I've moved on a bit since the first time I wrote one of these, I have a greater understanding of where I'm heading from here on out along with much needed experience to see me through it.
My original hopes covered creating a body of work I was proud of, alongside a successful portfolio and to see my work circulating in print. Over the last couple of months I have managed to achieve work that I am comfortable with sharing, I've enjoyed my working progress throughout my FMP and the work produced will remain in my portfolio and on my webpage for some time as a result. My portfolio has been refined and I am pleased with the overall look and impression that it imprints on people's minds, I feel it reflects me and my style appropriately. Of course it's a given that it will always be going through improvements and updates but at its current state I am happy to show it to a potential client and talk through the processes. It is still early days in terms of circulating my work however over the last couple of weeks I have been screenprinting designs onto canvas bags and sheets of paper which can all potentially lead to future sale possibilities and ideas.
My website has come along since my original post, it is still going through its final adjustments and having the edges buffed but it is now a self standing document and has a valid url that will be printed on my next set of business cards in time for the final exhibition. In terms of my confidence in meeting with clients regretfully time has not allowed me to get many visits under my belt but I did however have a meeting with an agent whom has taken me on since. I felt I was able to talk freely to them and openly discuss ideas for the future in terms of work and clients. We spoke at length on what skills I could offer and what work could be produced and this has instilled a great sense of relief to me knowing that it is possible, that I can produce this work and that people will be interested. It remains to be seen how much work I can acquire but it's definitely a start!
In terms of my personal style, I've always felt my work was too diverse, too many different styles and too much uncertainty in my working method but now that I've sat back and looked at my portfolio and the prints selected for my website alongside my current train of work I can see there are clear links. The ultimate one being colour and texture, I enjoy producing brightly coloured work with a range of different textured backgrounds and overlays. One of the things my agent pointed out was that I often focused on the detail of each image which was a pleasing benefactor. Animation was also a large part of my potential interests to cover and just recently I have managed to achieve short animated frames, this has instilled confidence within me as I now know it highly possible [with time] to make short animated projects, there is still always much more to learn but I'm on the first leg of the ladder at least.
My fears covered lack of confidence, work and uncertainty - since my arrangements with my agent were made the majority of these have been lifted a little. I know that now, providing there is an interest, I am in a more favourable position of finding work due to the handling of an agent. I know the work expected of me as we discussed possible commision based pieces and I feel confident that I can achieve that which is asked of me. It is also a positive position as this combats my fear of losing artistic input in my own work, as these pieces are commission based the client will have certain points of input but the rest will be left up to me. I still feel myself falling short in confidence when I attempt to compare my work however I also understand it is a broad market and while it is over subscribed - people have different tastes and it's always possible my work will suit someone within it.
Opportunity wise I have taken part in a handful of live briefs over the last couple of months, which I have definitely enjoyed. The feeling of submitting the work has always been a satisfying one for me and it is what I enjoy the most with live briefs as due to the short time there will be a period of crazy and then sudden relaxation [providing I've kept up with it]. With the uploading of my peers websites and their ongoing blogs I have been able to keep myself inspired through their work and achievements, I have also been looking round the studio more often to see what others are getting up to which has beneficial in many ways. I have experimented with several techniques as well as returning to screenprinting for the last leg of this project which was something I hadn't originally intended to do but found myself enjoying [nearer the end]
Overall I am much more confident in terms of my future - the majority of my fears - while still very real, are a bit more manageable with the progress I have made. With this outlook I'm looking forward to the future rather than dreading it.
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