Looking at the resources I love the way that this visual representation of where people run, looks to me like a runner.
I find the reflective, self analysing exercises challenging. I'm given to rumination rather than analysis but after some scribbling I think that I've found some of the roots of my practice.
1. Childrens book illustrators, I thought that I would love to illustrate but didn't see it as a realistic option earn a living. I was particularlyinspired by Anne Bullens sensitive pencil drawings.
2. Joining St Albans Art Society. I went to their life drawing sessions and practiced. Julie Oakley, a member was accepted as a correspondent for
Urbansketchers. I had never heard of Urbansketchers but Googled them and became hooked on the blog. First hand stories from all over the world
3. This, and the Times newspaper employing
Matthew Cook to cover the 2006 conflict in Afghanistan introduced me to the concept of reportage
4. Attending Urbansketcher meetings I started to learn how to assess a venue, look for something interesting to draw and rapidly make a finished drawing. I'm not consistent, some days it all goes well, others not so good, but before Urbansketchers this wasn't something that I could do.
5. Participating in life drawing sessions and Urbansketchers meetings allowed me to meet and talk to other artists, and exchange ideas. I learnt a lot by observing others at work and seeing how differently they tackled the same subject.
6. Being introduced to the work of Olivier Kugler and being fascinated by the way he combines detailed text with his illustrations.
7. The way that Merlin Evans illustrates feelings and emotions. Learning that illustrations can be used to depict the invisible.
8. Getting a student loan to continue my OCA studies. I self funded up to drawing 1 and wouldn't have been able to afford to continue without a loan.
9. Doing a postgraduate certificate in Veterinary Education. This was madness because I was also doing Advanced Practice and Visual Research but taught me so much about how we learn, and got me excited about illustrations for education.
10. Being asked to make illustrations for veterinary publications and research papers allowed me to complete live projects - sometimes with unrealistic deadlines!
This doesn't lend itself to a neat timeline, its more of a mind map. (that's a breakthrough for me, a woman who likes a list !)
I played with layout ideas in my sketchbook:
The analogy of a plant appeals to me most.
But I'm uncomfortable with the 10 moments, it's semi autobiographical in places but not consistently which makes it feel bitty and odd. It also implies that I learned certain things at certain times whereas its been a slow learning journey, a dawning of ideas from multiple sources coming together.
I refocussed and rewrote my moments:
- Good drawings don't have to be hyperrealistic. (despite what my mum told me)
- An illustration is clearer than a photo.
- The magic comes when you keep working at it, the first idea is rarely good enough
- But there comes a point where one line can kill it. Technology can help with that.
- Less is more (David Downton)
- You can use line to direct the viewer (Lucinda Rogers)
- Illustrations pull you to read the accompanying text (Olivier Kugler)
- But without words you make your own interpretation (Shaun Tan, The Arrival)
- It can be used to depict the unseen (Merlin Evans)
- You have to keep reinventing your work
I had a vision of a slashed canvas with the knowledge I have gained leaking through. I think the idea is inspired by Nici Ruggiero's ceramics.
I played with the idea in Procreate on my phone:
Then made various experiments which were constrained by the paper I had available:
Initially I wanted to show the body of the paper so I was looking for sheets that had a coloured layer on top of the pulp. however when I adjusted the colour I decided this was just a distraction.
The dark blue represents my environment before studying, the pink/red is acquired knowledge.
I like the randomness of the shape generated by tearing.
I printed out the text and used a lightbox to trace over it so that the text has a slightly more natural organic feel to it. Then inverted it in Photoshop and overlaid that onto my prepared background.
It feels too rigid so I used another of my torn backgrounds which had a curve in it.
The curve better represents my learning journey, but I think that I prefer a more fluorescent pink
but somehow I'm still not quite sure about it. Maybe the traced text is a bit too regular? Somehow the whole thing feels a bit stiff. which isn't representative, so I returned to my plant analogy. Initially I shuffled the traced text around.
The plan was to print out the text and arrange it in a plant shape, but I started cutting it out like a plant and it looked quite nice so I scanned it, using a random sheet of pink paper as the background.
I like this so I experimented with a few different colour combinations.
Surprisingly, the accidental pink at the beginning is one of the best, though this petrol blue is quite good.
The brief says "you may also include further contextual information.." I'm not sure if this is an instruction or an invitation. I like the simplicity of this design, but it would be possible to make links on the leaves to take the viewer to websites of representative influential artists. I can't do that in Blogger, I tried something similar for my research project, so I'm going to leave this here.
My problem now is that re-reading the brief has triggered a new idea, I could take a selection 10 of my illustrations that show my ten key moments and display them as a sort of scrapbook.
To do that on a standard computer screen means that the images have to be too small to be very clear.
This isn't very good because I did it quickly for completeness. I would prefer a sort of mood board vibe but that's going to take me time to set up, I've spent too long on this exercise and the leaf design is better, clearer and more attractive.
It's been interesting to look at this exercise from different perspectives and it's been a valuable review of what matters to me and where I've come from but I'm not a big fan of looking backwards and I want to focus on where I go next.
(Then, as I was going to sleep I imagined the whole thing as an artists book, with flaps and pull out bits........... but then its not a timeline..........- I'm off to write my manifesto!)
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