of this will be revealed in later blogs.

Jessica Bromley

Helen Collard

The winner of Overall New Talent category for 2015 was Jessica Bromley with her beautiful illustrations for her own book, a story about a man 'falling desperately in love with a drowned woman'. Interesting for me as a student, Bromley created the text and illustrations as part of a Sequential Illustration educational module. I completed my own Sequential Illustration module last semester, with images I created showing the contrast between the life of a little girl who tours with a fairground and her father's carousel horse ride (my love of carousel horses again!) and a little girl living a more conventional life who visits the fair.  There is a message here for me in that all work, even that created for a brief we may not love (although I did love producing the fairground illustrations) is important.  The briefs we are given are designed specifically to make us into versatile, educated illustrators with a capacity to earn a living doing what we love best.

My personal favourite competition is run by Illustration Friday - have a look at their wonderful website here. Every Friday a one word topic is announced and illustrator have one week to submit an image using any medium or style they choose, as long as it fits that word. Each week the entries are featured in an online gallery and a winner is chosen.  The entries are so diverse that it is impossible not to be inspired, rather than daunted, as can happen in the more specific competitions.  Take a word and interpret it, visually, in any way you like. There is no prize, but the online exposure is there for the taking and the one week turnaround forces the creative mind into action - although of course there is nothing to stop you submitting a suitable, already produced piece if the topic is applicable.

Of course another major source of inspiration is to experience art 'in the flesh' - go and visit as many exhibitions as possible.  This week I went to the amazing Nottingham Contemporary to see the 'Monuments should not be trusted' exhibition:

"Monuments Should Not Be Trusted brings together over 30 leading artists and groups from the “golden years” of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - the period between the early 1960s and the mid 1980s.

Over 100 artworks and artefacts illuminate the key contradictions of this single party state – built after WWII on socialist principles, yet immersed in “utopian consumerism.”

The exhibition, curated by  Lina Džuverović comprises of illustration, graphic design, artefacts, TV and collage. A number of the illustrations showed 1970s/80s type of crude, postcard sexual stereotype humour, but with famous artworks depicted within the settings. For me, this made a comment about how 'real' art during the period was sacrificed for popular kitsch. What was valued was not, for example, the Mondrian shown in the image on the left, but the lewdness of the naked couple shown in cartoon form before the fire. Cartoon tits over priceless works that require thought to understand. The obvious over the abstract.

There are over 100 works in the exhibition which runs until 4th March. There is also an extensive library room at the Contemporary which is free to use.  Entry is free but donations are, of course, welcome.

So I think my learning this week has been this, my very personal and autobiographical art style has a place. Research is key. Influence is important, but always strive to discover new influences. Competitions are out there and available, even to a second year illustration student and success can be achieved by being passionate and authentic in what you do.  Learn, learn and learn again as much as you can about techniques, how other people work, what is popular, what is out there and above all, have a go.

You have to be in it to win it, as they say.

H. x

The long and winding road...

Today, as I sip my tea and contemplate my sketchbook, thoughts turn to the realistic, to the root of all evil.  Money.

Changing career direction in your mid 40's is many things; it is brave, it is exciting, it is admirable, bold and bohemian. It is also pretty scary.  

Actually, to be fair, I'm not sure it's a change in career direction, it's a very heavy focus shift onto the thing that makes my heart beat. I've always drawn, and nobody can take away the other skills that I have accumulated over the years.  However, this needs thinking about. 

Funding my study is taken care of by a combination of careful planning (I've saved for a long time with this goal in mind), hard work (I worked through my first year) and good old Student Finance - I hadn't been to University before and so, luckily, qualified for this.  Paying the mortgage post degree will be a different matter.

But it's not just about money.  One thing I've discovered about myself on this life journey is that I need a purpose, a role, a place to be. I need to use the skills I have. I have a passion for learning and love to teach, to support, to mentor, to share. At the risk of sounding like a badly worded CV, I am organised, great at translating the requirements of others into clear, deliverable outcomes, budgeting, negotiating and a myriad other skills that I need and want to use.  Creating art is incredible, but I don't want to work alone, every day.

Some of the need to maintain the professionalism I have had to have thus far in my life has been satisfied by my setting up my own studio. The studio is situated in the heart of the Eastwood Craft Centres and so I am surrounded by other creatives, but I have the luxury of space - four desks, dedicated to creative work (paint, cutting etc), tech work (digital illustration, with the iMac and the Cintiq), mess (heat press, screen printing) and other creative work (sewing machine, clay etc).  I have all of my equipment and tools in one place. It is large enough to invite guest artists or other students to work alongside me for collaborative work, and smart enough to invite potential clients.


But what else might be out there?  

Many illustrators have a portfolio career, offering freedom and flexibility.  A Mix of 'pay the rent' work, which may or may not be in the creative industries, paid professional work - commissions, jobs 'won' either through an agent or independently, lecturing or teaching and time unpaid for developing their own practice. For the last twenty years I have run my own business and operated as a Freelance and so this appeals to me much more than having a 9-5 in house (employed and salaried) creative job. Of course, with flexibility can come financial instability, hence the 'pay the rent' roles often undertaken.

Last year at the Hay festival, I queued in line with my daughter, for the Author / Illustrator / about-to-be-appointed Children's Laureate and all round art hero and nice guy Chris Riddell to get her copy of his latest book signed by the man himself. Edie was too shy to ask Chris any questions herself and so I shamefully interrogated him on illustration techniques. He gave me lots of tips (which I will share later) and I told him that I have written two children's novels, from a planned series of seven, that I want to illustrate myself. That, agreed Chris, is the way to go - I can't remember the exact phrase he used but it was along the lines of go and do it, because generally, you don't find people knocking on your door begging you to illustrate their work (unless they want you to do it for free, which is another often asked story).  I daresay Chris does now spend his time responding to lots of people knocking on his door wanting to pay him handsomely for his wonderful work, but he is a little more established than I... so far.

Check out Chris's amazing work here and here     

Procrastination is, of course, the downside of working for oneself - ahem - now that I've just spent a good 15 minutes looking at Chris's work, where else am I going?

So, in order to support my goal of a portfolio career, we can put a big tick in the studio box. Here I can develop my own work, and also work on professional commissions where on client site presence is not required, or collaboration projects.  Of course running a studio and a business comes at a cost, so what else is out there in terms of creative opportunities?

Being in a University affords all kind of Internship and Graduate opportunities - but many of these are either not available or not suitable for those over 25 and with family responsibilities as they involve travel or are funded through schemes only available to certain age groups. Certainly for a young person, venturing out into the world there are fantastic opportunities with Camp America, internships available globally or in London here in the UK.

Some great website are available to check out these opportunities:-

http://creativeopportunities.arts.ac.uk - mainly London based

www.indeed.co.uk - filter for creative roles in selected area

www.inspiringinterns.com - intern roles

www.jobserve.co.uk - filter by design and location

These are just a very few of the job search sites available. I also searched for keywords such as Creative Nottingham, Creative Derby, Creative Leicester, which brought up a whole bunch of websites showing how the creative communities link in each area.

One of my passions if for teaching, I have always undertaken leadership and mentoring roles including many in the voluntary sector. The perfect balance for me would be to be able to combine my own practice with lecturing, teaching or mentoring in some capacity. 

The challenge for now is to find that path.


H. x