Summrative Evaluation

When starting the course, I was not clear on what illustration entailed, or how my skills could be applied to a career.

From ppp modules and briefs, I now have a realistic awareness of my chosen sector and my place within it.

Over these 3 years I have been introduced to many avenues  illustration could take me into – editorial, narrative, publishing etc., but a specific direction for me had not become clear until this year.

I have really enjoyed the process of creating work for a purpose, from projects I have undertaken over the last 2 years especially, those that have allowed me to communicate my personal connection with the subject matter, or that revolve around a social issue have been the most successful. Having a strong moral compass, the ability to raise awareness to social issues within my illustration seems to drive my practice and motivation, therefore creating work for charity campaigns is somewhere I can see myself and my design work fitting.

Although I do like working from home in my own environment, regular discussions about my work with tutors and peers in a creative environment has been vital to keep me on track and help me deal with self-doubt or when I have encountered a creative block.

Not only this, living with other creatives from a range of courses at LCA has been really beneficial for me, broadening my artistic interest and providing me with a supportive and sympathetic home environment.

Seeing how course peers have formed recognisable practices is really encouraging, it has been reassuring to see that there is no one way to tackle a brief, and that I should be confident in my individual tone of voice and approach.

Though my practice still centres around the use of detailed work through hand rendered processes, the skills I have gained using digital software has massively evolved my practice and opened up a variety of opportunities I could do with my analogue illustrations. A process I have developed is overlaying and combining illustrations to create a more expressive piece. I have had a tendency to focused too much on explaining my pieces rather than developing ideas when I could have simplified work if I hadn’t overthought it.

collaborating with a photographer has probably been one of the most a defining moment for me over the last 2 years as I was able to discuss with him the mood and message I would want the photo to capture.  I feel my work has definitely benefitted from better quality references.  Though we specialise in different areas, we share the same creative vison.

 We plan to create a promotional pack of our current project (documenting Bradford) to show to potential galleries that could feature the project. Keeping up a collaboration I hope will introduce double the exposure and opportunities to both our practices.

One of the most significant part of our ppp module, and the one I found most challenging, was contacting people who could have an impact on our creative future. The fear that people would think I was being intrusive made me hesitant to contact them, I also struggle with conveying what I want to say both verbally and in writing, so the effort it takes to rehearse or write is discouraging.

Emails I have received back from practitioners I admire have been really humbling and motivating, especially when they have spoken so kindly about the work I had shown them, I had considered them  ‘famous’ in the illustration world, and therefore did not expect a response.  However, I have not as yet heard anything back from agencies I aspire to work for, this is really disheartening as I think a agent would be really beneficial to my practice and fear I will struggle for commissions without one.

This year has made me realise the importance of contacting people not only in the creative industries, but more broadly. I have recently been offered the position of Creative Workshop Assistant at a local arts community that came about after I contacted a woman for advice on my current project working with the elderly. She is linked to creative events focused on my current project area and has helped create this opportunity.

I have also started to contact charities introducing my desire to produce work for charity purposes in the hope I would be directed to companies/agencies that provide charities with awareness campaign illustrations or a direct commission.  This is something I have been putting off for a while as when looking on contact pages on charity websites their was no specific person to contact about awareness visuals so presumed I was looking in the wrong place. However I have come to the conclusion that I won’t know unless I ask - ‘shy bairns get nowt ‘ as John Watters would say.

Creating a strong and diverse online presence is one of the most important lessons I will take with me when I leave. Having somewhere I can direct people to which contains examples of my work when speaking to potential clients is easy and beneficial. Though I’ve only had 3 commissions from my online presence this year, it shows it works and I just needs to make sure I use is regularly to get people to take notice of me and my work.

I am really glad this year has given me the opportunities and the freedom to self-direct briefs and deal with clients in a supportive environments as it has given me a taster of what life could be like, dealing with realistic deadlines and having to balance several briefs at a time. It has also allowed me to ask tutors advice about things I am not sure about when dealing with clients, something I will not have next year. I think it has built up my confidence, as I have had to rely on my intuition and self-reassurance with some of my illustrations. I think the course has set me up for the outside world and the rest is knowledge I will gain from experience in the creative industry.