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