PPRD presentations.

I recently had a presentation to prepare for the class which I felt went really well. I usually buckle under the pressure of having to stand up in front the class and talk about my work and this might be because I am unconfident about my ideas and things I create. This in turn puts me under more pressure as before I show my work to people I am already trying to justify why parts of it are 'wrong' or 'not quite there yet'!

This presentation however felt better. I was showing live briefs I have worked on for clients and I had things to say. I talked about discussions with clients or lack of discussions with clients and other topics within the briefs. I spoke clearly and informatively and was actually proud of myself afterwards!

Here are two parts of James Marriot's and my screen prints. The bottom image is just a preview of how we would like the final prints to come out and the top image is one of the layers we made for the screen printing process.

I was very pleased to be working with James Marriot on a screen print for the fundraiser as it gave us a chance to merge our two illustrative styles and to work alongside one another as practicing, professional illustrators. We designed an elaborate screen print where we needed four separate screens and were using six different colours. Everything was planned out to go ahead but due to problems in the print room, we were held back most of the day and when it came to getting each layer onto it's screen, it was too late in the day. From there we decided to call it a day on our print dream and to save that idea for our own time.

I still had the chance to have one screen exposed for the following day so I used this meerkat I had produced previously. I am really happy with this drawing and think it will look great as a screen print. I am really excited about experimenting with different colours when printing this image.

Today I started preparing my images for the fundraiser screen prints. The process starts with the solid black image being coated in sunflower oil to make the white areas of the paper become transparent. (This process can be cut out by printing the image onto transparencies but to keep costs down we use sunflower oil which is just as effective).

Paul Blow

Whilst looking for inspiration for more screen prints for the Animal Farm fundraiser I remembered an image by the illustrator Paul Blow that I really admired. Paul used to be a guest tutor on my foundation course and he has given me some advise that will stick with me forever about industry.

When I first looked at his work, I will be honest, I couldn't appreciate it properly. But after two years I look at his work and I really love it. This makes me feel happy with myself as it shows that I am growing as a designer.

His work has so many political references and all his work has strong meaning. Obviously this is needed in editorial illustrations and work like this is making me want to try harder to give my work some context.

For our course fundraiser a silent auction has been organised called Animal Farm. Everyone on the course including staff were encouraged to produce a series of screen prints or some one off illustrations based on the theme 'animals'.

This lemur was my first attempt at screen printing for the fundraiser and it came out really well! Its something that I am actually really happy with which is unusual for me!

I find it really hard to appreciate my own work. I am not really sure why this is, I suppose I just lack confidence in my own ideas which i really need to change in order to grow as a designer.

Live Brief

"Stitch! is the monthly ghetto art club, currently causing havoc at sixty million postcards every third Wednesday.

Treat your eyes n ears to an eclectic mix of music, stalls and give your paws a chance to get on with some craftin' madness!

Woolworth's makes a comeback, to rot your teeth with our very own nostalgic sweets to remind you of the days of scraping knees and climbing trees.

There will be a mixture of stalls to provide you with all your Sunday bests and cute surprises you never thought you’d find.

For the most exciting part to our night, will be the craftin' workshops...
The origami crew will be supplying you to the means to create some crazy critters and test you paper folding skills.
The in-house knitters will be getting knitty gritty, showing the first basic steps to hand knitting. See how fancy your needlework is as we will be teaching you the bare basics to stitch. We want you to get your stitch on, and see what mental pieces you can cook up.
Feeling frisky? Come impress us at the free table with your crazy crafts and make us some blingin' art.

We've got some exciting hidden surprises that are sure to make you crease. So come on down, have a drink and divulge your artistic skills for the world to see. It's free entry so what's the worry?"

I produced this poster to promote Stitch's christmas special.

I really enjoyed working on this as the clients kept in close contact to see if I was producing something to meet their requirements but they also left it reasonably open ended so the poster would stay in keeping with my style, as that is why they approached me about this design.