RED SEA: PORTFOLIO VISIT 1

Yesterday I had my first portfolio at the talented Red Sea tattoo studio in Manchester. I had previously organised to speak with tattooist Dan Morris but ended up speaking with the owner of the establishment Laurence Stogsdill. I was massively nervous and worked myself up about it as I haven't shown my work to any professionals other then uni tutors.

I went to talk to Laurence during their consultation hour expecting to be in an out in about 15mins but was pleasantly surprised having spent a good 40mins chatting. I was a bit skeptical showing a tattoo studio my work, as the majority is editorial/live brief work slightly edging towards tattoo art in the work I'm producing at present. Laurence mad me feel at ease and relaxed throughout the duration of my visit and set a friendly atmosphere. He mentioned a few times that he didn't usually get the opportunity to see illustration students work, which was a nice change as it was usually peoples drawings of tattoo esq imagery wanting a job.

As well as taking my finished portfolio, I also brought along a printed version of the 8x8 publication that featured my illustrations and a sample of my rough ideas and sketches.

Altogether Laurence had nothing but kind words to say about my work and gave me some little pointers on how he thought bits could be improved and benefit from slight changes. A few pieces such as the Macmillan Books illustrations and some other first year work he said were very popular styles of working and even though he liked them thought that they didn't really show my personality that much. More recent projects including the freak show and Victorian superstitions and beliefs were a prime example of what I was passionate about and he could see this in the images.

A pointer he gave me was to try and illustrate some happier and up beat pieces as my work doesn't need to be all doom and gloom to show my potential. After going through my portfolio we discussed what he would expect to see from a person applying for an apprenticeship job as hopefully that is a career path I would like to go down. More sketchbook work showing initial ideas generation is what he likes to see to make sure the person isn't just a one trick pony and can think about imagery as well as just having the craft to execute it.

I found him a pleasure to talk to and feel like we got on very well on a whole. Unless I blocked out any negative words I'm pretty sure he liked my work and seemed to have enjoyed talking with me. I was annoyed at myself for not having a business card printed as i feel it would have been beneficial to have left one with him. In saying that he added me on facebook later that day so fingers crossed that I might be able to follow the visit up with something in the not too distant future.