First commission

I was recently contacted by a guy who owns a skate shop in Bolton. He said he'd seen some of my work on Instagram and asked if i could draw him a couple of pictures. One of his cat which will be getting printed underneath some skateboard decks, and the other of the town hall clock in Bolton which is a well known building in the center of Bolton.



Unfortunately the work of mine he said he liked was some stuff i did a few years ago which was very detailed and precise. I told him thats not really the syle of work i like to make any more but ill still do it for him. As i knew this experience would definitely be beneficial for me. when i was back in Bolton just after the 504 hand in, i decided to pop by the skate shop just to show him some sketches id done and get a better idea of what he wanted.

 I knew there was probably no point doing any roughs for the cat because he seemed pretty sure he just wanted me to copy a picture of it what he sent me. As for the town hall I thought it might be bit boring and weird just to have a plain building on the back of a t shirt, especially if it was aimed to be sold to the youth skate community. So I drew a few roughs incorporating different aspects of the centre of bolton surrounding the building

However when I showed him he didn't really seem very interested and said he would just prefer the building.

 I was a bit nervous about doing this because id never met him before and i didn't know if he was going to like what i had drawn. it was fine in the end, originally hed asked me just to do it in pencils but i advised him otherwise as it might not looked the best once scanned in, he took my word for it and i decided to do it with brush and ink.

For some reason it looks alot darker than it did on photoshop but when i look at it in the photo veiwer it seems to look okay. This definitely is not the sort of image i want to be doing alot of, its quite the opposite but i need the experience and hes paying me to do them.

He said he really likes this one so now im about to start the town hall drawing

PPP Study task 2

Editorial & Reportage

I recently completed a studio practice brief in which we were asked to design 3 editorial illustrations, and i feel i did fairly well and the final images were successful according to my peers. Although i had a bit of trouble actually coming up with the ideas and produced way less thumbnail roughs than was asked for. On the other hand i am usually pretty good and thinking up metaphors and different ways of representing things through imagery, and making things functional. I think it all depends on the breif and how easily the ideas come to you for certain things. Another thing which would effect me in these two feilds are my academic skills, which are not so good. If i was given a news paper article to read and sumerise, it would take me quiet a long time and the chances are i still wouldn't properly understand. The client would maybe have to tell me exactly what the key points of the text were, then i could decide how to depict them through drawing.

 Publishing & Book Design

In the future i would love the opportunity to illustrate a children's book or picture book. Even the cover of a magazine or cd would be fantastic. I love to draw characters and scenes, especially in nature such as a landscape full of animals and people, but as i mentioned in the previous point, i would struggle if there was a lot of stuff to read and note down before embarking on the brief at hand. Hopefully there wont be and the client could just describe exactly what they want verbally or with a through a simple email, i realize this wont always be the case and somtimes i may have to read a book or article but there is still plenty time for me to develop these skills and get more confident with them so i can feel more comfortable doing a variety of briefs.

Character & Narrative

 These are two things I can definitely link my work to and hope to create work related to these in the fututre. Especially character, I am very fond of drawing people/ figures and animals. I like this because they are enjoyable to draw and i think people can relate and connect more with images of this nature because they are living things, for example most people are animal lovers so they are more likley to have an emotional response to a drawing of colourful animal rather than a drawing of a building or a car. In terms of narrative, i definitely have a long way to go in developing my story telling skills but i often try and make my figures and scenes have a purpose/ function or give them a certain emotion so the viewer can wonder and almost work the story out for themselves.

Product & Packaging

This is another field i would be keen to work in. I haven't had much experience with products or packaging in terms of illustration or art apart from the odd project here and there in college. I think i would be capable of designing some artwork to be printed on a product or packaging because its just the same as drawing anything else, apart from the extra rules id have to take into consideration e.g. materials of product which is being printed on, or whether the packaging is being folded or not and how this could effect the visual quality of the design. As far as actually designing the product or packaging its self i think this would have to be left with someone else, i would prefer my practice to be drawing/ print based.