There is no doubt that this course has taught me to reflect and process my work in a way I had never previously done. I have started being honest with myself and to give a good account of me as an individual but also what I am trying to do with my work. I have learnt over the past few months to not be too hard on myself and to cut myself some slack. In doing so, I've tried to think of things that may help me not only relax and unwind but that may assist my project.
I have always enjoyed drawing and painting.
I decided that if I wanted to speed the process up, I may have to do the illustrations myself. It's been a while since I attempted any artwork but I thought it may be therapeutic as well as aiding my work.
It was my one year Wedding anniversary and as I'm sure you are all aware it's a paper celebration! If I'm being honest, I may have settled on some gig tickets but due to restrictions I had to be inventive. Perhaps in some ways these limitations have made us all have to be more creative.
My wife, who is from South Africa has a favourite flower - the Protea. I thought a nice surprise may be to pencil out one for a potential tattoo. I did an initial sketch from several different images and based my design on some of them.
My drawing below.
I showed the end results to my Wife. I only spent a couple of hours on this version and will be working on a better one in the new few weeks. She absolutely loved it and was very pleased. I was very happy about that but in truth I'm just not sure my style suits that of the demographic Im pitching my ideas to. I have a level 4 Art foundation but just don't have the required skills or expertise to really give my project the top aesthetic it needs.
Being a teacher in Higher Education, I come across so many gifted young people. From filmmakers to graphic artists, there really is an abundance of talent out there. I then started to enquire about illustrators and began thinking about the people that may be able to help. One person stood out. Lydia Pickering Rose. Lydia has just graduated from her Digital Animation Course with a 1st. Her work really is exceptional and I wrote to her to enquire about her services and to see what she was up to after graduation in July. She is current working on illustrations for Spotify single releases and I am in no doubt that she will be a huge success in whatever field she goes into.
Below is some of Lydia's illustrations.
At this point neither Lydia or I have ever written or illustrated a children's book. It will be a gamble but I really believe in the project and I think we can achieve great things with this collaborations.
I believe that this collaboration may address a weakness that I come across sometimes. I do find it hard to let go and allow others to contribute, as I tend to want to get across my own vision. I can still do this of course but this course has enabled me to see there are other routes to fishing with a great end product.
An anxiety I sometimes face is the pressure of trying to do it all on my own. I believe this collaboration could open the door to other opportunities and to have better working relationships with other artists and visionaries.
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