Independent Leeds: Hallowed Footsteps

Below are the spot images I was asked to illustrate for the article entitled 'Hallowed Footsteps', an account of the history and regeneration of Leeds' oldest street, Kirkgate.

East St. Arts, Art Hostel

 Kirkgate Minster

Wapentake, new bakery/cafe

White Cloth Hall, the original building

And here is the magazine spread!

It was quite surreal seeing my work in an actual published magazine, but it felt like a huge accomplishment.

So where can this fit into my extended practice?

I feel a bit burnt out by the whole buildings thing to be honest. What started as my own exciting venture has been almost immediately commercialised and fired into the eyes of the public, which has kind of burnt out the flame for me. Now that FMP is on the horizon, I honestly don't know if I have time to continue doing one a week with the buildings, so alternatively in terms of my portfolio I could chronologically add this article after the one a week, to show progression and commercial success.

Papyrus: Development

This brief has been pretty therapeutic in itself whilst I've found it hard to be creative over the last few weeks. 

The development is coming on well, although one thing that I've found is that it can be pretty restricting in some ways due to the way that I work. Firstly, the lines all have to be drawn in 0.3 fine liner, which is difficult because I like to use a variety of line thicknesses when I make a drawing. Secondly, I'm having to be much more precise when creating the lines and be less 'loose' and fluid, creating a clearer end product.

Roughs/Layout

I decided to go with the jellyfish!

Summary

This brief has been great just to get back into the swing of things. It's also given me some scope into potentially working on more colouring books in the future, as well as using the fine liner drawings elsewhere e.g. on other products like tote bags, prints etc.

CREATIVE BLOCK

I've been feeling absolutely bloody rotten the past two weeks. I have no ideas or desire to be creative at all, and it feels like it won't pass (I know it will, though). 

With the impending pressure of extended practice, or the lack of it, I decided that the best thing to do this last week was just to look after myself and take things easy. This consisted of not writing any 'to do lists', planning things hourly depending on how I was feeling, not forcing myself to draw etc. When I feel calm and stable in myself, I feel greater confidence that I can overcome the wrath of the black dog and actually finish my degree and do what I love doing!

ANYWAY. I took a second trip to Waterstones to look for inspiration and spent a while looking at the creative activity section (colouring books, drawing journals etc.) because I really need some encouragement. I came across these lovely little gems:

The beautiful works of Ana Montiel and Eloise Renouf have both been processed into these lovely books, produced by Quarry Press who predominantly publish illustrative activity books like these for adults and children.

I'm a huge fan of the layout; each subject is situated on a double page spread, with the examples on the left, and space to experiment on the right. As well, I admire that they have thought about the intimidation of the blank page. Instructions and tips at the bottom of the page just creates that extra feeling of ease allowing the user to become more confident in the marks that they are creating.

What now?

Over the weekend I am going to continue to take things easy, and get stuck into these books, and hopefully I will gain back some confidence in my work again!

To Kill A Mockingbird: Initial Ideas

The Penguin Random House Student Design Award was one of my favourite Responsive briefs last year, so I decided to enter again this year. I read To Kill A Mockingbird at the end of first year for  the About the Author brief, so it was great to have a little bit of a head start/prior knowledge of the book before designing a cover.

Themes:

• Coexistence of good and evil
• The importance of moral education
• Existence of social inequality

Motifs:

• Gothic detail
• Small town life

Symbols:

• Mockingbirds
• Boo Radley

I only have a few rough initial ideas at this stage; the first would be to use birds as a symbol. Within the book, three types of bird are mentioned. Obviously the mockingbird being the central focus, and the bluejay being compared as inadequate and invaluable in comparison, but additionally Scout's family name is Finch.

The second was to illustrate the scene of the oak tree hole filled with gifts from Boo Radley to the children. This part of the book, to me conjures an array of different interpretations, including charm, endearment, mystery and symbolisation.

Over the next few days I intend to develop my concepts further and come up with an innovative and original solution as requested from the brief. I have also made a pinterest board with previous examples of To Kill a Mockingbird covers and artwork, as well as other inspiring illustrative book jackets.

Papyrus Colouring Book: Initial Sketches

We received an email about a colouring book brief towards the end of last month and made a mental note that it was something that I really wanted to do.

Papyrus is a charity which aims to prevent the development of mental illnesses and suicide in young people, and they want to compile a colouring book as a solution for stress relief to prevent such difficulties spiralling. 

References

(put pictures here of colouring book references)

Ideas 

I gathered that drawing around a subject that was relaxing and had no suggestive/triggering connotations related to it was the best option. Therefore I chose nature as my starting point, as I find that surrounding myself in all things natural can be a sanctuary in escaping stress. My initial sketches simply focus on natural forms, both on land and in water.  

It's a small start, but I aim to keep gradually working on this brief in breaks from other projects.

FMP Research

The first thing I always do when I need inspiring is take a trip to the magical place that is Waterstones. I could honestly spend a whole day in there looking at the beautiful illustrations within the vast array of publications that they supply.

I went in today with my 'educational book' hat on, searching for some ideas about maybe producing some sort of educational pack for schools for my FMP. I looked at some gorgeous books and made note of their author,illustrator and publisher, but came away feeling even more anxious and confused. Nothing really jumped out at me with excitement and planted the seed of enthusiasm to get the ball rolling with this project. 

Patrick suggested that a historical workshop pack would be right up my street; creating visual learning activities for the National Curriculum for History. But I don't know if I'm that interested in history to commit to such a huge project on it. It's only been recently that I've become interested in architectural history, but I can't say that I'm passionate enough about the Romans or the Egyptians to produce a body of really strong work on the subject.

So the confusion is the conclusion of today. I'm super anxious at the minute, so maybe I just need to focus on one thing at a time instead of trying to churn out a load of work when I'm not in the right frame of mind. Nevertheless, here are some illustrators that I admired and made note of today: 

Tutorial with Jamie

I've never had a tutorial with Jamie before, so I felt almost as if I was pitching my practice to him and had to make a good first impression. As well, I guess I put him in a difficult position being like 'hi I've never spoken to you before but I have no idea where my practice is going so please fire ideas at me'.

We both agreed that the building a week project/work with Independent Leeds was one of my strongest pieces of work so far, but questioned how it could be more focused and expansive, and if there would be an overarching theme to everything. My main worry is that I have such a scattered practice and am interested in too many different things to maintain a qualitative focus. Jamie suggested that I focus on less small briefs, because 'I will get bored of them' and 'less is more', which is completely true. 

With my interest in teaching and developing creative workshops it was suggested that I place more emphasis on this for my final major project.

As I said in the post yesterday about the peer review, I'm really struggling with my practice. This tutorial has really helped but at the same time confused me a little-at no fault of Jamie's! I know that this won't last forever, but the clock is ticking and I really need something that I can sink my teeth into. So I'm going to go to my favourite place of inspiration-Waterstones!

Statement of Intent Peer Review

Having a peer review for the statement of intent seemed like a really un-ideal situation in my current state of confusion and worry, but I gathered it would be best to attend and hopefully gain some good and helpful feedback.

My group basically just regurgitated what I discussed with Patrick funnily enough! Everyone had confidence in my work, apart from me. Again, nothing seemed to jump out at me and make me excited, it just all seems so daunting and as if I've lost interest (hopefully not!) 

To save myself getting in a state, I'm going to fill out the rest of the sheet when I've had some time to think about my practice and stop fretting about starting new projects- it won't do me any good otherwise.

Tutorial with Patrick

I'm sure it's the case for everyone, but I'm finding it hard to get back into my practical practice after such a heavy semester of writing; I feel quite washed out and need some inspiration!

Patrick and I talked about my work with Independent Leeds and how I could capitalise on this; for example using the theme of buildings as a vehicle to create more work that will fit into additional contexts.

Everything we talked about seems really interesting but for some reason it just seems like its a huge hop skip and a jump away and I don't have the drive to embark on such a large project for FMP. I think if I try to put my worries aside and just enjoy drawing and become more comfortable with practical processes again I will be ok!