Monday, 14 November 2016

Post-TB Instagram

I've started trying to document some of the work I've started doing now that thought bubble is over. I've gained more followers as a result but I'm very bad at keeping my social media up to date. As a result when I started doing my Friday print I decided to begin documenting the work I was making via instagram


As a result of this and the lino experimentation I'm try I was able to start up dialog with other lino based artist about different techniques and experimentation which I very much enjoyed.



I'd like to start more of a dialogue with creatives and others interested in the creative community online. As I think it's helping to shape the way I view and develop my practice.




Thought Bubble

Ya Boi Got a Table at Thought Bubble
I've been going to thought bubble for 7 years now and then this year I got to have a table. We got the table 2 weeks before the convention and though it was stressful as all hell I feel accomplished in that I made half a table's worth of sellable work. 



Doing the convention was a huge confidence boost to my practice as I got so many compliments from both artists and art enthusiasts. When people bought my work all I could think of was how weird it was that people wanted to part with cold hard cash for my stuff.

I was shocked at what sold well at the con and what didn't. For example I thought people were going to love the rick and morty work so i made a lot of them however I sold only one the entire show. On the other hand the square image of the trapped woman which i'd only made 6 of sold out on the first day and my nigerian zine almost sold entirely out as well. People seemed very interested in my works colour, personality and quality. Alot of people asked if I was going to do more with the square lady character as well as professional comic critiques asking me if I'm thinking of creating a comic anytime soon and giving me their details so that they can be the first to critique it. It's very overwhelming as I didn't think I was good enough for comics but now I'm starting to think differently. Alongside that I've had people asking If I have a Big Cartel and sold work online. I'm thinking of pursuing this to get rid of excess stock and pushing my name and branding further.

Talking to people was a huge part of thought bubble for me, I was able to make connections with other black and queer creatives alongside others whose work i admired and potential fans of my work. It felt really good to do and I ended up with only 2 of my 100 business cards left!

I also got talking with a man from the Black cultural community in sheffield about one of my books going into their library collection archive. I also got t speak more with Mike Mignola and he complimented our work!

Overall I feel like I have a lot more options and opportunities presenting themselves towards me than I originally thought. I don't know which to choose but I'm excited to have the choice.

Traveling Man

When it came to traveling man , even though I couldnt go down to the party due to prep for Thought Bubble I am happy that my work is being showcased there. I've been going to traveling man for the better part of 6 years and similarly to Thought Bubble having this opportunity to be involved with something i'm so familiar with was an opportunity that I felt was very necessary to take. I'm not sure that I like doing fan art that much or that this is the way for me to go professionally but I did appreciate the opportunity immensely.

My Buisness Card

When doing my card I didnt want to do what I did before. Try to be serious and what I thought was 'correctly professional' in my business card. I decided to have fun with it and make it memorable in the way that when u see it you know it's me cause it literally has my face on it.

Mike Mignola & Creative Network

Though I was super worried about the Mignola talk due to my anxiety flaring up at the last couple I went to However it went really well. I sold one print and talked to a few different creatives. One of whom was Mr Mignola himself. It was a real pleasure meeting him and after talking about how he started to draw for himself and that's where he found his passion and success I felt calmed in what I expected from the future a bit.

LinkedIn & Posting

Getting LinkedIn is something that if I harnes it right will be good for me. However I think that at the moment I'm not pushing it as far as it can go. For example Creating my post about black creatives and an unspoken obligation to be political helped me understand and form myself and my practice better. Because connecting and networking on a personal one to one basis is something I find easy but over the internet I am some what fearful to voice my opinions. For example I found it easy to discuss with Howard Hardiman about the relatively low standards given to horror art and how that has begun to change and horror illustration is getting into it's own renaissance. It was a really positive and insightful discussion that I've wanted to post on LinkedIn and discuss further with other creatives; yet for some reason my own personal fear of voicing myself on the internet holds me back.


Friday, 30 September 2016

(MA) Art History

I want to do my masters at leeds university part time in art history so that i have time to really get into the ideals and concepts that i want to explore.

Tuesday, 23 August 2016

Dan Harmon


Dan Harmon as a writer and a Creative is quite genius in mixing knowledge, social commentary, satire,dark humour and a passion for the things he does into 2 successful tv shows, a successful D&D web series and a short series on the History Channel. I don't want to replicate this kind of work however I would like to push where my creative career can take me and doing series online, via podcast or on tv is something I'd love the opportunity to do about something I am passionate with. Looking also towards collaboration with different creatives. 

Friday, 19 August 2016

Live Competitions either Garbage or OK

https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/dangers-illustration-competitions/

So I've been having these long self debates about illustration competition and their validity. A lot of these competitions make me feel either a short sense of joy before feeling used. A lot of the time you get nothing for the ideas generated and the time spent on them. And even though part of its to fill a module slot I don't know how I feel about selling myself to companies that could easily afford to pay for people to make them instead of giving them a pencil that they have to pay for.

Saturday, 14 May 2016

New Manifesto

Creative and Unofficial part time historian, theorist and poet delivering art in some form or another.

WHAT AM I DOING? WHAT HAVE I DONE?

okay so now the dramatics are out the way, i'm worried about the following things:
Presentation
Creative CV
Aesthetic
Is what I want to do just dull cause I've thought about it too long or is it just dull?????

I'm very vulnerable and I hide it too well.

I want to be raw in this presentation but I don't know if it's appropriate or if people would deal.

Also I wanna change all my shit every 5 minutes cause why not?

I'm trying to use my ppp blog for a rawer and more truthful look at my professional practice and how I can work out my worries and stresses about evolving as a professional.

I feel so further from what I wanted to be at the beginning of 1st year and that scares me.
I know for a fact that I'm gonna be even further in my ambitions and goals next year.
fuck.

Wednesday, 11 May 2016

Mini Zine Business Card

So today I tried the Mini zine business book idea in a single colour. Don't know if I like it but it has Potential. Mini Zine Cover could be it's own card. I'm gonna try that out.

PPP- I Am Both The Problem & The Solution!

I could maybe when I should make business cards out of clay and make mini tiles. But they could break and making them would hurt me.

Oh shit I just had an Idea. I make mini Zines like the ones I found in berlin which are basically a mini pitch for my work and also has the novelty that people would hold onto it.




I am smart.
 

PPP- Business Cards Are Hard

Why are Buisness cards so hard to make?
I dont wanna make boring cards that get looked over.
I thought of having little scenes on the from  of the cards that embody what my main interests are.

  •  A Horror Card
  • A Historical Card
  • A Humour Card
The Triple H.

After designing 2 of them I realised that similar to the way the module says I should use mono print or black & White for costing. So I changed the covers but idk If it's effective.



Saturday, 12 March 2016

PPP-Who Am I


  • Personal Audits are really hard. Like who am I ???
  • I feel like I probably have more skills than I let on. Like the fact I can talks to most people and exude the fakest of confidences. 
  • But due to internal humbleness (And BOY am I humble) I don't really don't think the things I do are either unusual or significant.
  • Janice, Olivia, Amber and I (?) wrote down qualities we see in one another and although it quickly disintegrated into a less than professional look at each other I still found some notes make about myself that are pretty good things to work with.
  • Like: how I can be extremely passionate about different subject and socio cultural issues, My outgoingness, My thirst for knowledge and humour.
  • I tried to wrap this up into a 3-4 sentence bio about myself but I found this very difficult when it came to articulating myself and my traits. 
Eccentric creative, poet, part time theorist and historian. Who works in pen,paint,print and pencil. A dab hand with digital design and full of quite interesting facts.

This is what I've got so far really. I think it encompasses myself and my practice in an quasi-professional way. However if I want to do work for museums and BBC History maybe it's too informal.


Thursday, 4 February 2016

PPP-Presentation

  • The presentation went okay
  • We we're on time
  • We felt we'd gone through everything and been confident and assured in our development
  • Call that Q&A The Salem Witch Trials, because we got roasted
  • Someone asked if it was Bi-monthly and we said yes because we meant every 2 weeks, however everyone else took it as once every two months and started questioning how we could keep up with the news with such long delays between issues. I floundered there and should of clarified how initially it was going to be once every 2 months but then upon further talk we decided twice every month.
  • Also we we're judged on our word limit. And this is valid and take full responsibility for the decision to limit the words as I felt the need to set ourselves guidelines in the initial parameter of making the mock ups as this was only a pitch and we needed to get the concept out. However John and Patricks issues were valid as there was no way we could cover bigger stories with such a minimum amount of words. 
  • We were also told we need to commision both journalists and illustrator, one for writing one for illustration. Which fair do's but once again this would have been further developed after the concept meeting because this wasn't a presentation to have your project ready to go the next day. And we'd focused on other logistics, such as the foundations of the project before the greater refining and developing points of the project.
  • I take full responsibility for the lack of clarification and word count issues.  
  • On the bright side most of the class liked it.
  • Overall we tried are best. and are now more aware of further research that would have to go into a successful initial pitch.
  • Personally I think I need to work on my awareness of my environment and the way i handle Q&A's. I tend to get very defensive if criticised as I take it as a personal attack and learning to detach myself from this emotionally will help me later on in life.