Selling online

I had a small re-arrange of my online shop. I added a header of a *doodle* I had done... whilst not massively significant, right now I feel that this dog(?) encapsulates what I want my work to feel like. It's also nicely lit, and ties into those ideals of nosiness into artist's lives/ sketchbooks...

The listings within the shop are also bigger now, and clearer to see. The layout is simple but bold.  And now my prints are up for purchase! 

potential contacts

A quick list of the various places I could/ would/ should make a start at contacting, based on previous notes of the kind of places I would see my work going.

Notes:

• More prominently than the others, and more relevant than ever, it is important to align yourself with newspapers and media that are in line with your politics. Let's put it this way, although I doubt I'd ever fit their audience, I'm not about to do any editorial for the Daily Mail, not even as a *test/theoretical* piece
• GO SMALL + GO BIG + GO EVERYWHERE 
• I want to be ambitious in who I want to reach out to, but it also doesn't hurt to build foundations at smaller scales. Similarly, in the internet age, it's very possible to address your work overseas, and even between language barriers if approached in the right way.
• There were some more actual names I was going to write but had forgotten, but have asked people who know who I mean to remind me...

More art director names I was reminded of/ given by a friend:

•  SooJin Buzelli, Alexandra Zsigmond, Deanna Donnegan (New Yorker), Len Small (Nautilus) + Anshuman Idammsetty (Hazlitt)

intentions

I started to make some notes re-evaluating my direction (again). It's a little bit too much thinking rather than doing, but the thoughts are there.

I was reminded of the RCA Visual Communications pathway "Situated Illustration", and thought it would be of interest to take some lead from their descriptions...

print with Not Now studio

I was recently contacted by Not Now studio in Bristol in regards to being one of their 'artists of the month'. The deal would be that I would provide a print design, an edition of 50 would be printed and we would each keep half the prints to do what we wanted with. Considering that I would like to never print anything myself again, it seemed like a good deal! I also had a design from Context of Practice's module that I had fancied getting printed, and the opportunity to get it printed for *free* was more than enough to tempt me. Luckily they liked the design and were happy to give it the go ahead!

I translated the design a little for separations, but as it's essentially the same and didn't have much research behind it I won't be submitting it as part of Extended Practice.

original

print design

separations

final print

re-evaluating my work and direction

With the clean break of post-dissertation life I've begun to question the direction of my work a little more. It's not so much the tone of voice, but the aesthetics and the way I construct images- often flat and compositionally... not very dynamic. I now have the time to re-focus and try to push this. The subject matter too- with very self-driven briefs like the Thoughtbubble publication and the print for PRESS I was given complete self direction, and pushed for time I went for my sort of cliche tropes... usually something a little pouty...

Working on '1000 ways to draw a tiger' has really pushed me to consider shape and form, and I'd like to see how I can apply this to more 'serious' contexts but also compositions that are a little more 'real world', and not just a flat plain background. I think children's book illustration is quite a nice place to start this and go wild with it, but I think it can also be applied in subtler ways for sure.

On the other hand, I want to draw more real things! Never realistic, but drawing environments and settings, as it's not something I've ever really done. I have absolutely 0 understanding of perspective, and maybe that will be inevitably be utilised in a stylistic way, but I need to draw something that isn't just a figure! And even- consider compositions without ANY figures. For example, this illustration by Lizzy Stewart really struck me for its lack of characters, and that's testament to the composition itself, but maybe it was also noticeable because most of her work DOES include a figure of some sort.

Lizzy Stewart

considering contexts and briefs

I can't see my work going into a really specific context. I enjoy editorial, publishing and children's illustration. I think it's possible to do this without becoming just a 'jack of all trades'. I feel like it's all I ever write about in regards to PPP but I think to be a confident artist largely lies in establishing and maintaining your own tone of voice. Artists like Laura Carlin and Jillian Tamaki have proved that it's possible to work, successfully, in all three of these contexts and beyond.

However I do feel a little apprehensive about doing lots of different projects. I don't know why I was so unsure about potentially working in children's illustration, when my FMP for level 5 proved so fun. I don't want book illustration to be my main focus for THIS year's FMP, so the idea of taking a pre-existing text like the Carmelite prize could be a good idea. I really think that children's illustration often has the most scope for the most, visually, exciting illustration. And drawing chickens aren't so bad either.

Asides from my final BIG project, I think it would be good to stick to client/ competition lead briefs, to practice and also evidence I can work in that way. This could even be competitions, like the Folio Society, adapted to cater to my own tastes, whilst also making that work a little diverse than say, all of the other graduates who will have To Kill A Mockingbird in their portfolios.

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Briefs Overview:

level 6 2016 work (mostly very small briefs):

• AOI Prize (done in summer post-level 5 but not sure if I can submit as E.P?)
• editorials (not very many)
• painting commission 
• zine for Thoughtbubble/ Grid Kids
• FORGE art magazine
• PRESSriso print

currently:

• 1 x screen-print commission (design based on previous COP3 work, so won't be submitted as Extended Practice just PPP) (to be revealed this week)
• 1 x commission (within the comics/ illustration community... not sure how secret it is!) (likely to be a slightly larger brief, a small publication)
• Penguin Design Award 2017
• To Kill a Mockingbird 
• In Cold Blood 
• Adrian Mole
• Editorials (will be resumed... and although I want to work on them in quick succession I don't think it's necessary to *force* one a week)

potential:

• Carmelite prize
• !!!BIG SELF DRIVEN PROJECT!!!
• and more................!!!!

Happy New Year

I am interested in working in a silly and playful way.

I am interested in making work that is SINCERE 

My COP practical synthesis touches on this, but the stress of the writing and the getting it together gets/ got in the way.

I'm glad for being critical of the illustration world and considering theory but... now I've ingested that can I forget it for a while? Let it digest in the background

Misaki Kawai having fun