Wednesday 11 November 2015

A year on...

Drinks after our last studio class
The other day, Facebook reminded me that a year ago I had my last day of university. The graduation exhibition was later on in November, and my actual graduation date was early in 2015, but to me the last day of class signifies the end of university. 

It's been just over a year, and I'm feeling pretty retrospective. Looking at work from a year ago, it's pretty obvious I have experienced more improvement in this last year than I have in several years put together. The year didn't start out great, though. Moving back home to a small town meant being somewhat isolated from other artists, which is pretty demotivating. On top of that, to graduate with zero technical skills, and then be expected to not only have a good portfolio, but to use it to get jobs was a lot of pressure and stress. I was feeling completely lost and disillusioned. I knew my portfolio was shit, (although, a year on I can see that it was really, really shit) and I wanted to create more work, better work, but I just couldn't get anything started. I couldn't execute any of the ideas I had. I wanted proper training (now that I knew what that was) but there was no where to get it. Insanely frustrated does not even begin to sum it up. I was about ready to quit.

Then I opened up an ImagineFX and saw some figure drawing tutorials by Chris Legaspi. I signed up for his newsletter and then forgot all about it. Some time after that I realised a mentor would be something good to have, but I had no idea how to go about getting one. Literally a few days later I got a subscriber email from Chris offering his mentorship program. Fate, awww yiss. So I did that for a month, and learnt about figure drawing for the first time. After that I did another mentorship, this time with Sam Carr, focusing on digital painting.  The image I created with Sam pushed me way outside my comfort zone. It turned out horribly but I learnt so damn much. These two events kickstarted my improvement, and the ball has been rolling ever since, especially as one of my recent images earned me commissions for the first time in my life. 

In September Jonathan and I did a week bootcamp at Watts Atelier and my mind was blown. My figure drawing improved in that week, and my level of taste skyrocketed. I know what mastery is now, and my week there solidified my commitment to art. Currently we're studying at CDA, doing figure drawing and dynamic sketching. As much as I've improved, drawing is still my weakest point, and I'm looking forward to training properly, even if I have to teach myself. I still have a long way to go, and my next step is to try do more personal pieces. I've been swamped with homework and commissions, and it's starting to get to me. I feel like there has to be a balance between work, study and personal work.

I figured what better way to reflect than to do one of those DeviantArt improvement memes. I tried to choose things that I felt were an improvement at the time, and things that showcase just how shit I was. I started from 2009 simply because I had images of drawings from then, but I consider the beginning of my 'journey' as 2013. That was when I decided to do Illustration, making a conscious decision to give art a try. I figured if I failed I still had time to go back to university and study something else. Most of my work before 2013 was just mindless doodling/scribbling, with a peppering of actual "pieces" here and there. 


I often feel like the universe has been dragging me arse backwards into art my whole life. For some reason, I never gave up even when I was just drawing for fun, copying pictures with no direction and no real intent on improving. I thought you had to be born talented at drawing and painting to be an artist. I honestly didn't realise it was the right training, dedication and practice that helped you improve. Later on, not giving up meant coming back to drawing even after saying "That's it, I quit." Seeing the big improvement learning the right things could make, I finally decided this is it. The universe doesn't have to drag me anymore, I'm ready to run.