Russels circus visit

As my project is on The Night Circus it is important for me to be able to get firsthand research at a circus performance for my work. I was planning to go to London but fortunately there was a circus not far from university at Kings Lynn for a while so I went to visit with my housemate Ashleigh Berryman who is also a photography student and agreed to help me.

The circus performance does not include animals and is solely human performers. The show included some fantastically talented individuals, my favourite of which was the contortionist who bent herself into strange positions and held herself up on one hand. She will provide some great reference imagery for the contortionist character Tsukiko.

There were several acrobats who performed on suspended hoops, with one even performing on a giant hanging star shape. One of the final acts worked on a rope which at one point she used as a swing, towering over our heads at the top of the tent, which reminded me of the acrobat tent in the book where all the performers are at the top of the tent. Alongside the acrobats was also a tightrope artist on a pole who did back flips and somersaults and a group of dancing girls that also worked together to build human pyramid shapes.

I was surprised to see not only only jugglers but also fire breathers and fire jugglers who worked stunningly quickly in a blur of fire, just as is described in The Night Circus. Unfortunately the juggler was hard to capture as he moved so fast whilst the fire breather looks great as the fire becomes a blur of light.

My aim before I went was to draw first-hand whilst Ashleigh photographed but it was a lot darker in there than we had expected, and the only time it was light enough to draw the clown kindly came and drenched us with a hose… So in the end we both did a mixture of photography and film with Ashleigh able to get some more closeup shots for me.

Overall the visit was a real success and I've got some great footage to work from that will be really useful for when I come to illustrating the performers. It was interesting to see a traditional family-run circus as there was that sense of unity within the cast that is evident in the book.

For more information on the circus itself visit Russels International Circus.

Pop-up show: curated dialogues

This afternoon was our pop-up group show for our collaboration projects on curated dialogues. Nancy and I finished our book an hour before and we were excited to present it as we had it neatly bound with our matching Lettraset artist statement. It was a great feeling to put forward our shared piece and to look around other people's projects especially as they were so varied. 

Zoo, By Fruzsi Toth and Emma Traynor

This collaborative project was discussing Emma's interest in the relationship between animals and humans and Fruzsi's intention to illustrate P.L. Traver's Mary Poppins, combined with their joint interest in children's narrative.They portrayed their ideas through a pop-up scene that combined characters from both their chosen subject matters incorporating their interest in role reversal to involve different viewpoints. This role reversal was projected through two scenes, one with animals in the zoo with children watching, and the other with children in the zoo and the animals fulfilling human roles. I really enjoyed their project as the theme was fun and unique as well as nicely executed; the final piece looked professional and enticing with its sweet minature characters. They created the piece through mono-printing which allowed them to display lots of different textures for the animals fur, concrete floor and surrounding environment. The only down side was that I felt their accompanying photographs didn't portray the success of the physical piece as they were badly lit with odd angles, which highlights the importance of photographing our work well to document it as successfully as possible and allow our illustrative skill to shine through. 

       

Portraiture, By Alicja Jarzynska and Toby Price

Alicja and Toby decided to concentrate on portraiture and the task of reflecting people's individual 'personalities and characteristics through visual representation and combination of different style and media.' The wanted to capture these personalities in a unique way, making the images almost 'surrealistic'. The above pieces show Alicja, top and Toby, bottom through self portraits portrayed in a book with accompanying text. They used some really unusual viewpoints such as Alicja turning away and Toby's face represented by a nose and mouth as if in shadow. The two styles are fun and unconventional but I would have liked to see them draw each other or combine their styles on one piece so they could have worked more collaboratively.  

'The Cats Couldn't say Anything' 

By Gabby Walker, Holly Horn and Ellen Rockell

The collaborative project above was based around the issues of reportage basing their conversation in a vintage setting that was audio-recorded. This was then divided into what they intended to discuss, what tangents their conversation evolved into and the external influences and overheard voices from within the setting. The final piece was created through 50's magazine images that reflect elements of the conversation, with tracing paper used to show 'the layers and depth to a discussion'. I think the piece was really successful as the booklet was clean-cut and professional with clever layering and humorous imagery to create a modern take on their discussion with a vintage twist. As a team all three of them helped to create the imagery and because of the combination of collage technique and old magazine materials the overall style flows well.

The feedback on our own work was positive with people feeling we encompassed our narrative discussion successfully in a narrative format. The overall comments liked our use of texture and character, but one comment, which I agree with, said we should scan in and print our pieces for a more professional finish- we didn't do this at the time as we wanted to portray the way the layers of texture and image built up together. We were very pleased with someone's comment that they want to buy our piece as it reads well as a guide to narrative! 

Overall the pop-up show was a great way for us to share and reflect on each others work and a lot of us seem to have benefited and learnt from working collaboratively. This workshop has also proved how fast and productively we can work in a 2 week time slot to create something professional and finalised which will spur me on over the next few weeks towards deadline.

Tutorial- project proposal discussion

I had my first tutorial for BA7 today with Chris to look over my project proposals for my practical work and research report which has been really helpful in helping me to focus for my future actions. 

In terms of my practical project in illustrating The Night Circus he said the first step should really be to decide what my images will be and then let my ideas develop, and to not start making decisions in term of  technical and material choices too early as this may restrict me later when I've chosen what I'm illustrating. I am concerned because I have chosen such a large text (490 pages!) so I am still in the process of highlighting and typing up my quotes into character, object, setting and significant event categories. Therefore I can't really decide what I am illustrating until this has been done, so my aim for now is to focus on getting that completed so I can start drawing from my quotes and see what feels right.

My reference to using texture to create atmosphere in my work was also discussed and there are a few points for me to consider in how I can achieve that: through different papers, paper cutting from circus ephemera, marrying texture in an abstract way? Chris suggested that I go out looking for textures that I want to represent such as metal surfaces and patterns, so I plan to go out and start taking photographs to build a texture library to use later on in the project and possibly in the future.

Texture rubbing, MSU

I was originally going to do 6-8 illustrations for my final outcome but it was advised that I shouldn't be over ambitious in the short space of time and that 4-6 is a more appropriate number to allow me to concentrate more on content and quality, and I think this way I can create a large bulk of development work and really think about editing that down for my finals. 

My proposed question for the research report is "Is it a necessity for freelance illustrators to have an agency to be successful in today's industry?". We discussed how to define what today's industry is by looking into what illustration is used for, whether there is less or more work for illustrators at the moment and whether new technology has affected that. In terms of my structure I need to counter-balance and counter-argument to allow me to thoroughly discuss the question and voice my own opinion. It is important to discuss my viewpoint but also keep my mind open to both sides of the discussion which is something i need to remember when writing my report.

Chris advised I talk to illustrators who have/ have had agents but to also keep in mind that those who are negative towards agents will most likely be biased due to bad personal experience and vice-versa. He very helpfully offered to put me in contact with his agency and other practitioners with agencies that he knows of if I come with a set of potential questions to pass on. I will try and think of a thorough set of questions as soon as possible, both obvious and in-obvious to get the most varied and revealing results I can.

So the plan for the near future is to finish annotating and quoting the book, gather found textures and to think of questions for my research report.

Collaboration continued

Nancy and I started creating some drawings in response to our ideas on what makes a good narrative on Friday 11th on some A5 pieces of black and white card, such as our answers to questions we asked each other and playing around with illustrating certain elements of story writing. On Friday afternoon we had a group critique session on our ideas so far but I went home as I felt ill, so Nancy stood in for us both and filled me in on what was said this morning:

• Think more about how to present our ideas and dialogue for a more finished and considered final
• Consider typography and how it sits with the imagery more
• They liked my bear character- develop that more?

We discussed how to incorporate and improve these ideas in our work and I suggested we used tracing paper and acetate layers with our imagery combined with Letraset transfer type overlay to allow us to build and consider our images, also allowing the Letraset transfer to add a more finished feel to our work. Nancy suggested we develop the bear character by making him move throughout our drawings to give the sense of a journey, perhaps moving closer to the viewer/ larger in scale. We have decided to develop our format from postcards to a book but still using the A5 card format and documenting our discussion on these cards. The book format will allow us to better portray a sense of journey and the techniques used in a book while literally demonstrating the popular narrative format. 

Collaboration, thekidsareintrouble.com 

We are drawing on the cards as we discuss our theme to let the order and content naturally develop, and then adding the necessary text and extra drawing over the top to highlight and portray the ideas we discuss. Nancy also suggested we involve ourselves more in the narrative theme by being less literal with setting the scene in the studio, and through discussions of developing my bear character we decided a forest with a campfire would be a good and coherent setting.

To keep our work collaborative we will demonstrate what we say individually in speech bubbles but also illustrate each others ideas, sometimes singularly, other times working collaboratively on the same image/ layering. This means our book will blend both of our illustrative styles and ideas to appear harmonious and show how our ideas have bounced off each other and progressed together.

We will continue drawing our discussion tomorrow and hopefully plan to bind the final book and have time to reflect and finalise on Friday. 

Gathering Research

I really believe in the importance of research when it comes to making innovating and impressive work so I am thinking carefully about how to approach my research file. I usually annotate my research by hand but this is messy, time-consuming and not always entirely helpful when I find new research to link to previous findings. In my last project I worked with Adobe Indesign to create my final book so I have become more familiar with the controls and I have decided to create my research file in this way. This means I can play around with composition, order and content and when I eventually print it for assessment it will be clearer and more professional.

Whilst I was in the library today I discovered 'Cutting Edges: Comtemporary Collage', an exciting and inspiring book that had lots of practitioner's work I had not seen before.

Katherine Streeter

I came across Katherin Streeter's work and I love the way she creates fun and unusual compositions with rough-edged cut-outs and layered textures. For this project I want to explore collage, paper cutting and textures further as I think this will help me come up with the most effective response to my narrative, meaning I am interested in the way other illustrators use these techniques successfully. Another example I found was Jelle Marten's work which is minimal with geometric patterns and shapes. He mixes found textures and photographs with a selective colour palette to create crisp, fresh pieces that portray atmospheric settings. Both Streeter and Marten use bold shapes in their work to create solid blocks of colour which could be an interesting way to adding the red to represent the circus followers in my work, without literally depicting their gloves or scarves.

Jelle Martens

For the rest of the week I am tackling the time consuming job of highlighting my text and copying and categorizing my notes so I can start creating imagery. 

Ideas generation lecture

I had a lecture on thinking about developing ideas for Units 7 and 8 which was really useful in making me try and focus my ideas by considering the context and motive behind my work. An important question is who are we creating work for? Myself, others or both. I think most people would like to think both but others is definitely more important for me. I do for it for myself because I want to challenge myself and improve, but that is working towards my main goal which is to create work that people will enjoy and get the same pleasure from that I do from other illustrator's work.

It is also important to think about where the work I create will fit, what will it's application be? We looked at the following categories:

• Magazine: Oh Comely, Elephant, Anorak, Cabinet, New Scientist, Monocle, Mr Magpie, Spectator, Private Eye, Varoom
• Publications: Books, Faber & Faber, Folio Society, Penguin etc
• Competitions: Folio Society House of Illustration competition, D & AD, Penguin Design Awards, Macmillian Prize Childrens book prize, RSA student awards, YCN student awards, Hermione Hammond Drawing Prize, Jerwood drawing prize
• Advertising campaigns

Apsara advertising campaign- a great example of appropriate and effective materials

First of all this made me realise how few magazines and journals I actually look at! I need to allocate a certain amount of time every week to taking advantage of the NUA library's extensive range on offer and absorb some new inspiration and ideas. I went through the subscriptions on offer and Oh Comely had a good 6 month deal so I'm looking forward to my first magazine.

Secondly I realised I don't really know what category I want my work to fit into to, the only one I'm not so keen on is advertising campaigns. For my final major project I am stuck between narrative illustration, self-promotion and competition work. A competition would supply me with a predetermined brief and context for my work which could be useful it helping me to focus my ideas quickly and give me a competitive motivation. At the same time narrative illustration is a big passion for me which is why I have decided to explore it now to evaluate whether to take it further into my final major project. I do like the idea of my work being in magazines but I think at this point in my education narrative or self-promotion would be more key to my confidence and skill building.

The lecture covered a topic that I can sometimes struggle on which is creating work about what I am interested in a way that works for me, not what style or subject I think others will like. Therefore through this project I am wanting to really explore what materials and techniques work for me as this is something I need to discover before I move into Unit 8. I am now realising that Unit 7 is about finding out what subjects, ideas, styles and contexts work for me and refining that for my final degree work, which has made me more confident and relaxed to approaching my project as experimentation is something I enjoy.

Angela Carter's Night at the Circus by Bekah Cranch

I was interested to see the work examples of previous NUA student Bekah Cranch, as she seems to have responded to a narrative text similar to mine in an unconventional way through a visual essay, playing with text and image. This has inspired me to me more open about my approach to The Night Circus and to experiment more with text, image and outcome.

The key piece of advice I have taken away from this lecture is to make mistakes quicker to resolve them quicker and to allow time to think and reflect.

Curated Dialogues

Today was started the Curated Dialogues workshop which is an intensive 2 week collaborative workshop task to help us share, review and develop our ideas for BA7. It will be a platform for discussion and dialogue and help us to identify connections between the subject and content of our studio project and research report work. The outcome will reflect the critical dialogue I have had with my partner and the ideas we have explored.

My partner Nancy and I are both wanting to explore narrative illustration and so we have decided to explore what makes a good narrative for our discussion. We decided the key points for a good narrative are as follows:

• Character development: characters the reader can connect to, characters that contrast and compliment each other. different viewpoints of character to build a profile
• Structure: Journey to follow characters, plot twist/ climax, snippets of information revealed as we go on to build story and draw reader in, end that brings all loose ties together to complete story, linear or non-linear timeline
• Setting: Imaginative, complete world with time period and place, sense of escapism
• Sense of escapism
• "Orientation, complication, resolution"

Postcard project, Harriet Russell

We then went on to think about how we could portray and document out discussion and we did a mind-map and both decided that postcards were the most innovative idea we had. Postcards allow us to illustrate out discussion on one side and have recorded text on the other. We had to create a final summary of our idea for  the rest of the group to see:

"We want to discuss what makes a good narrative, looking at things such as character representation, scene building, viewpoint, structure and imaginative settings. We shall record out discussion using these narrative techniques on postcards in both a chronological and non-chronological way with illustration that build the story of our conversation through character, setting and subject development, The other side will; be accompanying text recording our conversation in inventive ways, such as in 1st person then 3rd person."

I am enjoying working with Nancy as everything has been straight forward; we seem interested in the same subjects and have agreed on the direction we want to go in easily. I'm looking forward to creating artwork together as I enjoy the spontaneity and unexpected outcomes of collaboration work and we both have quite different illustrative styles. 

First Day of 3rd Year

We had an introduction lecture today on starting 3rd year and our new project. I wrote my project proposal over the summer so I am set on illustrating The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern as it has such vivid imagery and I want to explore the context  of narrative illustration further. I was going to create a set of 6 illustrations out of default but after this lecture I am trying to think more of an outcome that best suits me and will best show my skills after the future aspirations advice:

'If you intend to become a freelance illustrator for example try to not limit your potential by selecting a single project that focuses on a specific genre.'

I don't want to limit myself and therefore I think it might be more helpful for me to create work in response to the text rather than for the text, possibly in a visual essay. I struggle to create set finals as I get over precious and freeze up so I often find my final outcomes naturally emerge through my exploration and development and I think this approach to an outcome will give me more flexibility and space for experimentation. I am also interested in creating some point of sale posters or promotional material for the book as I am interested in the way the circus appears unexpectedly with only warning through vague signage. 

The work I was strongest at last year was reportage as I enjoyed drawing from observation in a lively environment and trying to create a sense of narrative and order to those findings by presenting them in a book format. Therefore in approaching narrative illustration I think it is important for me to gather research from direct observation and allow that to develop as I did in my reportage projects which is why I am drawn to the idea of a visual essay.

I also really want to push on with making self- promotional work and start making myself a website and business cards and I feel by taking a more flexible approach to The Night Circus I might get some work that could influence this.

I was going to do my research report in response to 'The journey to being a successful freelance illustrator', but Glyn warned of approaching an industry report to try and comfort ourselves about life after university and being vague, which is where I think that title is heading. I am now thinking about specifically looking at agencies and whether they are a necessity or hindrance to freelance illustrators which is a subject I would like to know more about for myself but also gives me more of a focus. I need to start thinking of who I can contact for that and drafting a basic outline of what i could explore for my tutorial on Tuesday.

Beautiful Nightmares, Nicoletta Ceccoli

I am already feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of pressure that 3rd year brings so I am trying to crack on with my research. I went to the library and got out 'Beautiful Nightmares' by Nicoletta Ceccoli which has some fantastic surreal illustrations in a hazy, dreamlike way, and 'Hansel and Gretel' illustrated by Sybille Schenker which is an amazing book full of paper cut outs, layered tracing paper prints and collages that create really powerful, haunting imagery. I know that I want to spend a considerable amount of time this project finding out what materials and techniques work best for me and how to best capture the dark, dreamy atmosphere of the book.

Hansel and Gretel, Sybille Schenker

ShootLDN

ShootLDN is a professional photographic event established by Hasselblad UK in London after 5 years of success with Hasseblad USA in New York. This interactive, hands-on event is aimed at professional photographers but it also suitable for individuals of all levels of expertise. The event was free with a range of seminars by experts in the industry, live shoots and a Hasselblad Masters Exhibition.

This year it was based at the Old Truman Brewery on October 2-3rd. I wasn't sure whether to go at first as my own practice is Illustration but my housemate and boyfriend are both on Photography courses and showed me the seminar list for the Thursday and I felt some of them would be relevant and potentially helpful.

The first seminar I attended was by Steve Mcleod, the creative director from Metro Imaging on building a professional portfolio. He advised that portfolio reviews are a great way to get feedback on your portfolio and to think carefully about what you want your work to say. He advised that editing down a professional portfolio is key as fewer images allow you time to discuss your images and the thoughts behind them and chance to fully engage with the person viewing your portfolio. He explained it is important to think about who you are pitching to and tailor your portfolio to best suit your audience; practice laying out the work, paying particular attention to the narrative and flow of the work you are presenting. Always end on a high, with one of your best images to end with something memorable that stands out.

He expressed the need to know your work and be able to talk about your images concise and clearly. A good website and portfolio won't sell you, it's important that you can explain what you do as well. This is something I really need to practice as I often understand my own work but find it hard to present my ideas clearly and concisely in group critiques and tutorials, so I plan to work at this in order to get the best advice and experience from my final year at university.

Metro Imaging

The next seminar was by Julia Boggio from Boggio Studios on marketing and branding. She had some great dos and don'ts marketing, networking and advertising that I found really useful as it broke up her ideas into clear bite-size chunks.

She really stressed the importance of a business plan with yearly goals that allows us to focus on the most important goals and how to best achieve them.

The key to networking efficiently is to always have a pocket full of business cards to hand out and push yourself to be brief, focused and memorable. One of her tools to being memorable is to wear bright, striking clothing that allows people to easily remember her after the event. She had a really interesting story about her friend that used an iPod touch attached to her lapel to play a moving slideshow of her work to showcase her portfolio as she networked. The bad habits of networking were to go empty handed, overly sell yourself, focus on one person all night and to keep looking over your shoulder. The best networkers will move about the room to give them the chance to talk to more people and aim is make people aware of the work you do, not push to sell right there and then.

She said events are a great way to attract new clients so it is important to be presentable, make your stall look inviting and talk to people. It is a good idea to create promotion materials that you can use at these events but don't break the bank or oversell yourself again as these events are about generating interest and attracting people to what you do.

Antoinette Boudoir, Boggio Studios

One question asked by the audience was 'how did you go from a sole photographer to a business?'. Her response was she wrote a business plan to give her aim for her targets and focus. It was key for her to then re-brand as she expanded to best suit her market and invest wisely in new employees and property. Her key advice was to 'be clear where you want to go' or you will get lost and go nowhere.

The last talk was by far the best from Mike Trow, the picture editor at Vogue. He has been the picture editor for Vogue for the best 8 years and he talked about the shoots he has been part of and arranged for Vogue during that time. He was the only seminar I didn't make any notes during as he captivated the audience with his quirky stories. I was interested to hear of a few shoots he had spent weeks arranging but just hadn't worked and never appeared in Vogue, and it was comforting to know that even the best people make mistakes. More about him and what he does can be read here.

Overall it was a really informative and inspiring day and I will be checking the timetable next year. I have come away with some really useful tips that will help me as I establish myself in my final year at university and to help prepare myself for when I leave.