HOPES, FEARS & OPPORTUNITIES (PART UNO)

At the start of the term we were asked to fill in a form about our hopes, fears and opportunities concerning ourselves in the ever looming future. It was a chance to really think about how we can take full advantage of anything that comes about in the forthcoming months that we can benefit from. I hadn't really sat down and thought about it before but think it was an important exercise that I have benefited from that needed doing.

My biggest hopes for the future were that I would push my drawing skills to the next level and generally try a lot harder when working on projects. As well as this I intended on boosting the publicity of my work. Not sure if publicity is the right word to chose but I wanted to showcase my work to a wider audience through the means of a website. Finally, I wanted to meet more people in the art world outside of uni by going to more organised art talks and exhibitions, especially ones that were in Manchester.

So far I think I'm pretty confident in saying I can tick these off my list now as I seem to be slowly making my way through them.  I have definitely put more thought and effort in to the way I work especially when concerned with the last few briefs. I seem to be putting in more time outside of uni and drawing because I want to rather then having too. Having done more independent work I think I am beginning to benefit from the time I have put in as my drawing skills seem to be gradually improving so it just goes to show that practice really does make perfect. However I'm far from perfect yet and there's still a long way to go but I've got the ball rolling now.

As far as websites are concerned I've got two on the go at the moment. One with cargocollective (a template based site that gives you the opportunity to network with other artists/photographers/designers) that I'm pretty happy with and then another one with a paid URL that a friend helped me make. Cargo is a good way to ease your way in to something that was very alien to me and pretty idiot proof but it still can be quite confusing ha. The other site that I'm using still has a lot of work that needs doing so I'm treating it as a little on going project where I'm trying to get my head around HTML coding and other techy bits. Hopefully in the next few months it'll be up to scratch in comparison to other peoples.

Over the last few months, I've tried to juggle the stresses of multiple projects with a social life that I can gain from as I think its dead important to take time out from doing work. I've been to a number of social events in and around Manchester as well as some in Preston and Leeds. These have consisted of BlabMini, D&AD Lectures, Portfolio visits to name but a few. I think that as well as this its highly beneficial to have more of a social life that involves the work you're making so I've tried to get to places like Common and Trof at least once a week to meet other people in the same boat as me that could hopefully lead to job opportunities and possible collaboration work. It's also a good chance to moan about stuff as well to people that can relate to what you're rambling on about as well.

My biggest academic fear was that my grade would drastically slip due to my journal not being very good. I'm not the most confident writer in the world and found it a bit of a struggle when it came to writing a large body of text. It's not that I'm incapable, the ideas are there they just don't sound as good when down on paper. It was a daunting task as the last piece of work similar to this I did was probably my GCSEs.  There was also not having a strong enough portfolio of work but more importantly the fear that I would loose interest in briefs and not get work done.

I think that all the work I've produced since starting back in September definitely shows my progression as an artist and that I've enjoyed working on them. I think if anything I'm enjoying doing what I do more so then I have. Its been important for me to stay motivated and interested in the topics that I've been working on and feel that I've landed pretty lucky with the work set. My portfolio is starting to become much stronger as the more I'm producing, the more early work that I'm not happiest with can be removed. After having portfolio viewings with various studios I'm also beginning to feel much more confident about my work but still and probably always will, think that there's always room for improvement. With the journal, I'm still holding my breath on that one. I've got no idea how well/bad I've done but as always I'm trying to keep a optimistic head on and try to not let it worry me too much. It hasn't been handed in yet but my draft has been submitted so I'm waiting on feedback now. Fingers crossed.

The opportunities that I wanted to take advantage of most over the course of the year were going to more social networking events (as I spoke about that earlier I won't bore you by repeating myself), taking advantage of any free time to produce personal work and the biggest thing for me was to make the most of having a studio at uni that's available pretty much five days a week.

If I'm being truly honest, the spare time that I've had so far this year has been pretty sparse so any time there has been any free I'm usually trying to catch up on sleep. Come every September I seem to turn almost completely nocturnal and seem to work best after about 6pm. This had consequently lead to most of my free days being taken up with sleep, sleep and then some more sleep. In saying that I have had time to work on some personal work to keep me ticking over, perhaps just not as much as I would have liked to. There's plenty of time to do so over the Christmas holiday. I've been trying hard to get into the studio much earlier this year because I wasn't ready to work when 10am came around last year. The lack of sleep means that if I'm turning up to start uni at 10am I probably won't get started until about thirty minutes later. To turn this around I've been arriving usually a good hour before I'm timetabled in so that I'm fresh and raring to start the day. Having spent the last two years with a close group of talented and lovable people I've realised that it's not going to last forever (although I'd sometimes like to think it could). I'm trying to take full advantage of having a large desk with boards to work on whenever I need to for free and a good working environment. It can be hard work at home when your desk is in the same room as your bed to get motivated so I've tried to use uni to its full potential when it comes to enthusiasm. This lead me to thinking long and hard about my aims after I graduate.

My aims for the year were to have visited working practitioners with my portfolio and to think about possibly organising a group of chums together to get a studio together after uni has finished rather then leaving it last minute. As I mentioned earlier I love working in a social, friendly environment and couldn't think of many things better then getting a studio with my friends and working professionally like that. I tend to work best int he company of others so think it could have the potential to really push me as an illustrator.

As for the remaining months ahead of me, the most important thing for me to focus on now is my final major project. It runs over a course of 18weeks so I need to thoroughly think about the work I am going to set myself to ensure I don't loose interest during the long working period. I don't tend to work well on longer projects as I set myself too much work to complete so this is a chance to either overcome this difficulty or to break up the time through shorter pieces of work to keep my mind fresh. I'm dead excited about it and can't wait to start as hopefully it should be a collection of the best work I'll have produced so far. Bring it on!