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fun fact! google image search allows you to search for images that you are legally allowed to use for example as textures for your art or as assets for your blogs and websites

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Entry 13- Reflection

Its weird wrapping this up, I feel like my blog has helped me realise that as an artist I need to become more proactive and as a person, that is two fold. There is so much things I want to do with my career, and perhaps maybe this is something that has made me aware of that aspect. I’m easily too caught up in my head, wondering and day dreaming of all the things I want dream of becoming that I end up getting frightened of the commitment and potential. Having said that I know now that over the summer I can look into more creative opportunities. For starters I will be working on the Quad Project after this so that will be interesting, and something to work on and develop as it will increase my portfolio as well.

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My playlist, for partying, working, walking and whatever you feel like!

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Entry 12: The Reemergence of Liverpool (and gallery visit)

We went Liverpool today finally, it was probably for the best anyway because I remember the weather was awful. Also I’ve been Liverpool before because its pretty much on my doorstep. I’ve also been before on gallery trips and visits with my former college, so I went been to Tater Liverpool and the Walker gallery before, the town itself is pretty arty in itself, I know in 2008 they won the European capital of culture, they boast an array of individual galleries, museums, a funky art house cinema ( I would recommend for illustrators, I’m annoyed I didnt go) and the Rope walks showcase urban art such as grafitti, oh yeah, also Banksy .I  would of enjoyed going to a lot more galleries but we didn't have a long time there so I had to at-least limit my time to one or two. I will say this here and now, I’m not a fan or galleries, most of the popular ones are mostly modern art, but i’m still not a fan. I grimace when I see a big black square painted on a blank canvas and someone is selling it for 10 grand. I remember about several years ago the Walker gallery (which if you like renaissance and more classical paintings id recommend going) showcased an odd art film in there modern art bit and i have the pleasure of showing you.

If you got through all that, how?

So that’s my stance on it, still I do enjoy going into some places. Because even if its nonsense its still a little funny. I’m not sounding mature but i’m just giving you my honesty, not to say there wasn't any good work; ill give you an example of some art at the Liverpool Tate:

I liked this, maybe it was calling at me because it sort of had that playful chaotic theme we wanted in our Creative Disruption project. There’s something pretty simplistic about them and yet so colourful and full of life in an odd sense.

I dont get the meaning but its pretty rad. 

This was some sort of model, I think it was on Poverty in Africa.

Me looking through my clothes in the morning to find what to wear...

Some strapping young men

I think the most interesting exhibit was on the top floor of the Tate. The exhibition was an interactive one based on Brazilian culture. They did have hammocks (provided in picture) but they weren't there whilst we went as they were in for maintenance, but i managed to give my self some ink (it was just rolled on printing ink with a funky snake skin pattern on it, to be fair it looked like a toddler did it on my arm.) There was also herbal tea one could make with some herbs that i’m guess are imported from Brazil or the Amazon. That was a pretty fun exhibit.

Bonus round

writing this down I completely forgot at the start of the term i managed i was able to bag a free train ticket to London for the day, it was for third year but several people couldnt go so the tickets were passed down to our class which me and my friend took gleefully.

We ended up going to the Natural History Museum and The Victoria and Albert Museum, here are some photos:

These were from the VA, I had more but they were deleted by my phone so you know ¯\_ツ_/¯

(I would like to note that my phone takes terrible photos so apolgies for the quality)

I think I prefer Galleries and Museums like these because I am drawn to cultural art from around the world as well as pop culture. I think a lot of the Islamic and South Asian countries provide so much vivid colour a beauty.

The Tate was still pretty funny though.

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Entry 11- Studio Visit

So I finally got to meet up with two Derby Based Art houses. I’m not going to lie, finding a professional to talk to outside in the real world was incredibly difficult. First it was finding who I admired, which proved very hard as my style is fleeting yet the same, and also some of my favorite artists are foreign (in hindsight I could of maybe messaged some artists with some questions but that wasn't the requirement). Also, The artists I emailed didn't get back to me, so it was pretty disheartening at times. I was getting excited to travel!!

1-Crumble Collective

Thankfully I had contacted the Crumble Collective, A group of talented ex Derby University students who had recently started there own, well, collective.I had known about them since last year as I knew they had been commissioned by the University to paint the Mural outside the fashion building.

 I had also met one of the members before whilst she was working in another job. I  gave them a email:

 (Hope this doesn't impeach anything, I’ve cut out anything personal and this is from my first sent email)

their head, Alice contacted me back and was more than thrilled to meet up with me and several peers. We had agreed to meet at one of the local bars of Derby. Along with Alice was Dom, a photographer and vice head of the collective.I took a lot of useful information from the meeting and it opened my eyes to information I was aware of. Obviously they were rather new to the professional art world themselves, giving us  interesting advice and stories of her creative career. at the beginning of an artists career can be difficult as most people will have to support themselves with two jobs, I kind of knew this was inevitable, especially since I knew most likely I wouldn't earn a lot in my first couple of years I guess. With a lot of hard work though, Alice is soon turning the Crumble Collective into an Agency and becoming a CEO. She also pointed us to societies and unions like the Association of Illustrators (AOI for short) where they hold competitions and support for Illustrators and also contain helpful legal documents and templates. Alice made us aware of creating a contract for ourselves as soon as we consider doing more commercial work (but it was worth getting it done ASAP) she said we needed one just in case we could protect our work as artists.

Ill list down some key pointers from our talk:

When in doubt, sell your art for at minimum , £100, don’t doubt your work is ‘shit’

Watermark your work! Instagram apparently has an awful Terms of Service for artists, if someone takes your art, they (Instagram)  cant do anything about it

Make friends with the Tutors, they are a valuable contact outside of university and always ask if they have any work they can pass over (noted)

Alice also mentioned how we could contact her at any time if we needed any help, I’m hoping I have made a good impression.

Crumble Collectives website:

http://crumblecollective.co.uk/

2-Katapult

Several weeks ago we had tried gaining a studio visit with Katapult but due to the busy nature of the company we didn't hear back until a couple of weeks ago where they were offering talks to the University so me and my peers signed up for it. The company parallels a lot of the Crumble Collective interestingly. They first started as a collective too about several years back and would do promotional night club events and DJing as well ( Which I found pretty cool) as promoting for other companies, this was the building blocks for the Company. As I have said in a previous post, Katapult are a Graphic design company that help promote companies within the Entertainment sector. Andy Gilmore took our meeting with us and showed us their reel, I like Andy I think he has a lot of useful knowledge. We had also Met Dawn Foote, and Phil Higgins, the two Co-founders of Katapult who were just as informative.

These are some notes I took, the brightness is too high, I know sorry, but ill give points to what was said:

Projects can be short; so its best to prioritise and you can spend a lot of time on your own with them.

Build contacts

If possible, try and go to a lot of artistic Events and networking, this ties in with the last point.

Pressure yourself

Sometimes clients can be difficult or have too many ideas or a vague idea, its best to reel it in and be grounded, if in doubt, contact a higher up about the project (if possible)

But also, if you know an idea just cannot work regardless of experience or fundamentally you just cant, don’t be afraid to voice that concern or say “No”.

Heres some pictures of (with there permission) of there creative space.

I really like there chill idea room, they had a very stimulating and fun studio for them to work in. They also had a work dog, that was a bonus from me because the dog was really friendly, who doesnt want to work in a place with pets?

Overall, it was incredibly informative to have taken the time to speak with all these talented people and not to mention giving us useful and constructive advice we may need one day in the real world, now that’s some scary stuff!

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Entry 10-Continuing Creative Disruption brief

For the next couple of weeks we worked on more designs and characters so Ben could vectorise and create them into 3-D models. We had also gotten a tutorial and brief explanation in Blippar. Apparently it is more easier to use then first intended. However, it would seem unlikely for us to even use the Blippar app until we could actually animate the models and exporting them over to use, So using it might have to be an after thought in creating, if say we were picked. In the mean time, here is a sort of similar idea Nintendo created for the 3DS several years back. I use to own some of these actually, they are usually still models however so it be interesting how much we replicate from it.

My task however was as always, create more designs and concepts that could be considered for the finalized versions. We decided that each Department and Course would have a unique mask in reference to what they taught/studied, correlating earlier with the theme of community but with a sense if wild diversity that reflected our tribal theme.

I had taken these reference from a book on African masks in the library ( apparently no one took this book out in a long time...) I like some of the odd and primitive designs that are present in these masks. Its interesting to note that some of these African masks share horns on them, not only that, but other indigenous tribes also had these ornaments adorned on them.

The more squat and rounded masks (the two last reference images) gave me inspiration to make a sort of drum like masked creature that would reflect the Music department, I tried doing  paper mask creatures for the Art department where they would paint a ‘smile’ on there face. I wanted to make some sort of computer faced creature that would reflect departments such as 3D and Product Design for example. And in reference to the sun masks ( see ref any who) from indigenous cultures I used a cog and mechanical imagery to reflect the Engineering department. I know there’s loads of departments, but I only custom created a select few.

My vision coming to life with the magic of Ben’s magic wand, a graphics tablet pen!

I also worked on these very quick’ wall paintings’ on going with the theme. I went for a quick and loose approach to it, but I hate it for obvious reasons. They were going to be more for environmental things like walls or floor or put on pieces of paper (Sam was busy making props in 3D with the help of Ben, just because there good with that crap) I was trying to involve myself as much as possible basically because I was really keen on having a strong idea with my group. I wish I did these differently but, i kind of like the one at the bottom.

We had also had the idea of basically making another secret language that we could implement in Blippar where the if the person could scan over it, it would translate in English. It seems rather complex with creating a new alphabet but all it was was a bunch of fancy scribbles bunched together to represent a different letter.

We finally had pitched our idea to Leo, this was the breaking point, but not to sound overtly confident, i wasn't too nervous about it, because I knew our idea was at least anything was concrete. Well fortunately folks, I passed that segment (yayyyy) but here are some pointers that Leo critiqued us with ( I thought these were interesting).

Leo said that our idea was fun and interesting, indeedly so. However, He was disappointed that the models werent more chaotic. He thought that the earlier concepts from Kirsty’s were more dangerous in an exciting way. It was different parts about it really, the masks weren't as bold as the earlier concepts, and they were only a select few (you would need that though as we wanted to use each mask as a representation of a department.) The bodies he though werent as savage as he imagined, we did assure him  that this in itself could be changed and we wanted to stick with one body type to either stretch into a larger body or compress into a smaller body. I do agree with Leo, I feel the bodies could perhaps maybe be more diverse; lanky, squat, lean or something different, but also doing so would create more complications and work. Despite the criticism, I don’t think our group did a bad job and I believe we had a very unique product to present to the client. Apparently the work will be sent off to the Vice Dean in a week so im unsure if we will change anything or not.

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Entry 9- Quad Projection Brief

I’m not going to lie, I wasn't really thinking at first of doing the Quad project a couple of weeks ago, but it was a last minute decision that I thought would benefit me as an artist and also for potential career opportunities. We had gotten emails and all for it but Stuart (who was my Lecturer for digital moving image last semester)  had asked me if I was going to partake in it and said it be good experience so I complied. I was a little apprehensive, because I have barely been animating for that long, so lets just say i’m not exactly Richard Williams.

You have been warned

  Me and several of my close peers and several other students had went along to the slideshow that two of the heads of the Quad pitched to us.The commission was to create a light show that would project onto the Quad for the City’s event called ‘Derby Feste’, an annual festival that is held in the Summer to celebrate the cultural and creative aspects of the city. The Quad is one of the most creative buildings in Derby, having a sense of community and involvement with the town, it showcases events and workshops, both in house and out. The Quad is responsible for showcasing world cinema and uncommon films as well as certain blockbusters and has hosted things like opera, gallery and exhibition, and contain an art cafe and bar.

I decided I would partake in the live brief so I put my name down for it. Since then we have only had a couple of interactions and meetings ( well only the first one and the one that happened the other week.

(You can see me the unflattering side profile)

The other meeting was at the Quad where they explained how they would use the technology to project onto Quad using a software that had projection mapping. The projection would cover the whole of the building and span over several more buildings next to the Quad so it did look a bit challenging but with the understanding of the technology from my peers it probably was simple. We were given a workshop ( and challenge) where we had to create assets for a projection based on a theme to project on a miniature model house. My group was given the theme ‘Medieval’ so we worked on separate things. The good thing I realised from this project was not everything had to be animated or at least not animated intricately. I decided to created some wall designs and animate a twinkling star inspired Gothic tapestry on a wall. I realise I waffle on too much so I’ll wrap it up; the project wont begin until after hand in deadline roughly, so its more of a summer based project, I will update if I hear anything else or make a future entry about my experience perhaps.

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Entry 8-Presenting our idea

This week we were working on our presentation and preparing our work to present to our tutors. We also took some more photos of the university just to get better angles and such.

We worked on the presentation all week whilst we gathered more material (like the photos) and some more visual research to help us with designs. Ben was working on the sprite prototypes to see how it looked and to showcase in the presentation. I put the powerpoint up on google slides so we could edit it in real time without being in the same room together.

I was relieved that the presentation went well, Leo really liked our idea, confirming the chaotic and wild nature that we were getting across and noting it fun and playful elements. Leo in particular was drawn to Kirsty’s mask designs done in the striking blood orange pen, he had also liked the chaotic and lanky tall guys I created with there more expressive movements, so that was cool. Leo suggested we go down more that route, admiring the primitive inspired designs that reflect older civilisations and even ancient and modern indigenous cultures. Leo was fond of the 3D element and graphics implemented into but wasnt keen on the character design as apposed to the more wilder and tribal concepts. We assured him that those characters were not our final outcomes but more concept examples of what we could create and Ben had made them to test the quality of the model. We were still going to use 3D and Leo was interested in our idea. We pitched the idea with confidence and assurance of our idea and I believe we sold a very strong concept. I will link up the Presentation below.

Click here intrepid reader~

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#Entry 7- “Liverpool”or the cancelled trip replaced by the  animated brief adventures.

I have realised that I have been following the blog guideline religiously, almost to the point that it has stressed me to high hell, so i believe presenting myself like this defeats the whole point of who I am. So, without further ado, i turn a new leaf to expressing myself via here. Also Leo said we didn’t have to be too formal, so that’s good I guess. 

So Liverpool didnt happen this week, but the reasons were justified; the weather was pretty shit. So instead of writing about Liverpool, i’m going to put my mini brief in here because i love to waffle on about influences and all that. I decided the brief I wanted to explore was Mair’s brief:

Challenge accepted (hopefully), seemed a little bit more up my alley. I am a big fan of early 18th-19th century Gothic Literature; I only say this because that’s the books ive read from that era. Two in particular that cross my mind are Notre Dame De Paris by Victor Hugo and The Phantom of The Opera by Gaston Keroux. I ended up going for the latter because I felt I had “milked” ‘Notre Dame de Paris’ ( I had already done a project on the book for my Foundation degree, it doesn’t justify it but still) and personally I think it would of been more of a challenge to do because Phantom of the Opera has a notoriety for being “cheesy” ( it sort of is) thanks to the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Despite my shameless admittance to enjoying the musical, I wanted to slightly shy away from the phenomenon of the Broadway musical and focus on the pure Gothic essence of the original novel, I cant be bothered typing the whole plot out because that would take a lot of time so i’m going to link a plot here

 primarily, I began collecting visual research, I’ll link it here along with screen grabs:

   Theres several scenes in the book that are pretty memorable are iconic that could be potential for the story board, these include:

Chapter V The Enchanted Violin

Chapter IX At The Masked Ball 

Chapter XII Apollo’s Lyre

Chapter XXVI The End of the Ghost’s Love Story

Heres a link to the copy of the book for free, if you couldn't see already

I think I want to pick Chapter XXVI ‘The End if the Ghost’s love story’ Just because it hit me when I was reading the book. It was probably the saddest part for me. I remember crying whilst reading it, it was pretty pathetic in all fairness but still. 

I forgot to put stage directions, (please read chapter to understand) but basically what happens is that The Daroga is interrupted from writing a letter where his assistant Darius tells him a stranger at the door. Daroga, knows immediately it is The Phantom (also known as Erik, who is old friends with the Daroga ). Erik enters the room weak and claims he is dying of love whilst the Daroga accuses and questions the disappearance of Christine and Raoul as well as the death of Raouls older brother, Philippe.

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uploading for a relevant in joke, ignore. But if your wondering, its a very quick and crappy day brief (that took me like an hour or two to do)  I did for my animation module where we were given film scenes as audio. I used a limited colour palette but this is me exchanging with my Tutor Stuart ( he’s not blonde in real btw). This is how I feel about work... 

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Week 6- continuing on Creative Disruption

This week we decided to develop concepts for the characters. The theme was still a little uncertain for obvious reasons at this point but the general theme was about a some sort of tribal humanoid creatures based on the theme of a sense of community as reflecting the society around the students and teachers of the campus as “quirky” unique individuals (artists are creative people, you get me.)

We hadn't decided on an exact form of what these characters would take (or at least follow a consistent theme), it tossed between small stout creatures with a sense of “cute” to them, lanky humanoid tribal creatures, ram creatures, or gargoyles. Hence why we were coming up with concept art this week.

Here’s a quick mood board I created. There was certain certain references I knew I had seen before to make these characters, but I couldn't remember where, so I mustered up the best I could here. I was trying to go down the more humanoid sort of tribal like anarchy with a playful twist obviously.

These were my sketches, I put detail into some design but not all of them, I wanted to replicate that chaotic sort of ideal and playfulness I was describing earlier for my inspirations. Some of the more “cuter” designs are clearly inspired by the Animal Crossing and Tamagotchi characters. Other designs were influenced by a combination of two of our potential themes, I wanted to use the horns of the ram to distort them into more primitive forms. I also added masks onto the characters, this week we all suggested that tribal masks could be a fun and interesting way to convey the characters, it would also fit in more with a tribal theme, even though it would be fundamental to include I guess.

Ben would be working on the 3-D models for said characters, or at least create a prototype to see how it looks, we had decided we were really keen on selling our idea we would implement 3-D to make the experience even more engaging.

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#Entry 5- The Creative Disruption Project

For this week we were given our very first live brief which was commissioned by the University. The venture called “Creative Disruption” was briefed by our Vice Dean, David McGravie. The projects pitch was on giving our creative buildings, Markeaton Street and Britannia Mill a more artistic feel to the areas. The theme was about“ disrupting” the user in distracting with a more visually aesthetic and eye grabbing environment as apposed to the rather bare building that is in its current status.

The project would also have a interactive aspect with the help of Augmented Reality App known as Blippar. With the help of a more “4-Dimensional” feel, the aim of the apps purpose, and in correlation with the art installations, the idea was to “scan” pieces with smartphone and Tablet computer technology and then that scan would link to anything, whether that be a animation unravelling in front the picture you scanned or it could take you to a youtube video or an image or webpage-basically whatever that person who created the AR code desired in a sense.

This diagram is a more simplified and less convoluted explanation of what I was basically trying to say earlier. 

Some potential stuff you can do in Blippar.

So the teams were chosen. I was quite pleasantly surprised I was grouped up with peers I am very friendly with. To be honest I wouldn't of minded either way, I feel I can personally get on with new people so I was quite excited either way, not to be biased. 

We passed around ideas, we wanted to base it on the community of Derby University; especially Markeaton Street and Britannia Mill. We tried basing it around the theme of Derby as a place as well, looking towards the icon of the Ram and basing the design around that. A couple of people in the group were interested in making animations of little creatures running away to accompany some sort of illustration or sculpture of said creatures. We thought about distorting the image of the ram into something like Gargoyle like creatures and perhaps implementing 3-D into the AR experience.

I didn't draw this so I have no right to this, but i thought id share it...

...This one too...

These are the photos we took around the campus on potential areas for installations 

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#Entry 4- External speakers

Over the past couple of weeks, three professional guest speakers gave presentations into their line of work, each of them from a different art vocation and background. Mair Perkins (the first  guest Speaker) had come in on the 3rd week and 

1. Mair Perkins

Mair Perkin’s is a freelance Animator and Illustrator and a former Illustration student at the University of Derby. I have met Mair in the past as she taught the workshop portion of the Digital Moving image module I studied, I had spoken to her about certain advice especially around certain areas with great industry like Manchester ( I am originally from the area). Mair started off with commission pieces where she got rep from conventions and expos by creating anime inspired portraits of people. Her work has evolved since then, still having her original business on the sideline https://animeportraits.com/

Her work has ranged from environmental projects to social media firms and she has worked with such clients like the BBC and Peak District National park, e.g:

And lets not forget her competition entries:

Mair also explained her background to where she is now; She had applied for Fine Art at several Universities and had gotten rejected, finally realising Illustration and Animation was her passion after she took a BTEC Art and Design. She had spent her university years discovering herself, working part time jobs in cafes and doing job research where she had volunteered and gained creative work experience thanks to the career centre and the Student employment agency which helped her land a junior graphic design job       (something I should definitely look into). She had taken a Masters after her studies which helped her develop her practice further and gained her several freelance work. Eventually with the help of the University of Derby Business Enterprise centre, she had started her own business, during this time she attended networking events, investing time into social media platforms and invested in a professional website. Eventually she set up her own company in 2012 which she still manages as of present.

2. Andy Gilmore

Andy Gilmore is another Derby University Alumni who studied Graphic Design. Andy, like Mair, is based locally in Derby and works for the Firm known as Katapult as a lead Graphic Designer. Katapult is a Graphic Design based company that specialises in marketing and promotional work within the leisure sector. Andy’s presentation was very insightful and engaging, giving us useful tips and tricks within the industry. For example, suggesting us to create more visually appealing and dynamic looking portfolios and C.V’s and to make every meeting; whether that be clientele or potential interviews as interesting and as aesthetically engaging as possible.

 Andy also gave us pointers to a networking event happening at the Quad ( I believe the Quad holds a couple of networking events). Andy’s influences included Olly Moss, Matt Blease, and Angram.

(I didnt want to overflow the post too much with influences but this is My Neighbour Totoro by Olly Moss).

This is some of Andy’s singular work, I wanted to show it because the film reel at the top was more of his firms reel.

3. Ness Wood

http://www.nesswood.co.uk/home.php#

Ness Wood is an Art Director for the children's book Company Orange Book Studios ; an Award winning Illustration and book maker. As Art Director, its Ness’s job to manage and overseer the Illustrators and designers work, and directly works with all of them including the writers and editors. THis is and example of some of her employees work:

These are examples of some of the processes that takes part in developing a picture book. Some of the changes and edits are seen within the examples, some of those changes thanks to Ness’s involvement. This is because Ness makes sure that the artist involved has the ability and confidence to create an entire book by creating character concept art and a full coloured page to ensure the illustrator retains continuity within the book. There is no preference to Traditional or Digital art in the Studio, but they go through different and rather interesting approaches. Digital arts process is something I roughly presumed would happen; the art is apparently Illustrated with a lot of vibrancy and then it is sent off to Ness and her team in which they alter it accordingly whilst the illustrator must of labelled the page numbers and have filed it neatly. Traditional art on the other hand is to my surprise sent off to far Eastern countries where it is scanned and printed then sent all the way back to the studio where the image is inspected for clean ups.

Ness looks for artists and employees with not only a great potential but some one who is confident and sure of there work as appose to some one who is more reserved.

I got from all the guest speakers one singular theme, and that was be your self and dont be afraid to be visually interesting and appealing to potential employers; every impression definetly counts. I think its good to have a little bit of humility sometimes but its great to be sure of yourself and your portfolio.

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# Entry 3- Organisations and rewards

In truth, i haven't gained many rewards or opportunities surrounding my potential career path. I have only been able to manage runners up in one or two competitions. One of the ones I was sort of proud was back in 2014 when i became a runners up for a A-Level competition hosted by the Royal Academy of Arts. 

Obviously (and hopefully) my art has improved from this time (it being about 4 years ago now) but it was something I was happy about due to the fact that the  the ‘RA’ is one of the most prestigious institutes in the UK, and also I was the only one in my College to have even been considered/selected. 

The question is, what organisations and awards would I want to pursue? That’s a question that I ask myself, and perhaps I should research into, my thoughts and passions are broad and fleeting, I mean who wouldnt want to win something like an Oscar or the Nobel Peace Prize? Its probably something I will need to research into a bit more but nothing springs into my head.

EDIT

Recently ( as of March) , In my other module, ‘Directed Projects in Illustration’, I had earned a runners up in the Derby book festival, first prize going to Richard Iven’s ( who is a great Illustrator which I recommend whole heartily). I was happy with this revelation as I had to change the method in my final pieces last minute. What can I say, always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

I understand what they mean really, the theme and topic the original bookmarks were based on the title “If only” for some convoluted reason in my head i tried basing each aspect of the stories on different tarot, what you see below is the influences and remnants of the tarot idea. They were also originally screen printed, but i had to opt for digital pieces due to time constraints. 

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#Entry 2-Social Media

Like a lot of people my age I too spend a fair amount of time on social media. Even though social media has earned a reputation for anti-social interactions and superficial relationships, it provides an expansive platform for both beginner and veteran artists alike. I would like to discuss-in my opinion, the best sites that promotes and showcases practitioners to the best of there abilities.https://www.escapemotions.com/blog.php?post=top-10-social-networks-for-artists&id=157858696832

Instagram:

More popular on mobile app form- Instagram has over 150 million users, and generates a massive amount of traffic. Users can garner a considerable follower count by simply tagging accordingly. Instagram also is a heavily image focussed platform, meaning there is more direct and focused attention on image making. This is a go to page for practitioners and is understood why so many gravitate towards here.

Recently however, Instagram has dipped in its traffic with the recent promotion of art on Instagram dipping. This is a frustrating discovery since only have I recently created a new account specifically for my art.

Facebook:

Instagram’s dip in art promotion has Facebook to blame as they have owned the other platform since 2012. Facebook (in my own opinion and separate experience) is only mandatory for artist if they have an already established fanbase and following. Facebook pages for artist are great if you a well established artist but for a newcomer like myself traffic is extremely poor.

Twitter:

My knowledge on this particular social platform is scarce, but to guess, Twitter can be a great platform for just about anyone. It holds similar aspects for Instagram and Facebook, with the use of hashtags the site garners a considerable amount of traffic, can communicate easily and quickly with followers and potential colleges/clients as well as promoting art. I would say though that this site is more beneficial for more well known artists. There are many articles online but I will link this one as i think it provides useful tips for newcomer artists. 

( I will provide more social media sites once i find and explore them further)

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#Entry 1- Me in general

“Eclectic” is a word I often use generously. I tend to use it in reference to me as an individual, and as an Artist. There’s not one direct influence filtered into my overall work, only a concoction of elements that stem from pop-culture and traditional culture. I can’t actually pinpoint an exact influence, which is why ill probably come back later to add more to this post...I have placed a link in here to provide an extended look into my inspirations.

Katsushika Hokusai, ‘Mount Fuji behind Cherry trees and flowers’

Leiji Matsumoto, ‘Sexaroid’

Valenberg, ‘Things’

My biggest enemy is myself, I compare and contrast my work to other practitioners art or think it isn't as professional or well executed. This with no doubt is something I know I should work on, however, reflecting on this negative analysis also helps me to try and better my self as an illustrator. In turn, I think this hyper-critical way of thinking has allowed me to become versatile in my art and influences, drawing on imaginative ideas for projects and briefs. I have gained a plethora of Skills, both personal and transferable. For instance, my personal skills include basic animation skills, software experience (Adobe suite for instance), and I also have skills among traditional mediums of art like printmaking and painting. As for overall skills I would like to think I am a great communicator with good interpersonal skills among people and peers. I have a strong sense for adaptability and creativity. 

My personality type, ‘The Campaigner’, according to the Meyer Briggs 16 personalities.

According to Meyer Briggs 16 personalities test ( that I have taken before a number of times leading to the same answer) I am  a ‘campaigner’ or an ‘ENFP’ abbreviated. This personality type is described as mainly being friendly and charismatic individuals whom work well among their peers with charisma and optimism. 

“Can’t I fly helicopters AND be an oceanographer who writes songs and cooks?” It’s a big world out there – perhaps even a little too big. ENFPs are fascinated by new ideas, both in terms of developments in fields they are already familiar with, and when new subjects come along. The trick for people with the ENFP personality type is to take advantage of this quality, this wonder with the magnificent breadth and detail in the world, and to use it to propel themselves further and deeper than others are willing or able to go.” (www.16personalities.com)

This definitely reflects me in many ways. I’ve wanted to do so many careers and hobbies on top of my art, I’m in to certain types of house music and Vapor/lo-fi so I at some point want to start DJing (one dream) I’ve also been interested in other careers and hobbies i can take up, like acting, singing, fashion designing, roller blading, martial arts...you name it, ill want to try any of them at some point!

for now i just listen to said music, reflecting my interest in my art work, inspired by the chaotic and eclectic underground and the pop culture that surrounds us. I’ll link my playlist  eventually as it actually helps me with my work

*I will probably add more to this post in the near future*