Hothouse Taster Day

Today I made a lone trip to Preston to attend a workshop for emerging designer makers:

an intensive programme of tips and advice especially tailored for craft makers wanting to set up in business and develop their creativity.

I was a little nervous at the thought of going alone (and this was not unfounded; I did manage to get lost on the way from the station to the church the workshop was held in!) but the advice and atmosphere was definitely inspiring and worth the journey.

The morning began with an introduction from Charles Hadcock (the chairman of Creative Lancashire). He spoke about the value of creativity in modern society; its influence on culture. It is a viable commodity, despite it being an industry that is not widely as appreciated as it should be. He explained that because of the 'death of manufacturing',

the hand of the maker has never been more interesting to the public than now.

Art and creativity is a growth sector, and people trying to make their living in this industry must be armed with the knowledge to develop their practice from a commercial and business perspective. As the business develops, so does the practice itself.

Next we were introduced to Madeleine Furness (the maker development officer of the Crafts Council). She spoke briefly, following on from Mr. Hadcock, about the tenacity required to carry a business. She explained about the Craft Council's purpose: to nurture practitioners and encourage people to study crafts; supporting a large range of disciplines, the collaboration of practices and the opportunities that can generate therein.

The following (and arguably, most important) speaker of the day was Alison Branagan, an extremely experienced and motivational individual. She began by asking about her audience, calling out for people of certain disciplines to raise their hands and make themselves known around the room. At this point I felt extremely intimidated by being somewhat out of place amongst the mixture of ceramicists, jewellery makers and textile makers. However, the presentation was engaging and I'm sure will prove to be useful, even to someone in a narrower field than traditional craft areas, such as myself.

"Don't forget to have a look around at the tapestry, stone and stained glass- we're sitting in a museum of craft in this Minster."

She moved on to the importance of experience: creative work placements, part time jobs related to our practice in some way, internships (as long as we don't get stuck being someone's assistant for more than a couple of weeks). It is essential to get references from these. Learning to be flexible about future opportunities is also important at the moment; it is not always going to be realistic to expect to be able to follow the narrow path many university courses will steer students towards. Touching on the option of post-graduate education, she advised that we didn't rush into doing an MA course. It's best to get as much knowledge about what you want to do as possible first, and if it's an appealing option after careful consideration, you should take time to browse places to make sure the course is right for you, especially with the current high price tags.

Other pointers:

Being naive does you no favours in the world of commerce.

• Learn about copyright and trademarks! Do not put images on facebook as they then have the right to do whatever they want with the files in the future.
• Invest in a calendar- a year planner, specifically, so you can easily plan ahead for promotion and commissions.
• Don't rely on luck- use your degree show as the launch of your career and think carefully about relevant people to invite.
• Identify what you want to achieve-make a plan involving the people you need to help you get there.
• Avoid distractions and time drainers. Think seriously about the value of time.
• Be organised and well-prepared- focused and ready to react to opportunities.
• Plan with mind maps.
• It is not good for the mind to try to do a million things at once! Remembering to have some quiet time to yourself each day is important.

The 7 steps to starting up a business:

1. Research.
2. Advice and support.
3. Business plan.
4. Funding.
5. Open business account.
6. Accountant/Book keeping.
7. Register as self-employed.

Networking:

• Be ready for every situation where there is the opportunity to participate socially to create new opportunities and carry existing ones forward.
• Keep a mind map of connections- this can keep growing.
• Talk to people on the phone when possible. Designers are bombarded with emails from recent graduates trying to make their own opportunities, so they can't begin to respond to everybody this way.
• Don't get drunk at networking opportunities (ha ha).
• Be aware that some people are not willing to share their contacts. Professional jealousy can mean people want to keep their own lists a secret.
• Get onto professional networking sites, but try and limit these to around 3-5.
• Keep websites/blogs/etsys professional looking- i.e. professional photos when possible.
• Register with Creative Lancashire. (and look far and wide for other regional support networks).

It's not what you know. It's who you know.

Education and business success are not necessarily related (e.g. Damien Hirst has very limited artistic talent but he knows lots of people and has become very rid from this philosophy).

Business planning and professional practice:

• Seek advice from lots of people- mentors, workshops like this one, professional business advice, accountants.
• Try and become a member of a professional body after graduation- it correlates positively with success.
• Find out about insurance (public liability/product liability). There are people out there who will take whatever chance they can to sue!
• Be careful what you post on blogs/facebook if things need to be commercially secret.
• TIME- understand it and its uses.

The next speaker was Bev Lamey, the principle lecturer for MA Surface Pattern Design at UClan. She spoke mostly about the facilities at the university, which was all very impressive but not something particularly useful to me. 

Angela Mann, of the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair was next. She explained all about the event, something which I have heard of before, but hadn't considered wanting to possibly take part in until now. The fair focuses on supporting new Northern makers in particular, as well as graduates and other specific groups.

The benefits are:

• Being selected proves the quality of your work alongside many other makers (confidence boosting!)
• Sales from work.
• Networking.
• Access to trade, buyers, press and over 6000 visitors.
• Collaborative opportunities.
• Guidance to the future direction of your work (i.e. what sells and what doesn't).
• National marketing campaign gains attention for work at the fair- adverts in trade journals, glossies and regional press, city centre and lots more.

Tips for applying:

• Read the guidelines thoroughly.
• Don't forget 50% of applicants are rejected.
• Selection is based on images as judging is done very quickly.
• The panel look for quality, consistency, cohesive collections, innovation and how sellable the work is.
• Mixture of statement pieces and more affordable work.
• Images need to be 300dpi in print, 72dpi for web use...
• Make work appear professional. Many photos used for entries are not suitable for advertising campaign images, so if it looks impressive yours could be chosen!
• Think carefully about pricing, equipment needed for displaying the work, promotional materials you will bring.

At the fair:

• Be friendly and approachable- you are most likely to engage an audience of potential buyers if you're at their eye level and talk to them while they browse.
• It costs £375 for 'new makers' to get a standard sized stall (+ £20 to be featured in the catalogue).
• Graduates get free stands, but places are very limited.
• Around 30% of people at the fair get commissioned by galleries.

Jane Dzisiewski was the next speaker, and a participant in the Hothouse programme in 2011/12. She has had 3 years in business since then. She introduced her talk with a summary of the Hothouse programme itself:

• Support for emerging makers.
• Focuses on business and creative aspects equally.
• Focuses on traditional crafts mostly.
• Cohorts run January-June 2014 with applications received by the end of July 2013.
• Find the application details at the Crafts Council website.

She went on to tell us about her business development and how becoming savvy with the internet side of things really helped her progress. Such as:

• Using a free app called 'buffer', which links social and professional networking sites together, allowing you to manage them all together (which saves time and having to re-write statuses etc separately).
• Having an online portfolio has allowed her to tell her work's story without having to be there herself to explain it. (so, she recommends using images that are revealing of the creative process, from start to finish).

She also felt that professional development has to be an ongoing process to make the best of yourself. 

General tips:

• Putting yourself and your work at the centre of your practice is essential (i.e. don't become overly involved in helping others/collaborating if it is really holding you back).
• Plan seriously for the future you want.
• Make your own opportunities.
• Regularly assess yourself and 'fine tune' occasionally.
• When blogging, think carefully about the use of titles and image captions- what are people likely to search for on google? You can gain a lot of attention from people following pictures back to you.
• Watch this video of Neil Gaiman.

The final speaker, Rachel Kelly, had these additional tips:

• Challenge yourself to learn new things all the time!
• Always seek an audience for your work- you can't confine yourself to a studio working for yourself.
• Have a sentence, 50 words, and a page about your work all prepared to save time when contacting potential clients etc.
• Keep computer files super organised- use this as a procrastination if you must procrastinate.
• Have email templates for replying to people if messages begin to become overwhelming. 
• Be focused on your work. Don't be distracted by your phone or computer.
• Concentrate on your own business development before collaborations.
• Be inspired by your surroundings and use the facilities available to you (galleries, museums, libraries etc).
• Keep a growing address book of professional contacts and organisations for the future.
• Attend more events like this one!
• Understand your work and where you want it to go.

At the end of the day everyone seemed a bit exhausted by all the information we'd absorbed. My overall impression of the day is that it was aimed predominantly at traditional crafts people, therefore wasn't entirely relevant to the direction I might take after graduation. Nevertheless, I did get very useful tips for how to approach becoming freelance and make a living from my work independently; either through self-publised work being sold on my own site or at events such as print fairs and craft fairs.

The Fair

Previously I hadn't realised that this was such a high profile event! Inside the venue it was overwhelmingly warm and busy, and the stalls were packed tight. I felt intimidated by the professionalism of the work on sale compared to the items I had donated, but the prints and zines that my fellow students had contributed looked right at home. After arriving and seeing how our stall was looking, it was clear that we wouldn't be able to squeeze in alongside Paul and Kat behind the table to assist, so we wished them luck and mingled around the northern quarter for a while. 

After lunch at the Nexus Art Cafe we returned again to see how our stall was doing. It was a little disheartening to see that none of my work had gone, and I was a bit worried that it was priced too highly for people to be interested. Paul mentioned that lots of people had been intrigued by my hand-crafted animals, picking them up to inspect but seemingly not enough to hand over money for them. There was a bit of debate over the issue of pricing, which was settled with the idea that people would pay a high price for things that were made well and seemed 'limited edition'. Although I think that we should have brought the price of my animals down, it was encouraging that my fellow students appreciated the effort that went in to creating them to value them quite expensively.

Manchester Print Fair 2013

For the past couple of weeks I've been preparing work to sell, along with fellow illustration/graphics students, at this event. The money raised from this will go towards the funds for our degree show outside of college.
I have contributed a few hand-made animals and hand-bound notebooks. I'm a little nervous about whether or not my things will sell amongst the very professional looking graphic prints people have been producing! But hopefully a little diversity isn't such a bad thing.
Only tomorrow can tell what will happen...

Wonderful Inspiration

Just as the thought of creating my own animation was becoming too daunting to bear, I found this wonderful animated adaptation of The Grimm Brothers' The Golden Bird by Cat Bruce:

[Click here to watch it on Vimeo!]
The scenery has been created quite crudely, but it nevertheless looks atmospheric and appropriate for the characters, mostly due to the lighting effect. She has used real bits of plantation: twigs and dead leaves; large pieces of fabric and buttons.

The sun has been represented by a circle of golden foil. The sunset is a simple sequence where fabric is pulled down behind the foreground to show the transfer from sunset to night sky.

The house in the opening scene is constructed with corrugated card, and cardboard is also used as silhoette detail in the foreground of the shot. Cardboard trees appear to be coloured with oil pastel. Although quite a simplistic representation of objects, the material is appropriate and comfortable alongside the made figure of the man.

Another aspect of this that I found particularly encouraging in relation to making my own animation is the way she has used a 2D representation of the man in a sequence where he is chasing after the golden bird. In this 'long shot' the puppet is used to achieve more realistic running motions. The background moves to the left to give the illusion of his speed.

I like the way she also uses frames focusing closer on the character intermittently during the chase, focusing on his struggle to keep up as we hear his voice. The sequence, and the way the rest of the animation's narrative appears, gives the impression of effective, 'filmic' editing.

Other impressive features include:

this fantastic fox...

the man's face!...

and this fire, complete with flickering flames and sparks (so clever I don't even want to think too hard about how it's been done)...

Further pampering and preening for Mr. Wolf...

Although my wolf character has looked to be in an acceptable state for a while (enough to build my book narrative plans around him), there always seems to be room for picky little adjustments.
Certain improvements have been entirely necessary though; in particular, the addition of his hands and feet (or paws-something of a werewolfy mix). I found I'd been putting off adding them because I wasn't quite sure how to go about making them. It was quite a fiddly process, and I was unhappy at the though of probably needing to use glue at this point, to fix wool to wire (I'm not sure why, I have a stubborn reluctance to go beyond tying and sewing to fix things together). But I'm glad to say I managed without, and it was just a case of wrapping wool around wire and tying it securely. In the end, building the shape of the hand around the 'skeleton' was easier than I thought with the wrapping method.

In-keeping with the idea of the wolf character being a dangerously charming predator, I made him a tiny fitted jacket to add to his 'suave' appearance. I have yet to add a few buttons here and there, but I'm satisfied I've got an almost complete figure to work with. Now he just needs a grandma night-gown, and to meet little Red Riding Hood!

Visiting Germany

Last week I went with my family to a peaceful little village in Germany called Dießen, just by the lake Ammersee. We were visiting my cousin's new baby for the first time! He was lovely.

Rather than otherwise seeing the trip as a holiday, I tried my best to make most of the time there useful for my work. It was a perfect location for 'sense of place' research (for the setting of Little Red Riding Hood), as my aunt's house is a short walk away from some woods. The bizarre weather we've been experiencing this month in England has been equally as strange abroad. The cold weather had lead to snowfall: and although the sunshine gradually melted what blanketed the garden when we first arrived, the woods remained a strange, unseasonal winter wonderland.

[The view from my auntie's window]

It was such a quiet day when I went wandering on my own. I didn't see any people, bar a few cars driving past as I crossed the main roads. I was even lucky enough to encounter three fawns as I made my way up towards the hill entering the woods. I only just managed to get my camera out in time to snap them as they dashed out in front of me.

[deer!]

Walking up the slope, I was stepping over sledge tracks, and I suddenly realised this was where we had been sledging as children years before, and the nostalgia spurred me on (as I struggled not to slip during the climb!) Once I got into the trees I sat down a while to enjoy the scenery (leading to grass-stained jeans), and got out the camera again. I'm the first to admit that my photography skills unfortunately don't do justice to what I could see that day, but the pictures will no doubt be helpful. I also gathered together some of the odd loose branches and twigs I could find on the ground, as I've decided I would like to use some natural found materials to help build up the scenes for some of my illustrations. In my mind it felt more special using twigs from these woods than any old trees back in Manchester (yet my bundle of German sticks remains at home in York with my parents, when I realised I couldn't manage them on top of the rest of my luggage on the train. Hopefully I will be reunited with them in time to put them to use still...)

I even spied 'grandma's cottage' across the way...

Returning home with completely numb fingers, I felt rejuvenated by this little excursion, and set back to work in the warmth of the indoors. 

On with my FMP!

Now that the Lord Whitney brief is out of the way, I can re-aquaint myself with my wolf! He has been abandoned untouched for too long, and it's time to bring him to life.

This week has been very positive; I feel freshly motivated again. On Monday I focused on the story and how the pictures in my book will look. I created a rough set of images-a very basic storyboard of how I think the narrative might progress, based on a loose idea of my version of the story.

Next, I will transfer these scribbly ideas into a 'mock-up' book, a hand-bound document very quickly put together to act as a guide for how my final product will turn out. As this will be very much a guide, I can afford to re-draw elements and cut and stick the text of the story into it temporarily, to allow editing as my ideas change; so although this may not initially be a reliable draft, it will be a very useful tool to keep me focused as I am in the process of producing the final illustrations.

Although there is a lot of work to do on the characters' environment (I will need to construct backgrounds as shown in my storyboard images: Little Red Riding Hood's house, the woods, grandma's cottage etc) my wolf is almost ready to go...

I miss drawing people!

Lately I haven't been spending much time drawing people and figures, which is one of my favourite things to do! During our talk from Lorraine she emphasized the importance of showing the figure, and characters in our portfolios. At the moment I feel that when people look at my work they are immediately drawn to the animal figures I've made. I would like to be more recognised for my drawings as well.

This has reminded me how happy I was with my work for the Little White Lies brief, when I spent hours drawing pictures of Natalie Portman in Black Swan. When I got complimented on the likeness of my drawings to her it really gave me a greater sense of achievement than I feel when people respond well to my made creatures.

Bearing this in mind, I would like to start focusing more on what may be the drawn elements of my major project. Background details and little red riding hood herself will be good starting points. It is the integration of the made and drawn elements that will be tricky. Although I have merged a 3D way of working with 2D cut-outs for projects before (e.g. Life Stories), it will be more of a challenge making the image look cohesive with a completely 3D made figure (my wolf). Because of the inevitable difficulties I will face when it comes to arranging all the elements together in an image, I am remaining open minded at this early stage about having to experiment with the representation of the characters and scenery.

With a greater amount of time to spare for evaluation and experimentation, I'm not so daunted by this task.

Final Major Project

After discussing this with my tutor, I made the decision to base the main efforts of this project producing a book: my own take on the classic fairytale Little Red Riding Hood. In addition, I would like to take advantage of our current tutorials learning some animation techniques and create some animations to go with the book. I plan to make them using the same scenery and characters I will be using for the illustrations.

At the moment I am about to begin focusing on the scenery. 

But I began by creating my wolf. 

This is the first time I have constructed a 3D figure that allows some movement. Although it is quite limited, I think it would be suitable for the wolf if he were to carry himself like a human (a characteristic I have considered in order to allude to him representing a sexual predator towards Little Red Riding Hood). As I constructed the body, head, tail and limbs separately from each other, they can all move appropriately. Thanks to the wire which forms a 'skeleton' inside the body parts, I can bend and manipulate him to a certain degree. The challenge will be creating a human character to go with him, and scenery that he feels at home in!

[pictures to come soon]

Portrait for a friend

Here's what I was up to yesterday...
After seeing some drawings I had edited with a blue filter, my tutor suggested that I tried drawing in blue, so here's my first drawing with my fancy dark blue pencil and detail in black fine liner.