Contacting Clients: What I have learned

Contacting clients even over email has been one of the most nerve wracking things I have had to do on this course. It's one of those things the more I have done it the easier it has become, and looking back to the first client I personally contacted (because my Dad did contact someone he has connections with on my behalf) the email I sent could have been better.

 I could have sold myself more and been more confident in my work, I could have maybe benefited by being a bit more laid back and not being so straight to the point. I have taken time to look at all of the galleries directors, aims and artwork on display and in their archives, and I have learned how to reflect that in my emails.

It has also been a lesson in rejection, currently I have had no responses but I haven't let that demotivate me if anything it has made me try harder and develop a thicker skin. I stand by my choices on who I have tried to make contact with. I don't doubt that my work would at very least be interesting to them if they would have given me a chance. But I will have to get used to the fact not everyone will give me a chance and if they do my artwork won't be of interest to everyone. It is nothing personal it is just how it is.

The problem I have found in regards to contacting the right people is that what I do is very niche and there's a limit to how many professionals I can find which may be interested in that niche. That is the nature of the beast sadly when you develop a style like mine. Call me stubborn but I'm not going to change my style just so I can have an easier time, my artistic integrity personally is the most important thing to me when it comes to creating work.

It might turn out that I get no responses whatsoever and I don't get the feedback I need. But it hasn't been in vain I have learned a lot about what I should expect and be prepared for when I leave. It may not be the lesson that was intended when this task was set but at least it is something.

Client: Hang-Up Gallery Director Ben Cotten

The hang up gallery prides itself on helping young artists, and with big names like Banksy on their roster of artists who wouldn't want these guys to look at your work. In this email I'm trying to hard sell my work a bit more while still remaining professional and polite.

Dear Ben Cotten,

I'm Sophie a BA Illustration student in my final year at MMU. As part of our course we have been asked to seek out industry professionals which may be interested in our work. I have attached a PDF portfolio to this email it contains 6 pieces of my best pieces work. If you could spare a moment to look at it and give me some feedback it would be much appreciated.

You have an amazing selection of artists such as Takashi Murakami, Invader, Dsceet, Herakut and of course Banksy. And by looking through your roster of artists I feel like my work may interest you, it's in the same vein but at the same time something a little different. Just to make clear I'm not looking to display my work only for you to have a look and see what you think.

I eagerly await your response.
Sophie Stratton (RaelDanger)


I will update this post if/when I get a response.

Client: Phil Harwood ascot studio's

Phil Harwood seems like one of the more approachable art gallery directors I have contacted, he already has some of Chris Pegg's work in his gallery which is manga influenced like my work. So that's already a good indicator that he might be interested in my style of work. With the email I sent to him I thought I would try being a little more informal and making sure he knows I have looked at the work he has on display and what he is about.

Dear Phil,

I'm Sophie a university student studying BA illustration at MMU. I am currently in my final year and we have been asked to contact gallery directors, art directors and other industry professionals to get some feedback on our portfolios. I have a PDF portfolio I could send via email it contains 6 pieces so it won't take up much of your time.

I stumbled across your gallery online and had a browse of the work you have on display and noticed you are displaying some of Chris Pegg's work and feel like my work is in a similar vein.  As an art buyer I would be interested in hearing your take on my work.

I hope to hear from you soon.
Sophie Stratton

I will update this post if /when I receive a response.

Client: Stephen Hayles Director of the Upfest Gallery and festival

Today I contacted Stephen Hayles the Director and founder of the Upfest Festival and Gallery in Bristol. I once attended one of the Upfest festivals with my parents and wholeheartedly plan on attending again on my own. My artwork as of late has taken on an urban art feel so I thought I would try my luck.

Dear Stephen Hayles,

I'm Sophie a university student studying BA Illustration at MMU and I'm currently approaching the end of my final year of my degree. As part of our course we are required to seek advice from gallery directors and other industry professionals such as yourself. I have had the pleasure of attending one of your Upfest Festivals and was in awe at the work which was on display and I feel my work is in a similar vain. I wondered if you could take a look my portfolio and give me some feedback, it contains 6 pieces and can be sent over email and won't take up much of your time.

Kind Regards
Sophie Stratton

Will update when I have received a reply.

Future self: Grief Project

Future self: Grief Project 

My future self project is about grief and the grieving process and specifically helping children and young teens recognize where they are emotionally in the process. This will help aid parents and maybe even school counsellors.

My initial idea was to make a book based off a poem I was writing about the stages of grief, but upon further research I found breaking it down into a linear clear cut process for example

1. Denial 
2. Anger 
3. Bargaining 
4. Depression 
5. Acceptance

Can actually do more harm than good.

No one experiences loss in the same way. Some people might skip certain emotional states, some might experience additional emotions and some may revisit certain stages. I don't want my work to pigeonhole people into believing there is only one correct way of grieving. The only incorrect way of grieving is not letting yourself go through the process. So keeping this in mind I reconsidered the book and/or booklet idea because it is too linear, and I have been considering making cards instead. I am still fine tuning how they are going to work but right now I am thinking of having 3 types of cards.

• Character cards
• Tip cards 
• Blank cards

Character cards will have a personification of the emotion for example Anger on them with the name of the emotion. The child will pick out the card/s which reflects how they are feeling, the descriptions of each emotion will be listed in a booklet which will come with the cards. Parents can get their children to redraw everyday or the children can display the cards on the fridge, their bedroom door, on a notice board ect and change them when they feel the need.

Tip cards are for what the child can do to experience the emotion in a healthy way, for example anger can cause problems if not dealt with correctly especially with school age children and teens.

Blank cards are for if the child or teen is experiencing an emotion that isn't on any of the pre existing cards. I'm including these because as I said everyone experiences loss differently and I want to try and keep all bases covered.

What kind of grief are these cards for?

I wanted to keep the cards so they can be used in any situation that involves loss. This could be loss of a pet, loss of a friendship or relationship, familial breakdown (divorce) and the loss of family members.

Other outcomes?

The other outcomes I want to make are

• Booklets
• Stickers 
• Rag dolls
• Clothing/Textiles

Feedback from Fig Taylor

Yesterday Fig Taylor came in to have a look at out work and suggest directions we could go in.

First she gave a talk on finding clients. She talked about having a strong style with diverse subject matter is what art directors might look for in a portfolio, if an art director can't see in your portfolio you draw cats for example they won't hire you to draw cats. She warned us against buying mailing lists of clients and sending out generic copy and paste emails because it is a fast track to being blacklisted by those clients. She told us to only target clients who you think will be interested in your work, if you are contacting a client who is the wrong fit you are basically just wasting your time.

Fig talked to us about two different illustration pathways

Mainstream which is editorial which has a fast turnover, book publishing where your designs will be heavily shaped by the retailer, and advertising which is where you can make a lot of money but it has to go through a lot of people who will demand a lot of changes.

Gift industry which more about making products like greetings cards, wrapping paper and I assume things like t-shirts and apparel etc.


Fig's Feedback

After the talk she sat down with groups of us and gave us some quick feedback on where we could go with our work.

When she got to my work I couldn't help but feel she didn't know what to really suggest, she told me that art directors don't like manga influenced styles but she didn't know why that's the case because it is rising in popularity with consumers. So pretty much editorial would be hard for me to get into but there maybe some more quirky children's magazines like Aqila I could try. She kept wavering on if my style would be a good fit for children or would be better aimed a tweens and teens.

She suggested I could try and get into character design and if I was to include some of my roughs in my portfolio but otherwise stick with finished pieces. She also suggested I could try selling my work for tattoo flash.

Her biggest suggestion was for to try and sell my work online on sites like etsy and redbubble. But she also said hardly any artists get popular selling online.

My Thoughts

I don't think Fig Taylor seemed to grasp my work and it's audience. I have most success selling to people aged 11-25 yet Fig kept telling me my work was only for children, tweens and early teens. She didn't explicitly say I should go into the gift industry even though that seems to be the obvious best fit for my work. The whole experience was very de-motivating for me but I have to keep in mind my work is a bit out there and is very niche so I can't expect everyone to understand it.

My response to women's sanitary products being classed as "Luxury Items"

I was angered to find out women's sanitary products are classed as a luxury and that some men were comparing their preference for being clean shaven to women's sanitary products. It's not specifically the tax which angers me more the principle behind them being labeled as "Luxury Items". 

Women in 3rd world countries are not as educated because they have little to no access to sanitary products and have to stay off school for 5 days to a week each month. That 5 days to a week puts them behind in their studies making it harder for them to further their education.

So a school year is roughly 195 days, roughly 6 months of the year. Take 5 days average from each month so that's 23. So times that by 6 (months) and that's 138 days. So that's 57 days of missed schooling a year that's roughly 2 months each year.

It gets worse the average start of a girls period is 12 and lets say that girl finishes school at 16. so that's 5 years, so total days a child should be in school is 975 and if you total in the time that these girls have to take off that is a total of 690 days they spend in school total from the ages of 12-16 years of age.

Shocking isn't it?

And people are telling us being in a position to be in education for 195 days a year is supposedly a luxury? We aren't after this stuff for free, we want people to admit this is not a god damn luxury!

Stella Creasy hit the nail on the head when she said "Tampons and sanitary towels, even I'm struggling with the words tonight it seems, have always been considered a luxury. That isn't by accident, that's by design of an unequal society, in which the concerns of women are not treated as equally as the concerns of men,".

Jaffa cakes are zero-rated for crying out loud! Yes stuffing our face with Jaffa's every month is fantastic BUT it is far from essential.   

I would love to at some point create some work around this issue but it would be a stretch to incorporate it into my current project, even though I am sure access to sanitary products is an issue for homeless women. 

Uni project and upcoming stall

My university project 'Outside The Penthouse' is about dispelling preconceptions of the homeless.
Going straight into doing work about homeless people didn't work out very well, I found myself really hitting brick walls, thinking that my super vivid style just wouldn't fit the message I was trying to convey.

I had the idea of depicting the homeless people as monsters because a lot of people seem to adopt the attitude that they shouldn't exist and to validate this I feel people connect negative connotations to homeless people. The most common being drunks, druggies, lazy and uneducated.
I wanted to pull the carpet out from peoples feet and show them how they have been thinking about homeless people compared to how they should be viewing them.

A big challenge with this project it to keep it out of the realm of being too condescending but also try and make it so it isn't a guilt trip. Talking to members of my class they told me that most charity ads are patronizing or tell the viewer though the use of black and white that this should make them feel sad. People don't like being told what they should feel on a subject, that's the reason why differing opinions can spark arguments. I have thought at length how I can stay clear of all of these things and realized it's probably not possible to do, my priority instead has to be keeping these factors to a minimum.

People told me they would rather see something that is uplifting and that will inspire people to help rather than something gloomy which would just depress the intended audience.

My tutor recommended I step away from the theme of homelessness for a bit and focus on creating characters (which is what I enjoy doing) and that has really unblocked me creatively. Since switching the focus I have been coming up with concepts I really enjoy. The project before had become a chore but now it has become something I do for enjoyment and if I have learned anything forcing creativity rarely gives good results. Also my tutor's lecture on metaphor really helped me come up with new ways of communicating my chosen message without blocking myself off creatively.



Switching topic, I have a stall coming up in November and I am focusing on making things that are reproducible in order to keep the balance between my stall and uni work. So far I have come up with the idea of doing lino prints, I had a little look on etsy to see if anyone does pop culture inspired lino prints and found one person by the name of Chase or TheBeardedGoldfish as the shop name is called.

If there is one thing in this world I love, it is Pokemon. And Chase does very unique Pokemon lino prints (if only he shipped to the UK). I have always loved the bold look of lino prints. 

He prints them on to rice paper of different colours depending on the character in the print.

I think the boldness of a lino print would look absolutely amazing paired with a vivid watercolour background that I have recently been creating with Dr Ph Martins concentrated watercolours.

This is also something I would love to experiment with for 'Outside The Penthouse'. Maybe I could even bind them into a zine format.

The etsy shop for TheBeardedGoldfish

The future

Recently I have been feeling the pressure to really find a definite route I want to take my art and I have decided after degree to purse a career in a tattooing, I considered this before I started this degree I was even offered an apprenticeship and I let the opportunity pass me by because I wasn't confident enough in my artwork.

Now I have had time to think about it I have something unique to offer when it comes to style and I want to try and practice specifically doing work which will computationally lend itself to tattoo's. As far as tattoo styles I like I am a fan of "new school tattoos".

Image from checkoutmyink

Image from oquevemporai.wordpress.com

Image from flickr

Tattoo by Autumn Tierney

Image from geeksaresexy

by Mina at Hawk and Sparrows in Malmö, Sweden.

Image from poundedink.com

by Kelly Dotty

I like new school tattoo's due the the vibrancy of the colours and how bold an beautiful they are. And I feel it really fits with the style I have established.

It maybe seen as a trend in tattooing but I am also really fond of the look of watercolour style tattoo's.

Image from huffingtonpost

Image from 1337tattoos.com

By Gene Coffey

Image from www.cuded.com

I love the fluidity of the linework (if applicable) in watercolour tattoo's, and again I love the vibrancy of the colours they use. The line's in watercolour tattoo's are varied some lines are think and bold, others look like brush and ink and some are swift and wispy.

1,2,3

This post is about three of the best pieces of advice I have been given since starting the course some of these will not be a piece of advice per say more of a turn in the right direction.

1. The zine making workshop

In the zine workshop I learned that working on pages which already had some preexisting texture or image on really help one overcome blank page anxiety or new sketchbook anxiety. I am someone who can get very hung up on their work and want every page to be perfect while in the zine the perfection is that it isn't perfect it has misspells, it has sketches done on lined paper, receipts, napkins, photocopies from things that inspired you through out. for me I think it is the perfect way to document and brainstorm (and kick a sketchbook buying addiction). There is something wonderful about making it yourself, selecting the papers and the binding. It's like having a little nugget of personality. Personally next year I want to do away with having sketchbooks and just bind my own zine style sketchbooks I think it really helped me with my process when it came to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

2. Be a flaneur

There are so many things you miss when you have your mind set on a destination, enjoy just taking everything in and being purposefully lost. I made another post called Ode to Manchester which really explains in depth what happened when I was being a flaneur in Manchester during my Tales of The City project. I class Manchester as my hometown over Salford and I was surprised by how much of Manchester I have never seen before despite spending a lot of time there over the years. What really grabbed me was how much of Manchester juxtaposes, I saw posh bars next to dingy alleyways and crumbling walls of old factories. Austerity and prosperity dwelling right next door to one another, I felt like if the bars could speak they would be gloating.

3. Don't be afraid to take on more than you can chew (sometimes)

I have a habit of doing very ambitious projects, I feel like a cat with nine lives just managing to pull through every time. The good thing about having ambitious projects is it keeps you engaged because you have to stay engaged or the project will crumble, it forces you to make use of all the time you have. It's stressful but seeing the final outcomes is a great feeling.

Ode to Manchester

Salford maybe my "hometown" but I feel myself more strongly in Manchester. Today in order to find places to hang my #Brightercityproject Teru teru bonzu I just wandered. I went with my gut and what way peeked my interest, if you asked me to find the exact locations of where I hung the Teru teru bonzu I probably wouldn't be able to find a large number of them. It was fun to think of how long it might take people to find them hours, days, weeks...who knows. One thing I noticed while straying from the frequently traveled paths is that Manchester is a city of irony and juxtaposition. How so you may ask? A posh restaurant, bar or cafe next to an old abandoned building or a neglected alleyway. This was surprisingly a common sight. Austerity in the middle of abandonment. There were times where I felt threatened I walked down several streets and saw men staring me down. When I stumbled across a familiar route I felt comfortable and relieved. I have walked through the city many times but never like that. When I got lost in the city it would reduce me to tears, shear panic would rip through me I would feel helpless and small against the buildings and other people. The crowds would churn around me engulf me and drag me further from the path. Little did I know back then if I had just removed the path and aimed to just eventually stumble upon what I am looking for it could all be avoided. I didn't feel small, I didn't feel panicked, I felt like a tower, I felt confident and powerful somehow by relinquishing the control that was tied to I final destination. My goal was to wander and hang my signs and leave them behind and not look back and not care about what would happen to them afterwards. I noticed many things I wouldn't have noticed otherwise, a little boy walking with his mother and a friend through a seedy part of town carrying his toys with him. A wannabe gangster taking a piss in and ally next to an expensive bar. The only times I felt somewhat anxious is when people we watching me, cars drove slowly past me and when I was going to take a picture of where a homeless person sleeps (I got too anxious to actually take a picture). That is a lot less anxiety than I would normally have. This experience has been eye opening and I hope through this post and through the work itself it will be eye opening to others as well.

Doll test how ingrained is racism?

I just watched this video and the video really made me feel uneasy, which I think is what it is supposed to do.

This video is entitled Doll Test and in the video the people conducting the experiments ask children from varying racial backgrounds questions about two dolls and a diagram with different skin colours. What really pulled at my heart stings was watching the children of colour pointing to the "black" doll and labeling it as the ugly doll, with most preferring the white doll. And when asked to give the researcher the doll which looked like them they handed over the "black" doll which they had earlier categorized as the ugly doll.

The fact they considered a doll with a similar skin colour ugly just shows how much the stereotypes made by white people have been rooted within coloured children. I felt tears come to my eyes several times no child should think that their skin colour makes them ugly or untrustworthy.

PDP interview #2 Liara K Crane

Interview with Liara K Crane

I was recommended Liara K Crane's work by a friend of mine after looking at her artwork I saw she was doing things that I really want to do, like selling my artwork online and working on comics.

Q1.What inspires your work; do you actively pursue standing out from the crowed with your art style?

A1. I would say that my work is chiefly inspired by my desire to tell stories. I have a catalogue of future personal projects and original characters whose stories I hope to finally share. Narrative is very important to me. What I try to do with my art is prove wrong the teachers I had for 99% of my academic life. All through my childhood I had art teachers saying ‘it’s nice but anime is unoriginal and you won’t get anywhere unless you change your style.’ It wasn’t until I studied art in japan that I truly saw how different my style was, and how it was far more a marriage between the West and the East. Q2. Do you sell your work at any events or are you mostly online based?

A2. At the moment I am exclusively online however now that my finances are looking a little brighter I am putting time and money into developing stock to sell at future conventions. Q3. Any legal procedures you need to know before you start selling your work?

A3. As an illustrator I think the most important thing you need to know in regards to the law is copyright (and as a fan-artist you need to realise the fire you are playing with if selling your work.) Q4. What do you prefer long ambitious projects or lots of short projects?

A4. I like either short projects or longer projects made from shorter parts. I could never paint photo realism as a career or paint anything too large and ambitious because it would just take too damn long and I confess I’ve a limited attention span (especially as my favourite part of the whole creative process is the drawing!) I am looking forward to doing some comic work in the future. Q5. If you were to give someone who was thinking about selling their artwork one piece of advice you wish you had known when you started what would it be?

A5. As briefly mentioned earlier, it’s good to know where you stand in regards to intellectual copyright, as well as the terms and conditions of selling at places like conventions and etsy.


Check out her work here
www.facebook.com/LiaraKCraneIllustration

Kids art workshops

In easter I am thinking of volunteering to do kids art workshops at MMU to enhance my CV and I thought it would make a cool personal project. I would need to plan some workshops to do with them and I would want to design a booklet or zine for the kids to take home with them, and it would have mini projects they and do. It might even give the parents a bit of a break from trying to find ways to occupy them.

New year, new project

For our next unit we are entering competitions I have chosen to enter Pan Macmillan's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The goal is to create a book cover and at least 2 illustrated pages.

I have started to gather some inspiration on pinterest www.pinterest.com/raeldanger/alice-in-wonderland

YouCanNow

My tutor Jo sent us this link to YCN magazine in an email so I decided to have a look through it, the video at the bottom of the page is what I want to review the most.

Michael Wolff talks about design (blogger doesn't seem to like vimeo)

What Michael Wolff said made me question my artwork. Michael says about how he thinks the feelings behind a piece of art and/or design and how it is communicated is what is important, I feel my work is very based off my own feelings and emotions but does that come across to the audience viewing my art. Does my art satisfy people are improve their life in anyway? It satisfies me but I'm not other people.

It definitely provided some food for thought.

Some handy animation tutorials

I have been getting some ideas on how to put my animation together by watching these tutorials by Ross Plaskow (warning mild bad language)

The first video is about making a walk cycle and the best thing about this guy is he goes above and beyond in showing you how to kick it up an notch. He also likes to show you how to make a 2D animation look more 3D.

The second video is about head turns and how he does them and shows an example of how 2D animation can be made to emulate 3D.

The third video was his first tutorial, this covers lipsyncing and the basics of how he draws the elements he wants to animate.

Astigmatism

This is a more personal post but hopefully an insightful one, on Monday the 3rd of November 2014 I went to the opticians for the first time in 8 years. I left it 8 years because up to the age of 12 I had eye tests regularly and never had any problems, up until the last few years when I noticed I was having trouble with bus numbers.

So I booked an appointment and found out I have an Astigmatism. Astigmatisms are common and most don't need any correction but my astigmatism requires correction in the form of glasses or contacts. My astigmatism is 180.00 in my right eye and 5.00 in my left, the optician said this is something I have probably always had but it has gotten worse without correction.

In primary school the teachers were convinced I had dyslexia due to issues with reading, spelling, maths and to some degree just communicating in general. Most of these things I have found through my excessive amounts of googling maybe typical for people who have an uncorrected severe astigmatism. The more I thought about it the more everything fell into place.

• Teachers always commenting that I wasn't paying enough attention.
• My terrible hand eye coordination and balance.
• My troubles with stairs, uneven ground and jumping from small heights.
• How hard it was to focus on reading books and subtitles.
• When my friends pointed out something right infront of my face I could never see it.
• How often I would just feel like all my senses were overloaded.

An astigmatism is caused by the eye/s being more rugby ball shaped rather than spherical, this causes the eye to focus on two different point instead of both eyes focusing on one point. This makes it harder to process information because the brain is taking in two completely different points and trying to fill in the blanks.

One of my first reactions was one of anger, I had been put through so many tests to try and prove I had some form of learning disability, I was put in classes with children who needed extra help which brought down myself esteem. I was told in primary and my first secondary school they didn't expect me to pass a single GCSE due to my unidentified "learning difficulties". And then it turns out all a long if I had been given a proper eye test and an early age that could all have been avoided. People I have spoken to who have the same thing had glasses for it when they were barely out of nappies.

It was a smack in the face in a way, I had been struggling all these years to find out I didn't have to struggle at all. As much as it is a relief to have my glasses and to finally be able to function correctly, it still angers me that none thought to check earlier. Why would you not think to check? If  you think a child isn't taking in information as they should that maybe the eyes could be the key to the problem. 

Now for the exciting things about having my astigmatism corrected.

• I can pay more attention rather than  have my brain trying to make sense of everything I'm seeing at the same time.
• My hand eye coordination and balance will probably get a lot better.
• I have noticed already stairs don't swim around like they used to.
• Reading has become a lot easier.
• I have been a lot less fatigued at the end of the day.
• I have no idea how this will effect my drawings I presume it will effect them in a good way or there maybe some regression before I get the hang of it again. I have already drawn somethings but they haven't been overly complex so I couldn't see much difference. 

I think it will be very interesting to see how I progress now I have my glasses, I have heard people like me who have only had their astigmatism picked up as an adult say that glasses changed their life. I guess I will find out over time if that will be the case.