TIS: First Sketchbooking

 

 

Recently, I start every new brief by figuring out how I draw things. I feel like it's a good way to start because I'm always questioning. I never assume 'I know how to draw trees' I always start 'how do you draw trees? what's the best way? what way suits my intent for this piece the best?' so I think that's good, but I'm not sure if it's a waste of time at all. I never feel confident enough to go straight into thumb nailing because I haven't even seen if I can draw all the visual paraphernalia I need, is all of it even relevant? I really like my trees so far, I feel like forests might be the way to go. 

I'm not sure whether I want figures in my work or animals, or should it just be a landscape? I'm very early on so I'm going to try stuff out first but I can't decide. I have little ideas in my head, like a dark forest with a clearing and it's a million of me, all plaiting each other hair and dancing and climbing trees. sometimes it's a woman trying to hold back all her dogs on a leash, sometimes it's women with wolves inside them, women devouring everything in sight. I feel like using a woman makes me feel more comfortable in knowing what I'm saying, how people will interpret it. when it's just a landscape, I feel like it might get lost on people. I know that isn't true, because last time everyone got the vibe without any characters, but I feel this piece is so personal and about my work and my practice, which is all about me and my feelings, maybe it needs a person there. idk. I think this treehouse is giving a vibe I really like, I loved painting with gouache. my final piece is definitely gunna be analogue, I miss doing that. I just think this piece, to me, gives me vibes of stranger things, spooky nights, childhood adventures and sleepovers, time alone, introversion, nature and mystery, subtle hints to a thing but not a big statement. idk if other people might just think 'it's a treehouse'. 

I'm loving this brief but it's really hard.

TIS: Understanding The Question

Coming Back To The Brief Because I Was Confused

I started my first sketchbook for The Illustrated Self but as I've been working and trying to figure out ideas and how to draw things, I was a bit confused of what the actual brief was again. was I trying to portray the right things I've picked out some of the key phrases from the presentations to try and figure that out.

• What is it that makes you the practitioner you are?
• The function of creativity
• Identify and make links between aspects of your personal and professional practice as well as consideration for the wider of context of the world around you
• How do you define quality and success for yourself? Be critical of your results. Your first idea/s might not be the most appropriate. Generate a variety of potential proposals, backed up by research to be discussed and critiqued at the first crit session.

Anthony Burrill

I think the 'function of creativity' is really key to this brief, and something I haven't addressed yet. I think the function of creativity is kind of what you can do with your creativity, what you aspire to make happen or make exist. For me, the function of my creativity/of my practice/of my work is very personal, I think a lot of the time I'm working through how I feel and what I want and sort of dealing with being part of the world. I've always felt very outsider, so it's my kind of way of being myself very obviously, maybe in hopes someone else will see it and feel the same way. It's a tool for making real interactions with people. I think people could like my work or think it's okay and not have this reaction, but I think that's the reaction I'm hoping for. it's like a smoke signal, like I'M HERE COME FIND ME. 

I think I'm trying to try and capture the things I think are special and worth holding onto, I think I get very frustrated by normal life and reality being not what I want so I try and find something more special where there maybe isn't anything. That's why everything I make is all about magical things and beauty and it's not all fake and made up, but a lot of it is. I think nature is the one real true thing I love to capture, and maybe real people as well a bit. Nature's that one thing that feels still so undiscovered and magical and mysterious and special and I love it, so it's always in there. 

These two pieces by Anthony Burrill really excited me because that's definitely a vibe I'm feeling. I just think life's too short to not chase what you want, and be exactly how you are, and find out as much as you can. why pretend you hate everything, why revel in bad feelings and negativity? why not just LOVE things???? weird.

lots of weird blog posts going on in this project. I enjoy this kind of thinking so it's fun for me, and making the work is fun because like how do you capture this in a piece of work omg???? so cool!! but I feel like reading these posts, they're gunna sound really pretentious or not make sense or just sound stupid? idk. gotta practice what you preach I guess.

Some Inspo

Just wanted to throw this onto my blog because it sums up some sort of feelings I've been having atm about what I want my work to be presenting. I love Savannah's spoken word poetry and this poem is basically about getting away from the idea that caring too much isn't 'cool' and that you can care too much in the first place. my work is all about caring, hedonism, appetite for life and experiences and everything she talks about in this poem. she says the 'cool kids' were always apathetic and pessimistic, whereas now they've vivacious and enthusiastic and invested and I think that's really true. 

all the people I look up to and think are successful and are loved and praised and wildly passionate and vulnerable. I try and be this way as much as possible and I still find it hard, but it's something I want in my life and my work. she says if everyone knows what you care the most about it's very easy to hurt you, and I think that's probably why it's so scary. idk this just made me think about all the stuff I really want to do but I'm too scared to because it would make me vulnerable. I don't know how you get past that really.

Personal Problem Atm

feeling like i'm a bit lost in what i want?

Sara Tepes

I've had a bit of a crisis atm, suddenly craving work that looks like this (digital painting, an oil painting aesthetic, all glossy and kind of realistic and full of tone and shadows and actual human face structure lmao). I'm not sure where it's come from, all of a sudden wanting to have work that's so different to mine. I'm really struggling to understand WHY I want this, and WHY this work appeals to me. Because looking at it, it's incredibly skilful but in terms of content it's just some pretty girls. WHY???

Jacqueline Deleon

This selection of artists are the ones that are really influencing me atm and I'm jealous of, so I've collected them together to try and figure out what's happening with my practice atm. they're all just pretty girl drawings???? I feel like these pieces seem to be more full of depth compared to my work, I think SO much in line that I feel like my work is very flat and 2D a lot of the time. Maybe it's the way these artists capture female faces and how 3D they are and there's more realness in this than my work. conceptually and style-wise, I feel like I'm doing interesting things and trying cool stuff so I feel like this work is more technically difficult to achieve than what I'm doing, but conceptually it isn't better than my work? I'm annoyed that I'm so obsessed with aesthetic all the time, because I feel like I make the best work when I address concept first then how aesthetics can support that concept, not 'ooo I love this style'. 

Kelsey J Beckett

As well as this, when I try and push myself to draw realistically (which is something I've never been good at or done often) I find it draining and not fun to do. if it's not enjoyable for me, why do it? and the finished piece is always quite bad, like I'd need to devote so much time to this to get to work that I'm proud of, so why am I so interested in it? maybe because my work is very simple, experimental, illustrative and I don't take ages on laboured pieces, maybe I miss that? maybe I miss feeling like my work is SKILFUL and hard to achieve and studied. maybe I should just draw outside more, draw from life more but not worry about style. 

Audra Auclair

I'm not really sure if there's any conclusion to this blog post I just needed to try and work through these feelings. I think there's definitely things I can learn from these artists, and parts of their practice I do admire. There's also parts that don't really fit my practice or how I like to work, that although I admire them aren't right for me. 

I think I'm definitely yearning to get better, to feel like my work is worth more and is more beautiful/skilful/something I don't know, so I need to figure out what that is. I think taking some more time on some pieces, doing some more drawing from life, playing around with colour and tone more might help. I also think the reason I like these artists has something to do with character, because of their consistent theme of drawings of women, so maybe investing more time in character could help me work through it. I do love character based work, and I think I haven't done that in a while so maybe I miss it. I think when I do draw characters/people I feel like I'm missing something great and my work is a bit, just and tbh. maybe more time invested in this and in thinking about this could help.

The Illustrated Self: Ideas

I'm trying to think of the Illustrated Self brief as just like the Persons of Note brief, except I'm the person of note lmao. I feel like in that brief I got a good grasp of what I wanted to present and how this would represent the essence of the person I was working with. I think if I can do that again it would make my work more successful. I've been trying to think of how to represent myself, my concepts, my practice, ect and how I can present them in the most readable, exciting, playful way. I think I need to decide what's the most important facets of these parts of me, and also how I deem work successful and exciting and of good quality, so I can strive for this in my work.

Things I want to represent:

• my overwhelming passion and enthusiasm (for everything). I love things, I'm obsessed with things, I'm always wanting to get better and be the best in the things I love. I'm very over the top about things I'm interested in, they become a big part of me. this is why art is so important to me. I'm very romantic and indulgent, if I love something I'm kind of ridiculous about it. because of this, I love symbolism and poetry and I like my art to be embellished and dramatic and to show things in a more interesting way. 
• I value honestly/open emotions/sensitivity/sentimentality. I've always found the British culture of a stiff upper lip difficult to deal with because I'm so openly emotional and don't see it as weak. I'm very eager to actually have meaningful interactions and be myself very honestly and openly. I hate the culture of being too cool for things, not really caring about things or thinking it's embarrassing to show how you feel. I love expressing this is my work, I think embracing and celebrating life and everything you like about it is important. I think accepting and embracing your feelings is crucial, and being open about mental health is too. I try to just let this idea permeate my work, as to try and normalise it.
• I also value being selfish a lot, I feel there's a culture where looking after yourself first is a bad thing, which I find ridiculous. I value myself immensely, I think everyone should, I think everyone should love themselves and know themselves and be happy with themselves. again, this is a theme I like to have in my work, my work is sort of a reflection of my way of thinking about lots of things and me trying to just express those things when it's possible.
• I've recently identified (I think) maybe a reason why I love magic and mystery and nostalgia so much and why it's a theme I want in ALL my work. I had a conversation with Matt about why this kind of thing seems really popular with my age group, and why shows like stranger things are so popular. I really liked that conversation and that line of thinking. I think the reason why I like it so much is because it's reminiscent of childhood, when you don't know so much and everything is new to you. You experience everything for the first time, things don't make sense yet so they seem mysterious and magical, you have big expectations of what can be real. You see a film with magic or amazing places in it and you think that might be in real life. Anything is possible because you're not aware of the limits of real life and what does and doesn't exist, everything is just new and cool and wild. I remember as a child something I found really sad and disappointing was that humans have explored all of Earth. I was waiting for like somewhere new for all the cool things to be because I was sad that magic and weird monsters didn't exist. I like evoking that feeling again through world building and the vibe of my work, that there's some mystery or something undiscovered. 
• a bit less big and conceptual, but I love nature and I really want to include animals or nature in my piece. it's just something that I love to use as symbolism and visuals in my work.

so what's a simple way of saying these things. 

passion, appetite for life, openness, sensitivity, self love and self worth, childhood nostalgia, mystery, adventure, wildness, magic, the unknown.

how do I represent these things:

• fires, storms, crashing waves, people being overwhelmed by things (drowned in water, buried in earth, wrapped in fabrics). forests all alight, people ferociously eating things, hunger, consuming things. things splitting people open, crawling out of them, inflated, engorged, swollen. a happy greediness. buffets. food.  tsunamis and volcanos and hurricanes. 
• wild animals, aggressive animals, aggressive people. wolves, tigers, lions, dogs, boxers, gangs, snakes, sharks, crows, vultures. swarms of bugs.
• places full of secrets, mountains with caves n cabins and holes and eyes all over. trees with shadows. forests. hidden things, things that don't make sense, things in shadows and in pocket and behind hands.

this is all I have so far, I'm going to thumb nail and sketch and see what I can come up with. EDIT: I think this thinking is important, but one thing I want to keep in mind while making this work is to keep it FUN. critical thinking and working and analysing is good, but sometimes I feel my problem is getting too serious and bogged down and over working. KEEP IT FUN AND LIGHT. DON'T BE SO SERIOUS.

Self

AS A PRACTITIONER

5 strengths

• willingness to change. before the course I thought I'd ~found my style~ and was like 'cool, let's settle into it n make it good'. I came to the course and realised that was the most limiting thing I could POSSIBLY DO. I could have been stubborn and thought 'I know my practice, I know my work, my work looks like x and is this' but that would have limited me so much. I'm really pleased that I pushed myself to just ignore that and to be experimental and keep trying new things and to realise my work could be anything, it can evolve and change. I think being open minded is key, and a great strength to have, as it's opened me up to so many new things. I was scared of screen printing and book binding and loads of stuff, whereas now I feel like I could give anything a go and I might find something I love.
• I think I'm finding out what I really want my work to be about, the vibe I want it to have, the affect I want it to have on an audience. and with this I'm making sure my work does this, I'm thinking about it in every stage of making work now. I think making work that's driven and specific and has intentions and ambition is super important and I'm pleased this is becoming a really crucial part of my practice. even if my work isn't always successful, integrating this into my work really affects the outcome and is super conducive to making successful work.
• as a practitioner, I think my use of thumb nailing and roughing is super important. I've got into a good habit of spending a lot of time in thumb nailing so that I'm working through ideas and refining. I think this is helpful to composition and general idea generation.
• I think as a person I'm quite focused on my interests, my values, the things I care about and think are important. as a practitioner, I think these things are important and this is a success because I embed my values and my passions and my interested into my work. I think the fact I really care about people and human rights issues and that I'm mad about a lot of things is crucial to my work. without it I wouldn't take so much time to consider 'is my work representing people in an accurate way? will this uplift people, will this help young girls feel empowered, or inspire someone to do something they've always wanted? will the way I've drawn this persons body be refreshing for someone to see, or make them feel marginalised?'. I think having these concerns really makes my work valuable. I also feel like I'm a sensitive person and I like weird things sometimes and I want to capture something wonderful and nostalgic in my work. if I wasn't so into these things, what would influence my work and what would make it worthwhile?
• I think another strength I have is identifying my weaknesses, things I can't do, mistakes I've made. without being able to see where I've gone wrong or how pieces could be improved, my work would not improve. I think that I use my blog in a way that helps me do this, as I'm very reflective and always aiming to do better.

5 struggles

• one struggle I have is with composition, I feel this is something I definitely need to work on as I find that this needs to be planned and practiced a lot. I think this isn't a use struggle, just something I need to be conscious of and continue to work on. 
• my craftsmanship and level of professionalism is something I want to improve. I'm quite clumsy, messy, not very good at exact technical hands on stuff so when it comes to presenting my work I think it can look kind of weak and unprofessional. I think again this just needs practice, but this is very important as even if an illustration is amazing, if the finishing touches to get it printed or framed or how it presented can show where someones been careless or thoughtless. 
• exploring things that are new to me/that I know I'm bad at. this is something I'm currently working on, but I still see it as a weakness. I know that there's things I've yet to really dive into, such as collage/making more shape based work/more minimalist work/design/typography, and sometimes I find these things overwhelming because they're not in my comfort zone. I think pushing past this could help me find something new that I love or a new approach to image making.
• I don't make enough time for my own personal work to actually go anywhere. I think what I'm learning on the course is really important, and work that's still really important to me, but just drawing for fun or actually trying to make some personally driven work could be beneficial. I think if I had more time to draw for fun/make art with no real purpose I could work through ideas better, be more free and open in my work and play more. And I think dedicating to personal work is important, as working with my own set briefs would help be more independently led.  
• I compare my work to other practitioners way too much, and I should just try and love their work and be inspired rather than being annoyed I'm 'not as good'. I think it's helpful for me to be drive by aspirations, but instagram is full of amazing artists and trying to 'be as good as them' isn't helpful to my own journey as a practitioner. 

AS A STUDENT

5 strengths

• I think as a student I'm pretty ambitious, I'm driven to try and achieve good grades and work I'm proud of. The grades aren't that important compared to learning, but striving to always be making work that fulfils me is important because I feel that without that drive I wouldn't really be in uni. If I wasn't always reaching to something new or better I think my work/journey as a student would be pretty stagnant.
• I feel like I'm quite self reflective and critical of my work/studies. I think being able to use the ILOs in a constructive way in helpful as a student, as well as in my practice. Uni in general helps me with my work because I think there's more room to analyse and critique what I'm doing, question if my work is successful. If I was just working on my own, without goals or ILOs I'd probably be far less introspective.
• In general my punctuality/attendance is good and even though it's simple, it's an important part of being a student. Especially with illustration, if you aren't spending time on it and you aren't in that learning environment enough it can hinder you, half of the decisions I make/successes I have come out of conversations I have at uni and because I'm always working and thinking.
• I think the way I work as a student is a good habit I've got into, so I'm proud of that. I work most nights for a little bit with meg, me and meg go in together fairly often outside of scheduled uni time, I try to do some work everyday. I think doing this is really helpful because having someone around you who's a workaholic is very motivating, having people around who talk about their work and care about their studies is again motivating and keeps me where I want to be. I know when left on my own I can be an awful procrastinator so I'm glad I've got friends who are supportive but help me feel like pushing myself and motivate me. I think being mindful of where you want to be/what you want to be doing and having a circle who share those ideas is good because it keeps you happy n working.
• overall I'm pretty pleased with my first year, I think my main strength has been my enthusiasm/willingness to try and be wrong or make mistakes. accepting that I'm just gunna have to be terrible and make ugly work and try again has helped me grow so much. I think if I didn't have such a passion to learn and get better I'd be doing terribly, I'd have gotten no where, and I'd probably hate the course. I absolutely love the course and love learning so that helps me get through everything.

5 struggles

• I think something I need to work on is finding a balance between critical analysis and just being negative, and feedback in general. I think sometimes just me trying to look at my work and find problems with it can be unhelpful because it's hard to avoid your own disappointment in a piece or the fact you might just love it even if it's not actually successful, whereas finding good critical feedback is far more fulfilling. However sometimes if I'm being honest I can listen to someone's feedback and think 'I hate that idea/I hate your taste in this/I don't wanna do that'. So feedback is hard. I don't want to dismiss people's opinions, and I know I can't just look at my work by myself, but I feel like sometimes people don't value the same things I do so when they see my work, they're looking at things I like and hating them/thinking they're unsuccessful. It's hard because I can sometimes think 'I'm not making work for this person, they don't like it because they're not my audience' but then I think that is that even valid? Sometimes you can't pick your audience, should I be making work that people understand and like and making it so everyone 'gets it' because then it's successful? or should I be making work that I like about things I want and then find the audience I think will be into it, and have them see if it's successful.
• I think I need to immerse myself into more things, into more culture and art and things I love so that my work is more enriched. I think I need to go out into nature more, go to more gigs, talk to people more, be more present in a community so that I'm being more ME and then my work has more influence from things I care about. I think more fun, more things, more loves in my life will be just good for my work/my studentship.
• I need to commit to finally having a planner. They make me anxious because I'm always worried the minute I finally plan what I'm going to do everyday, I'm going to make a schedule thats unachievable and I'll never do anything on my to do list and I'll fail. I know this is stupid and I think if I had a planner and a routine that was a lot more exact and committed, I'd get more work done. I think I need to do this about my personal life as well, so I can see when I have time for breaks and fun and stuff. If I plan to work little and often I think I'll find that I way more free time than I think/way more time to commit to work than I think. Right now my plan of 'just work all the time till it's done' is exhaustive and messy and bad.
• I need to talk to more practitioners and 2nd/3rd years and just be less shy. I know if I tried to talk to more students n stuff I'd get more help/get more inspiration and insight/get more friends tbh but I'm too shy about it. ask questions to lecturers more, if I'm at a fair or art show TALK to the bloody artist. and if I'm being cheesy, it never hurts to know more people in art/leeds for when I'm trying to work.
• go to the library more!!!! read some fucking books!!! I don't know why I'm so busy apparently but I know reading more books will help my studies. the uni has such a good library, get some knowledge, draw from reference, find some new artists. also draw outside more/for life because I know it's good for me but I have no attention span. tbh my attention span is awful and I need to work on it. I'm so stubborn, if I don't like something I just can't do it. I need to just get on with it and try. read a book more, draw outside more. try.