Life's a Pitch: Structure

I was assigned to research the structure of our business idea. For the model I used The Sketchbook Project to get an idea of who we will need to do what, and adapted it to our concept.

Co Founders:
Rosie Wood
Emanuel Santos-Ghandi
Will Grout
Lauren Dennis

What roles do we need to fill?
Online Presence - Management and social media etc.
Design and Branding - Will we outsource this? (extra cost)
Project Manager - Where are we going? What are we doing and when?
Driver - Obviously!
Stock Manager - What will we sell?

These roles will allow crossover and collaborations. They can also be adapted to peoples strengths.
We will try to do everything ourselves but may need to outsource certain things.

Life's A Pitch: Initial Proposal

What is the idea/concept for your group's proposal?
Our idea is to have a travelling arts van. We will go to different cities around the UK selling prints/ ephemera and art supplies. 

What service do you propose to provide?

1. Sell prints/art-related products
2. Run art-related workshops for all ages
3. Giving art-related talks/making visits in schools/colleges
4. Possibility for a pop up space
5. Art days for kids?

Who will benefit /make use of your service?

1. Cities - Travelling round gives more variety.
2. City's art scene
3. Other Illustrators.
4. People interested in processes we teach
5. People who want to discover new art.

What are the aims of your proposal?

1. Make money
2. Spread brand at street level
3. Make ourselves into a brand - through online presence?
4. Promote other practitioners
5. Educate people through our workshops

What are the expected outcomes of your proposal?

1. Become a destination (even if it travels) through creating online hype.
2. Use the van as an experiment for a permanent space.
3. Get our ideas out there. (Into the wild world)
4. Get other work out there.

How will you measure your success?

1. Profit margins
2. Reception of the public
3. How long can we sustain it, what are our projections?

What problems can you foresee?

1. Products not selling / losing money (can this be fixed buy sale or return)
2. Not being able to afford start-up funds
3. No response/reception to us.

Animation and Story Telling

A really nice animation to accompany a piece by Italo Calvino.

Another 25 things at This Point In Time...

5 Things I learnt last year:
- Thumbs and scamps are actually there for a reason, work it all out first!
- Blog as much as you need, try to be more succint but also honest!
- I'm not as bad as I think I am 98% of the time, the way I think about my work and my practice is the thing that makes it not work as well as I would like.
- If summer is included; I don't have to show anyone my sketchbook if I don't want to, I can draw really terribly and it's ok, no judging. This allowed me to work out my ideas and as a result I became a lot happier with my work.
- How using different media can make my work looser, but in a good way, it feels more emotive.

5 Things I want to know more about this year:
- I still want to develop my digital skills, since trying to be all deep and find myself, I've forgotten how to Photoshop, I think this is because I'm working in different media which reacts differently.
- I want to stop being scared of screen printing
- Woodcut more and get real good at it.
- Organise my time better, I don't want to be a bit shit like last year.
- Figure out what area of illustration I want to go into, if at all, do I want to print? Do I want to write? Do I want to bum around and draw pretty things all day?

5 Strengths:
- Writing; something I tried out over summer when I couldn't make anything visual at all in a total brain lapse, I wanted to do something creative and I think it might be my thing.
- Using media, something that has exploded over the past year, a massive leap for me. I've really tried to hone in on watercolours and using things other than fineliner, and my work has developed from it.
- Self Deprecating - I'm the best. Is that a contradiction?

5 Weaknesses:
- Concept! I have no concept of concept, I suck at things that mean things, I really want to get better at this, it's something I really have to push.
- Finishing things, none of my work looks professional anymore due to the huge journey I went on last year trying to grasp that things don't have to be perfect. You win some you lose some.
- Organising my brain, last year everything went wrong a lot of the time, I didn't do a lot of the work and I didn't do it well enough. I felt really disappointed in myself.
- General brain function, a lot of the time I overthink things and get the blues, which completely debilitates any possibility of creating work. Which I overthink, which starts a vicious, imageless cycle.
- Not being brave, last year I held back on going to workshops, trying print methods and book binding because I was scared I would be rubbish, so I didn't even try and I could kick myself now.

5 Images that define my interest within the field of Illustration:

In my temple - Mike Egan

Although not one of my favourite pieces by him, it's a really good example of use of texture, one of the main draws of his work. He used to work in funeral homes and a lot of his work is inspired by this. The texure and compositions are something I would like to influence my own work, I also think it lends itself to print making which is something I want to get better at.

Bryn Perrott - Spider Murphy's Tattoo

This is a woodcut! I went to a class over summer and expected to immediately be this good (I wasn't). Her work is within the same vein of traditional tattooing and is incredible. There isn't a lot of commercial things, just very intricate and lovely to look at. I love Bryn Perrott's work because of the craft. I really want to try woodcutting this year and get really good at it, not even to make prints, just art in it's own right. I think the textures are beautiful. I think to develop this I need to work on getting better at self contained composition. 

Lizzie Stewart - Illustrated Life, Wrap Magazine.

Lizzie Stewarts use of traditional hand generated image combined with digital colouring is something that I really want to get better at. Especially in the piece above, the colours are really sympathetic into the work. To get better at this I need to practice on photoshop, I also think this will make my work look more professional and finished. 

Clint Reid - Europa Exhibition

Clint Reid is a favourite from years and years ago, someone that I keep discovering. What I find more interesting is his progress shots. He draws with red and blue pencil, then traces over for clean, crisp linework. His adaptation from paper, to computer, to wood makes but still retains his 'style' or tone of voice is something that really appeals to me as a practitioner.

Jon Klassen - I want my hat back

I'm not really interested in children's book illustration, or at least I thought I wasn't until I realised how rife it is for texture and shape. Jon Klassen adopts a 'hungry caterpillar' approach of sharp clean shape and beautiful brush stroke-filled textures. Making the flat simple shapes more intricate. The way he depicts plants are especially beautiful, layers upon layers that are ever so slightly translucent to make the compositions seem really vast and deep.

An evaluation of Level 4

This is a copy of the first post on my PPP blog, I wanted to see what was still relevant. As a whole I think I fell into the trap Fred warned us of, forgetting PPP and putting it on the back burner. Even though I did a lot of things, researched and found my own influences and things that were relevant to PPP, it wasn't ingrained enough so it was forgotten about. I think this year I need to get into the habit of blogging the things that are relevant, instead of absorbing them then forgetting them a few days later!

I chose to study on this programme because:
- As an internal student I knew about the reputation of Leeds College of Art and of how successful the Graphic Design course is and how that would be transferred to the Illustration course.
-  Also because of my year on the extended diploma after transferring from sixth form, I appreciated how good the college was and found I could work better in the learning environment and the curriculum at LCA. 
- I love Leeds as a city, I knew I wanted to study Illustration and thought I would have to move away, when I found out about the new course it seemed obvious this would be my first choice. 
- I want to be an Illustrator, I'm not sure what area within the subject yet, I'm hoping after three years I will have more of an idea.
Things want to learn during my degree:
- I want to fall back in love with drawing, I've found that sometimes I go for weeks without drawing because of creative blocks. I want to be able to draw every day and enjoy it.
- I would like to refine my practice, I find it difficult at the minute to make a piece of work look finished and polished.- 

I think my strengths are:
- Although it's sometimes a weakness, I tend to think I'm doing worse than I actually am which makes me work harder (and possibly sends me insane).
- My need to better myself, I constantly look to contemporary illustrators and want to be at the point they're at but within my own practice.
- My pen work, I am most confident working in a 0.05 pen to create highly detailed pieces of work.

I want to improve:
- My time management 
- My technical skills
-My drive for making images 


I think because my work has gone through a complete maze of tests and reworking, a lot of stuff isn't relevant to me anymore. I still would like to refine my practice, improve technical skills and get a really good drive for image making going, at the minute it's not as difficult as it was but it's still something I struggle with.

OUIL402 End of Module Evaluation

I think throughout this module I’ve looked at a wider variety of pratitioners, looking back to September my taste in work has changed dramatically, rather than things that are very detailed, aesthetically and technically well done, I have learnt to appreciate context and the effectiveness of communication. I think I have developed a deeper love for ‘clever’ illustration. I think this module has also helped a lot with time management, I think this is an ongoing skill to improve but I’ve learnt the value of keeping lists and timetabling my weeks.

Throughout the year I have taken on outside briefs, such as exhibitions and contributing to Nest magazine, I have approached each of these differently, it has helped to be set a solid deadline and being told what to illustrate, such as Mystic Meg, this took all of the idea development out of it and allowed me to focus more on what it looked like. As these were placed sporadically throughout the year it has given a good timeline to the development and my exploration of media. In studio brief 2 I tried a different digital method to how I usually work, I wanted to try create something more professional, as a lot of my finals tend to look unfinished, feedback from these modules informed my decision to work to a cleaner digital way of working.

 Throughout this module I’ve found myself getting better at time management, I have began writing lists and writing timetables for myself and 90% of the time I actually stick to what I’ve planned. I think Time management is a very fluid and constant process. It is also a weakness of mine because I’m not always strict at keeping to the things set. I’ve explored different media in my finals for Studio Brief 2 and tried to push my digital skills further, I’ve learnt techniques that I didn’t know before in which I will keep on using. The research behind Studio Brief 2 was quite well thought out and quite exhaustive and I made thumbs of each card, something I tend to shy away from. I think that studio brief 2 was quite summative of my year of learning.

I think my main weakness from this module was that it was quite easy to forget about it, meaning that I wasn’t very reflective as the year progressed. In future I will try keep on top of study tasks as we are given them. Another big weakness is blogging exhibitions and practitioners I’ve looked at, I think it’s a subconscious thing to look at work and appreciate it, I need to take that to the next level and blog it as I’m doing so, but also be aware that I need to be critical and analyse what I’m doing.

For the PPP module running throughout level 5 I will try to keep a constant and consistent record of what I’m doing on my blog, I could possibly do this by writing a weekly review of who I’ve looked at, any breakthroughs that I’ve had with my work.

6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance				x
Punctuality				x
Motivation				x
Commitment				x
Quantity of work produced			x
Quality of work produced			x
Contribution to the group			x