Screenprinting

I've spent the last week screen printing my soul away, I picked the method back up after so long of not setting a foot anywhere near the print room and have produced a series of prints and bags. There have been several failures one consisting of a screen photocopying larger than intended and thus messing up the print - but all in all I've had a productive week. 

If time allowed it I'd have liked to have designed a few more prints to be put on screen so it's possible I will continue to do so after the deadline during the run up to my exhibition to further buff out my work mass. 

Despite not intending to produce bag prints I have become fond of how they appear against the canvas material and have since planned to create another smaller animation switching between all the different versions of each print if time allows. 

I enjoy the randomisation of each print, while I'm sure it's meant to appear perfect I do find myself liking the ones that sort of 'failed' due to not enough ink or a smudge/misline here and there. I gives it the printed impression which I find my digital work lacks. 

Portfolio Visit and Agent Meeting

For a couple of weeks prior I have been communicating with an agent via email and last Friday I managed to meet up with them over coffee to discuss my potential career with them hosting me.

I had previously forwarded this blog to them alongside my photography links as they also specialise in photography printing. Regretfully my personal website is still in the works so I was unable to link it through but luckily my blog contained enough information for them to grasp my style and way of working. I took my portfolio to the meeting and a separate folder on my ipad with my photography prints and talked them through the pieces including the methods and information behind each image. 

They took interest in my cover image and mini calender examples and talked about starting a commission based service involving taking elements and requests from the buyers and then drawing up their images in a similar style. The calender series was composed using 4 elements from an individual - favourite animal, colour, accessory and favourite fruit, we discussed how this could be adapted to suit a family in a series of small portraits or one long one. The same idea for my cover image but just taking random objects instead of a set of questions. 

We discussed the time each piece would require and I found myself considering things I'd previously not thought of, I worked out time allowances and methods which was beneficial as I realise these are very important things in terms of freelancing. I feel much better about my future in terms of becoming an illustrator knowing that these are things I can do, and with an agent helping me I'll find it much easier to branch outwards. 

It was also put forward the fact that they preferred to feature work in exhibitions which is great to hear as this gives the chance for people to see the work in person as opposed to seeing a shrunken jpeg on a random website. It feels more active and will allow more face to face chances in terms of acquiring work. 

Needless to say I'm looking forward to my future chances of work now! =]

Animation test

I had a go at animating some of the sketches using really basic transitions and effects. I haven't really been formally taught how to animate yet so the majority is guess work using flash.

It took much longer than I anticipated as the program kept crashing on me so it's pretty clear I'm doing something wrong.

[stills]

I made the black and white effect in flash itself purely for test purposes any final product would incorporate it's own textured and hand worked image. I think the gist of the idea works here but the timings need work, some slides in my mind still need speeding up more so which is something I would require help with. I'd also like to add more animation to the first frames other than eye movement - which was also done in a very basic copy and paste form for this example.