I Am Not a Weird Person - Molly McGlynn

I Am Not a Weird Person from molly mcglynn on Vimeo.

I found this today, it struck me as a really beautiful and simple way of expressing a person with social anxieties, albeit extreme (not leaving the house for three days). It really ties to my research for COP into Introversion, as well as being something that resonates with me.
Thinking about next year, I want to look at mental health and creatives and think this video explores it well.

Julianna Swaney : Teagan White

I found this illustrator whilst browsing blogs and I really like her colour palettes and use of watercolour. After looking through her work I decided I wasn't so keen on her character work, to me they felt too twee and cute. I think strange tigers and wolves are weirder, and not pastel ladies. I don't know, Her stuff reminds me a little of Teagan White's work, an illustrator I found when I was doing my GCSE's and check in on now and again.

Julianna Swaney.

Teagan White.

Although White still has the naive feel to her children's books, her versatility is something that I am in awe of. From woodland critters to anatomically correct birds and foxes. The same subject, massively different approaches whilst sticking to similar colours. She also does really beautiful hand painted lettering and typography. A multi-trick pony. 

Whilst doing the weekly Illustration Friday briefs, and joining the GetMessy Journal project to enable me to explore my own practice and push the limitations I stupidly put over myself, I'm also aiming to look at the work of others more to see how I can develop my own. I think I need to work on my use of colour, because I either work in black, or my favourite green. Digitally colouring things is a whole other story, I don't experiment, I go with what I think I know and I'm realising that this is detrimental to my practice. 

Contemporary practitioners - Book design and zines.

This is also on my Studio Practice blog, but I think it will also be relevant to PPP as it reflects on my own practice and how contemporaries will and can influence that.

Sad Girls Zine
Tallulah Fontaine
Violeta Lopiz
Lizzy Stewart
Hell’O Monsters

OUIL504 End of Module Evaluation

During this module I think I’ve gained a lot of confidence in my own abilities, from learning about animation and more about screen print I feel less apprehensive about doing them on my own. This especially applies to print, because I initially taught myself when I was younger and used a security light and my coffee table, I’ve since been scared by all the rules and opportunities to do it wrong. I am since learning that it’s better to be wrong and learn, than never learn at all.

I’ve also developed working with motifs, and how something simple when combined with concept and intangible things like media can be much more powerful than over complicated imagery where the meaning gets lost.

I developed my conceptual skills massively in this brief, throughout the visual journal I tried collage in ways that I would never do. I focused on using Quink for Studio Brief 3 because it’s quite unpredictable, which achieved the loose but confident lines I wanted to achieve. Also during this module I became less focused on creating perfectly accurate images and focused more on the message. I think my work is stronger because of this.

The Visual Journal was something I really enjoyed, it allowed me to really explore my author visually as well as through words, I found myself sketching absentmindedly and writing down a line that sounded pleasing and watching it grow into a stronger idea. It made me feel like a creative. The only issue was that as the other briefs evolvement became more necessary, there was less time for me to push ideas around, and my journal became a place to plan and organise my work. 

I found Studio Brief 2 especially hard.  I found Stop Motion to be interesting and something I could get my head around, though found it difficult to think properly about how things would move. I think this is why when I attempted drawn animation I made it to 20 frames and gave up. I found that it would never run smoothly enough and I would never be happy, I think I expected it to just appear. I found that painting still components such as the bugs or the mushrooms, and photocopying them made much more of an impact.

In Studio Brief 3 I found that I enjoyed the ideas and concepts behind the project more than the actual making. I’m not completely happy with my final prints as I think my compositions are generally quite weak. I thought my images and poetry were strong, it was the combining and the refining that possibly took away from that. In the next module I need to invest more time into layout and stop trying to throw things together on Photoshop. I could maybe re-evaluate my old ways of working, when I felt my compositions were stronger and more thought out.

Throughout this module I explored my writing, something I began practising consciously over summer, and I’m good at it. That said, I’m also not on an English degree, but found that it provided a good starting point to collect imagery from. I work better this way because it gives me things to draw, because I like including things in my work that mean something regardless of whether it is picked up by the audience. I found that this was a good way to work for me.

I found also that I enjoy stop motion; disregarding whatever happened in after effects my initial dragon framed sequences are really strong and I would really like to explore this further. I always find that I am happy with my work until I try and digitise it, I like I lose the effect of it, but I also recognise that I need to be able to do this to make my work look professional.

When trying to think about my weaknesses however, It would be really easy to say time management but I don’t think this is the case, I think it’s my motivation. Throughout the module I planned every week and it helped massively when I actually stuck to it, I just had to be motivated enough to do so. At the beginning of the module I was on track to complete everything that I intended to produce, I then however had some bad personal news that meant that I couldn’t focus on university at all. I’m not using this as an excuse; I should have handled it better. I was debating applying for Mitigating Circumstances but realised that would mean working on this module whilst beginning another. I need to learn how to balance and cope better to make everything more manageable.  I also need to keep drawing for myself, I found that when I did this I felt more excited about creating work generally and that I didn’t go stale.

In the next module and throughout the rest of the year I want to:

- Spend more time painting, though I want to spend more time on each piece for better results, I think it will make them more resolved.

- I want to keep up with making weekly plans, I should colour code them into modules so I can see exactly where I need to be.

- Teach myself more about After Effects or other software rather than sticking to what I know, this will drive my practice further and make my work more professional.

- Plan my work more meticulously so I know more of what to expect rather than blind testing. This will save me time and be more effective.