Inspiration by Design was an exhibition at the State Library of New South Wales, an exhbition curated by the London V&A celebrating over 150years of collecting by the National Art Library.
I really really enjoyed this exhibition, with just over a hundred pieces of work that spanned such a vast array of disciplines it was just breathtaking. With sketches by Yves St Laurent, and sketch books by Picasso and Hockney it was just so inspiring to even be in the same room as all these pieces of works.
My favourite piece from this exhibition was the collection of books and illustrated stories, in particular this page from Beatrix Potter's, Peter Rabbit. The exhibition itself has collated all these into a book which is described below:
Word & Image shows how the distinct character of the NAL was formed, and how its collections created a new kind of bibliographical resource. From a fifteenth-century book of hours to William Morris's specimen pages for Jean Froissart's The Chronicles of Fraunce, Inglande, and Other Places Adjoynynge; from George Cruikshank's studies of Fagin for Oliver Twist to an Yves Saint Laurent design for the House of Dior; and from Bill Brandt's photographs to the Book of Nails by Floating Concrete Octopus, Word & Image explores some of the finest examples of 'book art' in existence.
Everything about these pieces of work are just rare jewels of inspiration and I feel so privileged to have seen this exhibition. What I found even more fascinating is that the V&A has this exhibition on for rent so it may be possible to see it again in the future.
This Gallery Space led onto another Gallery Space called Australian Inspiration.
Julie Paterson, Residency and Cloth Talk.
I went to a talk by a textiles designer at the library and it was really cool, it was like being in a room with you know the film About A Boy, well imagine fifty character's like the mum Fiona, all passionate about textiles and imagery and this woman basically told us her life story of how she got to where she was with her own studio. Even though it's not animation related it was really cool to see how her design work had been influenced by aboriginal art. To see her work go below, also she had an artistic manifesto that was really cool that might be worth reading, if you like poetic words about art.
So the location of the first ever Leeds Loop was decided for Neon Cactus so as there logo is a skull I decided to model a skull in Maya and animate it cackling with neon lights inside glowing and pulsating. Then I'm going to use a still for the posters, and make an electronic advertisement thing, with Neon Cactus' logo the skull laughing and Leeds LoopdeLoop somewhere in it.
So I started by trying to make the skull from a cylinder. This kind of failed, I inserted too many edge loops. See Below:
So Mat Clarke, showed me how to model from starting with a polygon, which I just couldn't get my head round, after inserting a couple of subdivisions there was too many points to map it out for my little head, so Matt showed me how to model from an image plane. I got a bit carried away with detail and my mesh was just outrageous. I got a bit carried away with the multi cut tool. But It was fixable with triangulation and then quad'ing and then I just had to get rid of all the long triangles and it looked something like this when mirrored.
And then I started texturing and adding glow lights in the eyes, and I got an image to do an image based lighting sphere. The animations still a bit off, I can't get the top part to move nicely with the lower jaw, but I got an amazing cackle off of freesound.org.
I tried doing lights in the eyes, but it wasn't working so I went for spheres that give off a glow. I think if I was to do this again I would have modelled it in Mudbox.
I didn't like how the glow looked after doing the sphere because i think it spills too much infront of the skull so I put in green planes to green screen out the holes and I'll do some pulsing colours in photoshop or after effects afterwords. I also want to do the neon cactus logo inverted flashing in neon colours which I'm going to do in photoshop, having it say Neon Cactus flashing, underneath presents, then loop de loop logo with the fuzzy glow light in neon colours on a black background leeds then the skull and the time date and theme. Then combine all the info onto an A2 portrait page for a poster.
First agenda was to show there current showreel, as this is the first port of call to show clients to attract more work, the current showreel shows a large variety of styles of animation, recently there's been a reinstatement of hand drawn animation as they can do this on there cintiqs.
There's 42 people working on commercials in the studio and 25 on the tv show.
They are quite regularly only given 24hours to pitch for a commercial and will be against six to eight other studio's.
He admitted in a way its often there own fault work is rejected as the standard they set with the visual concept design is taken almost with everything ready to be animated and is very high.
A nugget of advice was If you have your own personal style don't do it commercially. Commercial work is to pay the bills and personal styles often don't suit banks etc. The good thing about commercial work is the fact that the tight deadlines and pitches means an artist becomes more desicive in own work.
Ideas need variety.
Often work is done on spec and is unpaid especially if rejected after pitching. At this point he showed us a whole host of work that was rejected and some of it was incredible not just drawings of characters but they were fully rendered in Maya with animated tests of there movement.
HOW DO WE PITCH
Pdf's of boards and usually animatics moving work on vimeo.
Example shown: Kraft Mr Wallace then and now.
Emphasis on character and the animatic with some concept art of what the world would look like. It's difficult to make sure you have enough work, and they usually only take 3/4 of the best ones to the pitch.
It's like a lottery and your spread betting and spinning plates.
Bank campaign:
They were super lucky to win that "lottery" with the Lloyds tsb advert, there was a strength in the fact they provide a service rather than a product so they could focus on narrative and the journey of the story development. In total they made 48 commercials with Lloyds and it basically funded the studio for five years.
An interesting fact about the Lloyds commercials is that there is a trainspotter in every one of them.
TSB: so this was the first ad they did that was mainly 2D, even though it has a 3D world. Originally they wanted to do it all in 2D but the story they were given by TSB was so long they didn't feel that they could fit in all the action with cuts in the shot, so they used three d for the environment for the 90s advert. In the end TSB loved the hand drawn characters and the studio got away without needing a three d background in the next campaign.
Studio AKA say they do have a moral threshold and there are some companies they won't work with, however they do have a grey area. If you don't have a grey area don't work commercially.
There's a trade off with selling products in that you can have really nice character animation for a little product placement. Take for example greenies pet treats. Here they focused on the characters looking like the dogs they owned and the animation of the animal a nice change up in the studio.
Charitable work. This meant they could do a more personal darker style rather than being commercial, however it meant as they weren't getting paid they had to fit it in around other work and the first one started off with limited animation being done in Photoshop and After effects. The series is a set of different voice overs of sufferers of teenagers with a meth addiction, and they felt it prudent to do each tale in a different style to individualist them. the series begins with Oriah. The sound for these was very important and unlike Lloyds tsb adverts they weren't given any music but a lot of people dual up on skills in the studio so Nick the guy who edits most of the work also composes music, and he did the sound for the meth project.
Jojo in the stars was a short made in 2004. With it being quite dark with shafts of light, this meant for faster rendering times. They really enjoyed making it because at the time they were working on a super happy characters animation for orange and this quite opposite.
Lost & Found - worked with author and illustrator Oliver Jeffers, took 2D and made it three d. First ever piece of work for kids. They enjoyed this project so much they are thinking about working with Oliver Jeffers again soon.
About to start making feature length film first ever.
Hey Duggee - Children's TV Show funded by BBC. A show aimed at preschool kids, it all about encouraging them to do stuff. There was a really small budget and a small crew. Most of the crew working on the tv show are new parents. The series consists of fifty two episodes each seven minutes long. It benefits from the efficiency of the commercial work experience the staff on the team have it means they can make fast descions and ideas and pump out a lot of work. The series has recently been comissioned for another 52 episodes.
Advice for students:
If you think your work is excellent come and show us.
Everyone must have a sketchbook pencil and paper is the start of it all.
This talk was an amazing eye opener, I loved every second of it, I was super urked when at the end people were talking over the questions. The best thing about it is that after this talk a competition entry was sent out for a pitch for a children's charity, so the deadline for this is the 15th of January which is the day after the dissertation hand in, but after seeing the amount of work Studio AKA put into their pitches I'm just going to go for it. I feel like it's a lot more important than the dissertation but it will be a key piece of portfolio work, and in a dream world this is a studio I would want to work at. At the moment I don't think my work is excellent, but my aim is to get it there to get in touch by february. So key things I would like to do, get a shit load more in my sketchbook, because after the emphasis on this I think this would be a great piece of practical work, boss the pitch for the charity, I already have several idea's buzzing in my head and I think the scream street animatic task no matter what the outcome was perfect practice to ace it on that animatic. I want a solid piece of animation of a monkey for my portfolio, I've also had this idea for an animation piece about babies with holes in their heart so I might see if I can do a little bit on that. And then worry about the matte paintings later.
So I spent roughly five days making this, I was so annoyed I ran out of time to do one of the background so I just did twinkly stars.
So my idea behind this, is that as someone crosses the road they pick a penny up and get run over because they don't have good luck and someone else runs past them.
I really like how it's got loads of things in it from Melbourne that like represent my trip that only I know about. So for example when the cars turning the corner, there's the rubber duck cafe of Clifton Hill on the far right hand side which is the building I lived in for five weeks. The characters wearing jeans and I went to a jeans shop and bought three pairs of jeans for £25 each where you go and they tailor them especially to fit you and you go back an hour later to pick them up. The annoying tick of the crossing, which i hated so much especially as the first place I was staying in Carlton hill, my window was next to a ticking crossing all night long. The magnolia trees all bloomed whilst I was in Melbourne and it was just the prettiest sight especially in Fitzroy I'd never seen a Magnolia tree so I really like that. The black merc is based upon what the italian gangsters of Melbourne drove around in from this TV show I started watching out there called underbelly based on true stories that all centered in the places I was going. The beanie hats were a necessity because it was so cold, especially without central heating anywhere I lived in mine. I even slept in it. There's a poster that says Real Australian's Say Welcome, because there was so many protests about refugee's, and it what everyone talked about at some point, with the refugee camps where people are dying. I felt it was some pertinent knowledge I learnt about the politics of Australia. The building the poster is on was at the top of Yoni's street where he lived near Parliament Station. Tram Tracks, I loved getting the tram everywhere whenever possible, even if it was just two stops it was exciting. I could have put a lot more into it, but I probably left more time. I'll try better with the next one, maybe focus less on the backgrounds more on the animation.
Interesting to note, I didn't deem this entry Vimeo worthy, hence why it's on my youtube instead. My aim is to by the end of the year have a loopdeloop Vimeo worthy.
Most of the time I was in Australia I spent in Melbourne, but I did spend a few weeks in Sydney as this is where my best friend has moved to for her exchange year in Zoology. So whilst I was there I decided to visit Australia's largest Art Gallery, I did mean to go to the National Gallery of Victoria but I just never got round to it, I wasn't really impressed by what was on in Sydney so I just didn't make an effort for it.
The Art Gallery of New South Wales is on the edge of the Botanical Gardens, which are just beautiful and there's so much wildlife, little birds and white parrots will comes and eat out of your hands and sit with you if you have food. As I walked into the gallery the first section in the entranceway was a mass of embroidery hoops of chinese slang words that have been put into the chinese dictionary since the development of technology. It was very cutesy with lots of dangily threads and I think because I couldn't read chinese I did move on from it quite fast.
Then we went into the rooms where all the old australian master's were, there were a lot on gold mining, and the war and then they had a room of european masters and painting from the nineteenth century of cumbria and fox hunting so strange. We then moved back to the modern section where there was a really cool exhibition by Jitish Kallat.
So basically this was three really large walls of Mahatma Gandhi's speech and:
On 12 March 1930, Mahatma Gandhi gave a speech that marked the beginning of his ‘salt march’ in which he walked 390 kilometres to the coastal town of Dandi in the Indian state of Gujarat. There he gathered salt, refusing to pay the tax imposed by the colonial British Government and therefore breaking the law. This simple and now famous act inspired nationwide civil disobedience and is seen as the beginning of an intensified Indian independence movement. Gandhi’s legacy of non-violent protest continues to influence political action worldwide. In Public notice 2 2007, Indian artist Jitish Kallat renders Gandhi’s historic speech in its entirety, letter by letter. Each letter appears to be made from bone, as though Kallat has exhumed these words from their historical resting place. As Kallat says: ‘In today’s terror-infected world, where wars against terror are fought at prime television time, voices such as Gandhi’s stare back at us like discarded relics.’
I'd never read this speech before and it was really moving, there's one line from it which I think even now, 85 years later since this speech was given we as a human race still are tackling. "Let no one commit a wrong in anger. This is my hope and prayer." It's cheesy but it really moved me.
The only qualm I did have with it, was that I was so disappointed the bone lettering I looked very closely at, I'm pretty sure the letters were mass made. I think it might of had more of an impact if they were individually crafted. I tried to inspect them as closely as I could and I'm pretty sure there was casting mould lines on them.
I continued around the art gallery, and I was really surprised to see such a large Matisse Section. I didn't realise Henri Matisse was so influential even on this side of the world. I guess it's something I've always underappreciated though, it was such a big deal to have his work out in Sydney, but for us everything in Europe is just so accessible, but out there that culture the society has really had to fight for to see.
But that's not to say they don't have there own. So Aboriginal art is huge. These weird totem poles are actually examples of gravestones that the aboriginals use. Now I went to an exhibition at Melbourne museum to try and understand said culture, but I think because I was mainly in the south and I didn't meet any and everyone I met was really western I just didn't understand. It comes across, that they have been treaten badly in the past by the white colonies but they haven't really helped themselves, they seem to be uneducated, still struggling with housing and because they come from the most desolate part of the country it's where the drug and drinking problems seem to be. Obviously this is a broad waving of stick and not all are like this, there are a lot of talented aboriginal artists, but it is mainly very complicated patterns they do, there's no training of form or perspective in paintings but that's there style. Also in the Melbourne Museum exhibition on Aboriginal people they had a really heart wrenching video on the people making bits of art work like a factory to fob off to tourists, like boomerangs with patterns and so on, mind numbingly painful to watch but they still seemed happy.
After my trip to the Art Gallery I saw the Opera House for the first time and oh my gosh, it was so seventies inside! Even the toilets felt like I was out of an austin powers movie! Also this architecture is not aging well. I am a firm believer that any pebble dashing floor just should not be acceptable anywhere, no way did I think it would be at this Iconic landmark! I was not impressed! However sydney did have a double decker metro system which was super impressive!
Exclusively for the Telegraph original storyboards, by David Bowie, for the Ashes to Ashes video, 1980
The David Bowie Is Exhibition is a touring collection of costumes, lyric notes, art work, storyboards (&animatics) film memorabilia from the life of Bowie. With over 300 objects this rare once in a lifetime opportunity to see all the stuff in one room was a chance I could not pass upon.
I went not expecting to have any influence on my own creative practice, but I loved the animatics, I have tried everywhere to find a way to share with you what I saw because it's so difficult to describe, the most seventies scribbly drawings with a bit more animation in than your storyboard on a timeline it was just so cool looked only vaguely like a video it represented but so much development and just a amazing to see how the cogs turn in the man's mind.
There were also stage set designs from concerts, some that were too ambitious to use on tour and others that were used 3D miniature sets which were incredible to see, you could so see them as animation set and his costumes are just out of this world. I didn't realise that he actually commissioned Alexander McQueen, whilst McQueen was still studying at St Martins and as Bowie's career kickstarted it helped McQueens. How ace is that, it's like he's always magnetised other creatives that are as talented as he is in there field.
I don't really know how I'd take this into my practice but I think just seeing this is one day going to come back as inspiration and well deserved a PPP Blog post on as it was one of the things I saw in Australia that blew my mind.
So for our end of show for second year, I offered to do a 3D Ident because we were so stretched for applied animation I think no one was very enthused about the show. But I really wanted to experiment more with Maya as a software but it has so much potential. I just love hos anything it possible with it. It's just everything take so long on it. But I would really like to do some more little projects like this before I finish just so I have a really well rounded animation portfolio.
So I started off by importing the logo on an image plane and just working on making it 3D around that really. It took a lot longer than I thought to make the individual letters, but it means that come next year I could re-use it and animate them differently rather than just having a deformer on them like below for when we need a new ident. Overall I was really pleased with the final product because I learnt so much about the software. I don't really know what maya task I could do next but it would have to be something little underneath the backburner of my dissertation project.
So besides working on my dissertation, I am lucky to have two friends living in Australia (one in Melbourne and one in Sydney) who have invited me to stay with them. When I mentioned this to Skwigly, they said that they could get me tickets for Melbourne International Animation Festival, as press to interview the speakers following on my work for them so far this year. And if their's any other film/animation festival's they can enquire about tickets for them. Being the UK's largest online animation magazine there's a good chance any will be accepted. It does mean I have to be proactive in my plans and sort it out. Unfortunately I've been so busy with uni work, I really need to sort myself out with this. I also want to improve my showreel for the purpose of networking and I think I'm just going to go a bit mad and email every studio with my showreel and just be like do you want to go for a fosters, it's a good call (although this joke would be lost on them, because foster's is called crown out there). I'm also really excited to meet up with Yoni (exDFGA) because he's working on a short film out there, and I think I will have enough time to help him out with his project. But at the same time it's just going to be a really exciting holiday.
I shall update my itinerary as and when it is updated.
I'm really sad about how little animation work I've got to put in the showreel, I think my portfolio is a lot stronger, This isn't the final edit I want in the end of year show reel. I'm working on a couple of projects that I started over easter I'm hoping to get done in the next fortnight, so I can update this for the final show.
Animators make great children’s book illustrators. Why shouldn’t they? They can draw. They can paint. They understand character development and consistency. They know how to show form through gesture. They employ color theory to convey emotion. They’ve studied the great image-makers of the past—and not just from animation, but Impressionist, Renaissance, Post-modern, Ashcan, Baroque, Victorian, and Surrealist artists as well. They’ve gone to the zoo to draw real animals—and not just researched them online (if at all). Animators are versatile, knowledgable, and dedicated. They understand production schedules and collaboration. And they’re fast. Boy, do I love how fast they are. This is a true conversation at a recent meeting at Penguin: Managing Editor: Will the art be in on time? Art Director (Me): Yes, he’s worked in animation. Managing Editor: Oh! So he’s fast. Ok, we’re fine. In this post, I will aim to shed a little light on being an animator in the children’s book world. I don’t know everything there is to know about the subject. I can only speak to my experiences as an art director who hires animators and character designers—and why I love working with them. For the sake of brevity, I’m going to use the term “animators” to include anyone working in the animation industry: character designers, visual developers, storyboard artists, etc. ANIMATE. ILLUSTRATE. (MEDIATE. ALLEVIATE. TRY NOT TO HATE . . .)* In 2009, when I was at Simon and Schuster, we partnered with Sony to publish books based on the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movie. We decided to illustrate them—instead of using screen grabs from the movie. We hired Brigette Barrager and Pete Oswald—both were working in animation. Even though they were new to children’s books, they worked as if they had been in the book industry for years. The books looked great; and our colleagues in the licensing division of Sony were pleased. The following year, we partnered with Dreamworks to publish Puss-in-Boots books. Brigette was hired again, and I found and hired Ovi Nedelcu. He had been working at Laika, and had never illustrated a picture book. I’ve been in publishing since 1999, and in all that time, I still think Ovi’s work is some of the best I’ve ever seen. It was clearly better than half of the work at that year’s original art show at the Society of Illustrators. Unfortunately, since Puss-In-Boots: The Cat, The Boots, The Legend, was a media tie-in book, his art did not qualify for the show. Pete (who now has an agent), Brigette (who now has an agent), and Ovi (who now has an agent) have since moved on from media tie-in to do original content picture books.
I read this amazing amazing article on animators and children's books. This is just a small extract. This is something that I have always fancied doing, so I was thinking it might be a possibility (depending on time of course) to have the Dragon story made into a children's book we could sell along with the animation as limited edition with them. This is just an idea it would need a lot of research. But it makes perfect sense that the two fall hand in hand perfectly together. I think I've always had this romanticism about being a children's book writer as an old woman living in a pokey little cottage, that's why I think this article spoke to me so much. There's just so much in that future out there so much to do.
So I read this article on Cartoon Brew of the most recent graduate films to come from Gobelins, and they blew my mind. Now obviously this school has a ridiculously high standard of animation being churned out of it. And it's not solo projects, they are all in quite large groups. But even so, they are incredible. I think it does show that if you want to do well animation is not a solo thing you need the team work to do well, which is why I'm starting to think about my extended practice. I've got the story written, I've got Anna Denison to agree to make the Dragon Puppet. I've got Elliot agreed to make some of the sets. I'm going to do the storyboard myself and I'm going to get rosy to edit this into the world's best animatic. I might speak to Anna Picariello to do some character designs for the boy puppet (I'm really excited to make this myself). I think I'm going to get his face modelled on Maya and I've spoken to Becky Gilby about animating it with me and get 3D printed faces from Leeds uni. It's so so so exciting, If I pull it off I'll be over the moon. Because I'm being so ambitious with this I've decided not to do a stop motion for the dissertation project, I'd rather focus on backgrounds and narratives and get my stuff together for this project and give this my all. I'm also going to speak to my friends on Creative advertising to help with a cool marketing take on it, and I've got a friend on printed textiles to do all the interiors of the rooms inside the castle and the tree. It's so so exciting!!
My fifty hour skill has been a combination of Life Drawing and Writing for Skwigly, They have both been split equally and you can see individual blog posts for these tasks.
As a short summary of evaluation, I think my writing skills really have developed. Even though a lot of the articles are really short, I spent many hours on Skype with Steve discussing word order and synonyms to use. I never enjoyed writing before on a level like I did for this, because every word in the sentence had to be crafted to keep it as concise as possible but descriptive. I much preferred the interviews I did, I found that it's a lot easier to type up what someone has already said and edit out parts of it, although I did find that this is a really lengthy process, when you get chatting on a topic both parties are interested in a lot of words are said. But I found it easier to transcribe everything and then cut parts out.
As for the Life Drawing, I really enjoyed going to the classes at Medium and at the Life Drawing society. It was a nice break from doing uni work, because it didn't feel like that, because it's all about experimenting, so it doesn't matter that they didn't look perfect. I think I'm one of those people that really like having a finished piece, to the point where it annoys me to only have half finished work, and I found this really challenging in the alotted time slot so I did spend quite a bit of time outside of the classes finishing off the pieces. I think this is apparent in a few pieces of the work. Life drawing is definitely something I want to continue through PPP next year.
I just mocked these up in photoshop. I really like the front but I think I'm going to get my friend on creative advertising to redo the back of it when she's had her deadline on wednesday, because she claims to be the queen of slogans and I think she can do a better job. Her's are really cool she has a dinosaur on it.
Arts council for Yorkshire has moved from Dewsbury to Leeds and is now 4/5 times smaller. Now if you put in an application it goes to manchester to be approved and no longer are you met and helped to get the money. The arts council offer grants to new graduates to develop their practice. They also offer funding for research.
The recommended days rate for a graduate one year on from graduating is £172.
AN Artist’s Newsletters. Campaigning so that organisations pay you the day rate. https://www.a-n.co.uk/news
Leeds Council has funding pots for artists, Arts at Leeds and Leeds Inspired are the two main provided. http://www.leedsinspired.co.uk/
Know the bigger picture, because if there’s an event coming up then have work related to sell around this or a project around this so that it links and you can apply to funding.
The lottery was set up in 1994 and provides a lot of funding to the arts. Distribution is through, Arts Council, Big Lottery and Heritage.
In kind support is all the stuff that doesn’t take out of the Budget. Such as venues, time, advice, marketing, rehearsal space, etc.
Do’s and Don’t of fund raising, personal tick list:
Why do we raise funds? What’s the purpose and the need?
A political statement to raise funds, nearly every area of the industries is supported by the government in some way or another.
An endorsement of your work. Someone is saying it’s good.
Without funding how do you invest in what you are doing (survival/growth)
How do we fin rout what is out there?
Art’s council, leeds inspired etc etc.
Networking, talking to colleagues find out how others are being funded.
Regular funders websites. Partnership funding may be useful.
AN, Arts Professional, Read through documents and follow up.
Look at who the local galleries are being funded by.
Attend Conferences, symposiums, networking events, get on mailing lists.
Where do you start?
You are never going to find a funding body that is 100% matched, but if you’ve found something that’s interesting you, you might have to compromise but it is probably worth looking into. Their might not be a fund for the right time you’re looking at it, develop several come back to it because the pots are always changing. Keep your options in front of you.
It’s okay to fail and be rejected. It doesn’t mean that it’s a bad idea, competition just might be too strong. It’s the way you learn.
Start off by reading the guidelines twice. Make notes. What are they actually saying? Always read around the fund, who is funding it? What are the social and political contexts? Make a note of the deadline and don’t leave it till the last minute. If there’s someone there ring them and talk to them, they might give you an idea on what they think of the idea, and how you could make it stronger. If their are issues with the application ask around for help. Use simple, friendly and accessible language it’s not a piece of academic text.
Have you answered all their questions? Have you answered the question being asked? Does it all add up? Does your budget match the content of the text? Does it make sense to the narrative? Do the narrative first then the budget. Does it answer what they are asking for? Is there anything in the application that needs altering? If you get rejected go back to them. Build up another project, take on the feedback. If you don’t get rejected always have good relations with the funder. If their are any changes to the project, let them know, build up a trust with the funders.
East St Arts
Set up in 1993 remains at the core of artists needs. Try to be informed by artists and members. Studio Spaces, equipments, professional development.
Karen Sherwood’s Story, opened a gallery in 1991, Cupola. Had a best friend called jeni who wanted to open a bistro, both aged fifteen they both knew what they wanted to do. They designed a complex.
Worked in a shop and had sales training and studied fine art at sheffield poly. Graduated with a third. Took up a studio space, at Yorkshire Art Space, and tried to find somewhere in sheffield to show work. Couldn’t have a show anywhere as there was no space to show work, so decided to organise own show. Got invites silk printed and gave them to everyone on the streets, to flat above a butcher shop. After people bought work she tried to get advice from business link to get enterprise allowance. There was no specialist support. Spent some time as a freelance artist, then a guy got in touch who ran a picture framing business. He asked her to do some freelance work for him, to decorate table tops is a faux novae african style to sell to america. But he was trying to sell the business so he could run off to Alaska. She receive £15,000 inheritance, and went back to the guy who owned the framing business, and after paying her debts offered him 6,000 for his business. She ran off to Scotland to get married, learnt to picture frame in a week and started the business. Went to Yorkshire Art Space, where she had her studio and asked for work to submit for submission. Got a show together and the papers said it wasn’t really the right place for an art gallery. Lots of people said it wasn’t right.
She had the gallery three months, and had been running herself ragged doing all the picture framing. A guy walked into the picture framing and through to the gallery and looked at a piece for at least ten minutes, very unnatural, he came to her and stood very close and said I don’t know why but you’ve opened a gallery in my back garden and said I want to help you but you better do as you told.
Turned out to be David Butterfield, ex marketing director of worked for murdoch, nestle, a big tv company. Gave her 3.5month of his time and at the time charged £600 a day. He drew her logo, created exhibition schedules, taught her about how sexism works in the industry. Taught her, know yourself to show yourself. Made her understand that you have to show certain things to gain things.
Cul-de-saced the road she was on for three years, 1 in 4 businesses went bankrupt at the time. The art tart kicked in, she fought for the shops in the area, painted the train tunnels, was on the radio all the time, became a director of the chamber of trade. In order to expand she moved in. With sofa beds. Husband was a writer wrote in the attic.
Under the Bed
maximum retail price £350 get artist’s work more popular than week before christmas, most took was £12,000 opening week.
Then penned a sculpture garden. Moved out to have a baby.
Commissions artist’s every christmas to make decorations.
Has showed 10,000 artists from all over the world.
Almost lost the business in 2010. In the 20th anniversary year. Running an art gallery is hard work. In 2008, she was tired, she had five staff, had to make a lot of money to pay them. Took a job and established an art centre in Rotherham. Left someone who charged who didn’t have the skills she had. Mum cashed in premium bonds to sort out the gallery. Had over 50,000pounds of debt. Realised losing the gallery would be like chopping a limb off. Came back 2011 and reignited her passion for it and turned it around.
Despite everything she is really pleased it’s not over yet.
An approaching galleries talk:
Over the years she has developed a system for approaching galleries.
What every artist needs to know, for artists working in a retail environment.
Make a definite design that selling work is something you want to do.
Get out and do market research and look at pricing, the art market is very complex and vast. Look at pricing because it’s useful to know.
Get and take advice from anyone. You don’t have to take it on aboard but just listen
Please never turn up unannounced with a portfolio
If in extraordinary circumstances this happens, be humble.
Do not presume galleries are out to rip you off, galleries have to work together with artists
if possible visit any venue before sending work
find out the submission requirements are for any gallery, if unable to get submission guidelines, by email, make them polite and short. Bad grammar and bad spelling is not appreciated. Needs to be formal. Submission for consideration in subject box. 4-8 good quality images are expected. Do not send bad images. No more than 250kb per images. Titled rather than numbered images. With medium included.
Wholesale price and retail price
attach short statement 250words, if you don’t want to write a statement don’t.
attached art base cv and biog for website
a link to the website
full contact details including a phone number at the end of email
Always make an appointment to collect and deliver work. Never miss deadlines. A deadline is there for a reason. If the gallery does issue a contract issue one yourself. They do not always have to be particularly wordy or formal.
A commission rate is what is it is. The biggest struggle is with painters, jewellers. She charges 50% commission.
Keep to your contract period, otherwise the work might get damaged. Keep a professional relationship with the gallery otherwise it gets personal and informal and that’s where issues arise.
White Cube said they won’t accept shows but will attend shows. Municipals have alotted times for shows.
Installation art, being a private gallery you have to work out different ways to make money, prints, momentos, etc.
There are region differences in what sells.
She show’s what she esteems, not what she only personally likes. Has 10 shows a year. Finds it very difficult to work with artists with mental illness, has had artist’s cancel and she’s had to rewrite the contract on what would happen if they are ill again.
Disability awareness text has to be written. One of her criteria, is if she doesn’t see you in the work she doesn’t want your work. Is there a correlation between press attention and sales? Negative obvious has a negative effect, much easier to get pictures in the press. Obviously positive attention in the press has positive impact on the gallery.
There are two schools of thought is when you are pricing:
the cheaper it is the easier it is to sell
the cheaper it is, it is rubbish
Whats the market price, you can under price it. Art work doesn’t have a function, it doesn’t break. The gallery can’t price it, you know what you went through to price it. It’s not about it’s value it’s about the price the market is prepared to pay. Always start a little lower, your work will always get better. You need to get it out there.
Well I was a lot less refined this week which has just made my proportions even worse!!! Nightmare!! I think before I go again, I'll read up on it, because I used to be able to do this so well, it's very infuriating. I did however experiment with charcoal, which I think just looks messy, but at least there's a nice texture to the work.
This one the proportions were so bad I cross hatched over it to make it look a bit nicer aesthetically.
Also I don't get why all my male face look like a gremlin is trying to get out of them. I think I might work on top of the one above and improve it, I tried really hard with the proportions of this one and did the pencil at arms length eye squinty measuring technique, I think it shows it just wasn't a very nice angle to draw at.
This workshop will enable you to:
-understand the importance of your online presence and consider, "Digital CV's"
- Produce effective covering letters
structure, format, presentation etc
But What do you want to know?
- creative cv's when are they appropriate?
- is a cv one or two pages? - uk standard two, american one, australia & NZ up to ten.
You need a different CV for every different job role you apply for.
Look at examples of CV's from other people in your area or job role you want to go into to get examples of what they're CV covers.
What is the purpose of a CV?
-Telling someone who you are, qualifications, skills & expertise.
The whole point is to get you an interview. At the end of the day you might have to make multiple cv's taylor for different roles.
Research shows that recruiters only spend 30 seconds looking at your CV so you need to make sure it read's easily.
How to Start
Who are you targeting your CV at? Reasearch companies and organisations and see what they say about themselves, both social media and their websites, have they been in the news? Where did they start off? What are the people like who work for them?
Show the reader what they want to know.
Check Role requirements, advert, person specification (what are they looking for, hardworking, compassionate? Can you show that in your CV).
What are they looking for?
Technical Skills - pattern cutting drawing?
General Aptitude - enthusiastic for the industry
Work Experience, crucial.
Transferable Skills - Writing, Listening, Communication, Time Management, (not reliable, punctual, professional etc because this is automatically expected at Graduate level. Obviously)
Other transferable skills, commercial awareness, teamwork leadership, problem solving etc.
Your CV is your Brochure
Think about the image you want to present, what's your personal brand? Your skills, strengths and aptitude.
How can you add value to the employer?
Identify what the employer wants.
Analysing Sammy's CV:
Name should be bigger because you're marketing yourself.
Have statements, don't use always I am or My, consider using third person, and short statements.
Examples needed when giving examples of skills. Put the skills in the jobs you've already done, and give evidence.
Presentation:
Easy to Read, Keep to 2 pages maz, consistent headers, font style, size, bolds etc
Avoids Wizard's or templates
Spell and Grammar Check (UK English!)
Structure:
What is the best order?
Give prominence to relevant details, what do you want them to see first?
Key Facts - 1/3 way down page 1 and top of page 2.
Usual CV structure:
Personal details
Personal Profile
Education and Qualification
Employment - Relevant Employment/Work Experience, Exhibitions, Voluntary Work, Internships
Skills - to include achievements and positions of responsibility, if applicable
Activities and Interests - avoid politics and religion
References
Personal Details:
Full Name, Address & Postcode. Telephone numbers, email address, LinkedIn Profile. Driving Licence? Visa Status - if Applicable.
Personal Profile / Career Objective:
Consider wirting a short paragraph, approx 3 sentences. Either Personal Profile (skills/attributes/strengths) or career objective. Written in 3rd person. Paragraph has to be punchy like a strapline.
Education, most recent first including dates & where you studied. Awards, what it was, relevant modules (for internships). Expected marks?
Employment Experience:
Most recent first, reverse chronological. Remember to include the name of the employer, dates of the employment (Month-year - month Year), job title. Use bullet points of what skills you've gained.
Employment history sounds better than work experience as that sounds a bit 15year old at school. Voluntary work is good to use to. Internships too!
Quantify and Qualify statements
Vague/Less effective: My duties are, Excellent problem solving, I had to work in a team, I had to communicated with clients daily, Checking invoices, working on tills, good customer service.
Specific: Responsible for a community budget of £2,500, Handled and resolved up to 100 queries a day, worked in a team of 10, supporting one another to achieve daily targets.
Make sure that your activities and interests are short and snappy and relevant to the job role / make you human or show your ambitions.
Textiles - CV on fabric? Stop motion CV on a set/puppet?
Digital CV - digital portfolio, own websites with showreels etc.
Do you need to put everything you've ever done on there? Showcase a small amount of your work, the good pieces not your progression. Get feedback from professionals on your show reel.
Video CV's
Think about who you are applying for!!
Some Do's and Don'ts:
Do:
- use reverse chronological order,
- avoid jargon,
- clear headings
- be positive
- maximise on your line presence
Don'ts
- use wizards
- leave time gaps
- send a cv without a letter
- repeat yourself
- lie!!
Covering Letters!
Crucial to send with a cv! It makes you come across more professional. Standard structure, be formal and avoid sir and madam, see if you can find the name.
There's four main sections/paragraphs to a cover letter, think carefully about your font and font size.
Para 1. This is what I'm applying for, mutual contacts if you have any.
Para 2. Highlight relevant skills and qualities, what makes you superduper for that job, show enthusiasm and passion. Don't repeat what's on your CV, reword it in a sexy style.
Para 3. Why do you want the job role? Why do you want to work for them? Do your research on the company and showing you understand the ethics and missions of the company, you want to sure your commercial awareness.
Para 4. Positive ending, look forward to hearing from you, available for interview at your convenience, open door stuff.
Couple of recent sources are saying, handwritten PS at the bottom, are more frequently getting interviews and contact. Also so many people email these days, post often grabs more attention.
In Summary:
Tailor CV to job applications. Is 'your brochure easy to read?' - does it pass the 30second test?
Have you highlighted relevant skills, qualities and experience essential for the role?
Have you cut out negative and irrelevant info? Remember focus your covering letter!!!
I decided to go to the life drawing society, because I have been doing a lot of character drawing recently and my proportions are just appalling.
We started off with five one minute sketches of different stances. I didn't enjoy this, I need a few minutes just to take in what i'm looking at!
Then we were given the task of two five minute drawings, which I really wasn't happy with the results, I think I struggled a lot getting the proportions in such a short space of time, I normally do a rough sketch then go back and make it look proportionally better.
This was supposed to be the long drawing but I was really pissed off with the position and not being able to make it look proportionally accurate, so I spent this time inking in the images (those that I didn't finish inking in I did later because I decided that I really liked the style).
This is the one I was most proud of from the session, I think next week I'll try something different, maybe a bit looser to start off with and go for proper measuring techniques on the long one after the break.
This was just a short piece I wrote for skwigly, now I haven't had much chance to write much for them, whilst the end of the year was going on, as I work as well. But this is something I definitely want to work more on over summer. I'm going to get in touch and see if they have any projects I can cover because four months is a long time.
Jan Pypers is a Belgium freelance photographer, who I discovered on Trendland. I think it's important to take inspiration from all areas of the art world and design industry, I think it's good to appreciate them because in some way or another they can inspire your own practice.
There are two main elements skillfully stage-managed by Pypers: dreams and paranoia. The hare is seen hidden on conspicuous corners, to casually sitting on a windowsill; this character drifts from one extreme to the other effortlessly, always casual and calm. The female character is the opposite, bringing obvious drama to the forefront. The surrealism of the hare with the paranoia of the dame in distress.
http://trendland.com/the-mysterious-hare/
This one is my favourite piece, the composition and lighting is simply hypnotic, it sets up for a really mysterious scene and makes the viewer ask so many questions about what the hare is doing. The scenes he has captured in the Hare series are so surreal it makes you question whether or not they are photographs, I think this is what makes this series stand out to his others because they are so captivating and intriguing.
He does class himself as a fine art photographer and sells them as prints, what I often find difficult with fine artists no matter the medium, there often is a lot of lengthy analysis into them and the meanings behind the work which is often nonsense. I don't think I need to do that here, Trendland already commented on the themes of the surreal hare, and the dame in distress. I think in this series yeah the Hare is surreal but the dame never looks like she's in distress, I think if I was to talk about it I'd say it'd have more to do with him being someone who isn't comfortable in his own skin/hair but he's found someone to love but he's too afraid to approach. I think it would make an amazing short film, in films you have directors of photography, that work with the camera and lighting crew to make a certain look of a film and I think this guy would make an amazing Director of Photography.
I came across Paint Chips, the first of a series of commercials for a paint company called Sherwin Williams, that blew me away. At first I thought it might of been stop motions, because it's made to look like paper cut outs, but then next few times I watched it and researched it, I realised it was CG. I think it's really well textured which gives it a stop motion quality. I also think they mastered the movement of card to make it look like actual card. The other quality I like about these commercials is how they've really pushed the design aspect of what you can do with the colour chart cards. It's really imaginative the different forms and patterns they've pushed.
I decided to look into the studio and came across two more in this series, I really like how in how the years have progressed the animation has improved and you can see how the lighting on them look more professional and especially in the one above the camera direction gets more complex. I think this commercial, Where will colour take you, looks less like stop motion, because it really does push the transformation of the colour chart cards, into complex monuments representing different cultures, pushing peoples imaginations with the colours they could chose or interior decor. Because of it's complexity it becomes inspiring for the everyday person who might not have much imagination.
I think it's clear to see they must of really exceeded expectations with the clients brief for a reasonable price because they kept asking them to make more commercials for them.
One from that studio that us english folk would recognise is the Hive commercial, controlling your heating on the go. They have some great work on their reel, I feel that these are their most successful and some of the others aren't up to the same standard. They have offices in LA and New York but the creative side is based in LA. They are currently hiring both traditional and digital animators. I think that there studio would be a great place to start in. One thing that makes say this is how cool there logo is.
I know that's it's quite a superficial thing to go on, but I've been on some studio's website and they just across really naff, if a clients going to come to you, you need a great website because it's the first port of call. I really like it's layout and set up and something I'll bear in mind when I make mine.
