umbman

[umbman]

practice in process

James Papper

James is an animator and director who was our guest for this week’s talk, he works with live action, 2D and 3D in his work to create humour in his work which is what I would dub the weird and wonderful side of the internet. He has also worked in advertising one example is VOXI but in the talk he didn’t have much wonderful words to say about that side of animation/illustration. One thing that he stressed in the talk was on how to deal with failure and saying how it’s fine to fail cause it’s better to have tried and know then to have never know if the idea would work or not. He also stresses how you got to not be so obsessed with your work and to separate life from work and to have time where you’re not creating to better your health and to better your work so you’re not forcing shit out for the sake of it, Very insightful and funny talk.

[umbman]

practice in process

Jane Zheng

Jennifer was another animator/director who came along side Jessica. Jennifer was a breath of fresh air because not only did she talk about more of the industry side of animation with her giving facts and figures about the industry and anecdotal accounts on one person’s getting into the industry through sweet talk which was a sentiment I’ve heard before but because she came out Kingston, mad! In fact, her short “tough” was the one film that got me on board and also got a lot of people in the talk as well. Needless to say I enjoyed the talk and it was nice to see her respond very well about the number of people in the course saying how she influenced them to go to Kingston. What was also nice to hear much like Jessica she emphasises that you got to be yourself when you make work so you can stand out from the industry and to not be swallowed by the industry, Very lovely talk.

[umbman]

practice in process

Jessica Ashman

Jessica was the first animator that came to our talks, she is multidiscipline in art working with animation, performance and installation. Her work is very experimental narratively and explores gender, identity and race using traditional animation to explore those ideas in her films. She also works with live action elements using actors or found footage in her films with, “hold tight” being a notable example of mixing animation and live action to create meaning. She also engages in art education, teaching at Goldsmiths and The University for the Creative Arts also running workshops for young people. The talk was nice, I liked how a film maker can make/illustrate stories that don’t particularly get attention can still keep going. I also loved how she would give back with her workshops very similar to Olivia and she had an interesting diagram showing a looping process of making film with an action, effect and feedback and how the cycle never ends, Interesting stuff.

[umbman]

practice in process

Peony Gent

Peony is an illustrator, installation artist and poet based in London with her working spanning comics and public poetry. A lot of her illustrations are very observational and based in the real world, as she describes taking the normal and making it abnormal. All of her drawings are very stylised and have this loose caricature look to them taking features from the people she observes and simplifying them into simple shapes and have more of a looser look to them, not going for realism but interpreted realism with colour being minimal or being placed flatly on the figure. Her exploration is very grounded in human experience with her comic Sarah being and exploration on her feelings on her friend’s death and her park bench comic being about a convo she had with a stranger in a park in Kensington. The talk was fairly interesting and I do like how you can do more artistic things that aren’t just illustrating comics, I don’t have to be pigeon holed into one thing which is a nice prospect.

[umbman]

practice in process

Serena Katt

Serena was our guest for this week who studied in the worlds collage of art and during her studies was picked up by a publishing company during her time in uni and published her book Sunday’s Child a graphic novel telling the story of her German grandfather during his time in Hitler youth. Through research by means of photos and interviews with family members she was able to contract a narrative of what life was like for her grandfather. A rather interesting book and way of working, she works with photo reference drawing from it and then drawing from the drawing to distort it the image as a way to challenge the way we use photos as truths her saying how ‘we respond to photos as truths’. Rather interesting way of looking at historical photos and their truthful ness, very interesting talk I liked the prospect of being able to make something out side of uni while in uni it gives me this sense that just cause I’m in uni doesn’t mean I can’t start something that can get me places.

[umbman]

practice in processes

Olivia twist 

Olivia was a guest speaker who is an illustrator and lecture in BA graphic Design at University for the creative arts. Her presentation mainly focused on her work and what she focuses on which is mainly an exploration of black stories/cultures in Britain with her striking art, also with working with youth groups. The talk was very interesting with how she values community and with a rather interesting way she stylises the people she draws with the black lines following the contour of the figure creating an interesting look for the people she chooses to draw taking the mundane and making it look beautiful and interesting. And even the way she draws buildings is so interesting to me with how she keeps that level of scale and brick work on the council flats. Very captivating stuff very interesting talk on identity and for me how I don’t have to leave uni doing some big time gig for some big soulless company.

[umbman]

practice in processes

Elis Searson

Elis a self-proclaimed Graphic Designer Dissertation reviewer was another guest that come on the same day as Olivia unlike her Elis had more of a theoretical approach to her practice in regards to her research on zines such as Mathew Higg’s ‘zine practice’ and the horseshit zine. She also discussed education through quotes during the talk and with educating Rita. Basically she was discussing how education is a two-sided thing and a teacher being ignorant isn’t inherently a bad thing and how that can help the student come to a better understanding cause they both had to learn something, also how modern education is just creativity suckers. To be honest I was kind of disengaged with this talk because it was more about the research side of illustration which is something I’m not really interested in going into but also because it came right after Oliva which had a wonderful talk, I recon on another day I would have enjoyed it. It is nice to know that there’s a wider net that people can take illustration into and I would have loved to unpack the talking points about education.