Exercise : Presenting yourself

This exercise reflects on work produced so far in the course, and asks to pick out a range of pieces which express best who I am as an illustrator, those which show off image-making strengths.

This is a tricky one as I’ll be the first to admit I don’t really think I slot easily into a defined style. I tend to change how I approach given illustrations based on the media I’m using, which may sound a bit odd, but that’s how I usually end up producing work. With regard to garnering a professional presence, I doubt I would slot easily into a given style, which could be a bit of a curse really. On the other hand, I’ve been complimented on my versatility so at least there’s a positive there.

The former is something which has concerned me in the past when I’ve tried submitting work for consideration with agencies in the distant past. (I believe retrospectively that I just wasn’t good enough to get on the books with any of them back then anyway). Regarding the latter however, I’ve had success with presenting work in the past with a cross section of styles, sometimes even within a single job. This flexibility can be handy when presenting a client with visual solutions to certain tasks. If one style doesn’t suit a job, or isn’t sympathetic to something existing, there’s always the ability to adjust it to accommodate what is required.

Styles

I tend to lean heavily into graphic art, so comic and cartoon work, caricature and similar types of styles heavily influence what I produce.

Graphic art

This is likely the style I find simplest and quickest to produce, using heavy outlines and mimicking wood cut or engraving, this Is a style which lends itself readily to printmaking : While I was doing the printmaking module, I was lamenting the fact that I’d never been able to afford a print making press to repro stuff like this. I have a screen printing set up but would need to invest in a decent exposure set up. I like the process of linocut anyway, it’s one of those great analogue processes you can easily drop into the zone with!

Caricature and Sketchbook

Caricature and sketchbook work is an area I really enjoy, and after the sketchbook module I found myself being able to be brave enough in public to go out and actually draw out and about, which was very liberating and incredibly useful too. I used to sketch in pencil a long time ago but I learned to give that up and just get used to the idea that quirks and mistakes are to be enjoyed and incorporated, plus there’s more immediacy and spontaneity when drawing directly.

Computer Graphics

Computers and CG have been a huge part of my life since I was at school so I’ve been very fortunate to see them develop exponentially every year, which has been really inspiring. I went all the way from 8 bit home computers with pixel art right up to 3D printing, modelling and where we are at now with 2D image making. Even though every two to five years sees an eclipse of the previous capabilities, I still don’t think there’s any real substitute for analogue drawing and painting.

Presenting work as a portfolio

There seem to be countless ways to present work these days, and many artists take full advantage of many of those (rightly so when many will be vying for attention in an already saturated space). Online presence is a term which, among countless others seems to have seeped into modern parlance.

Back in a past life when I was trying unsuccessfully to garner attention from agencies in a bid to try start kick start another career, I created my own website in a bid to try present myself more seriously and professionally. It didn’t really work as I had no clue as to what constituted marketing, but it did give me some valuable experience in how to go about the whole endeavour. Since I’ve been working through this course, I have been keeping an eye on web hosting deals so that I can kick a website off again.

This would be my preferred way to present my work, although there are many other free alternatives. ArtStation is one such site which can host a portfolio, although it’s very saturated, the standard is competitive and it’s mostly the reserve of CG artist. It certainly attracts a lot of footfall, much of it from recruitment agencies who become a nuisance.

DeviantArt is a well established website and social network hub for artists worldwide, it’s a bit of an odd one though as I think it caters for some peculiar and often adult themed tastes. Not one I would choose for a career portfolio where clients would visit to see your work, but the networking side is probably of some value.

Behance is a well known art networking and presentation site which is well established. An overwhelming selection of portfolios from every discipline going, it’s a site used by clients to source creatives for jobs.

Squarespace is an all in one website building and hosting site which charges a fee. The emphasis is on ease of use, for those who may be less technically minded or don`t have the inclination to deep dive into anything other than setting up their own website using simple drag and drop methodology. I believe you can choose a pre-built template and host it right away after setting up the landing pages.

Wix offers a genuine free web hosting service unlike Squarespace. This makes it a hosting site of choice for graduates who may be on a stretched budget when starting out their career. The downside of it (which always put me off from using it) is that there’s a particular giveaway look to the sites created with it and that often has a perception of cheapness in appearance, not least the advertisements which pop up everywhere. Still, get past that stigma and it’s great for anyone casually wanting to launch their wares on the world.

WordPress is the service I’ve used to host all my UCA sites so far, it’s a very well documented and supported host system, has lots of plugins available and countless templates to suit every format and presentation (I had a previous website a long time ago and used a template from Themeforest which could be customised in every aspect right down to the font, colours, buttons and there were even custom short codes in there to change paragraph starts, capital letters etc.)

This will be my preferred way to present a website, I can pick my own host, theme with a blog and a shop, something which I’m keen to take a go at.

Describing my work

This is more challenging than it reads in the exercise.

Think about how you’ll describe these pieces of work. What would you say about them if asked?

This is a simpler task if I were having to describe them as gallery entries in an online portfolio on my website. I’ve done that before by way of captioning them and giving them some context and intent, or background. If I were asked how to describe my work as a whole, I’d say it falls somewhere between lowbrow or pop surrealism, cartoon grotesque – I hope!

There was a time in the past when I was doing mixed media paintings and selling them through a gallery that I was regretfully pretentious about the work I was producing, trying to pass it off with deep explanations and being all clever about hidden meanings in there. I think that was when I was going through my exploration of art history and the metaphors and meanings behind symbolism. Looking back it was quite toe curling and I’d have been better off leaving that out and just been more enigmatic about it if asked. Well you live and learn.