Creative CV's

This module, Professional Practice is all about teaching us how to go to go out in the 'real world' and be able to promote and talk about our work and actually make a living within Illustration or an Arts based job. When I first heard about this module, I have to say I was excited, it sounded brilliant, then CV's were mentioned, my heart sank. I should have known CV's would be involved, it's a big part of getting a job, but flashbacks to secondary school started and I was dreading it!

Here is my current CV, I have taken out my contact details and referees but this is it. I have to say that I am still using the same format which I was taught in secondary school. I haven't used my CV that much and when I have used it, it has been applying for part time jobs mainly in retail. 

In one of our lessons Debbie from the careers service came into talk to us about CV's and the do's and don'ts of having a good one that will get you a job versus one that would get binned straight away. She talked about having a professional CV but also having a creative one. This intrigued me, as being a creative person, it was exciting that I could be creative with my CV instead of just having a bog standard one like most other people.

I started looking at some creative CV's to start collecting ideas on how I would design my own, here are some of my favourites that I found

link to CV's

These were not like any I had seen before, being able to use bright and fun colours as opposed to keeping it very proper and professional was very exciting and now I didn't have the same dread as before. I am looking forward to creating my CV with the help of what I learnt from Debbie.

Artist Spotlight - Andsmile Studio

Today I am going to talk to you about one of my favourite Illustrators, Viktorija and she runs Andsmile Studio. I first discovered her last year on Instagram and I fell in love with her work and free form style and have continued to follow her journey as a freelance Illustrator.

Viktorija has a studio in London where she creates and packages her designs and products to send to customers and shops around the world that stock her work. She loved drawing since she was young and it was at the age 14 that she realised that she could actually be paid for drawing. She studied Illustration at the University of Bedfordshire, where she explored and experimented to try and find her style. In her course she found that there wasn't much practical advice on how the Illustration industry worked. She graduated in 2009 and moved up to London to become an Illustrator.

Like most art graduates she didn't fall into a job straight away, she worked in a retail job until 2011. In the two years after graduating she tried to find any creative job and was sending out her portfolio and work to agencies, all the things she had been taught in University. In 2011 she became part time at her job and opened an Etsy shop, first only selling postcards and then moving onto wearable art such as earrings and brooches using her illustrations.

she says "I love freelancing! I love to be my own boss, I am so excited about each working day, about all the amazing and sometimes unexpected opportunities that come my way. But it helps to have a clear vision of what kind of work you want to do and where you want to go.

To be honest I enjoy working on my own but I do have a group of friends/creatives with whom I can discuss any creative or business worries, so having  a business/creative club and support is really important."

What I really like about Viktorija's style is her bold use of colours and the free form shapes that she uses. Most of her work is done in either watercolour or gouache paint and these are two mediums that I would like to explore more of, since they are outside my comfort zone and I also want to be braver with colour in my work. 

Reading about Viktorija's experience in University and not really learning how to be an Illustrator in the real world was good for me, as it is something that is rarely talked about. Making money from your work is quite a 'taboo' topic that know one ever really brings up and discusses openly, from this module I am now a lot more comfortable in realising that I can make a living from what I love doing and seeing Viktorija being successful in the creative industry is a real boost!

You can read more about her work on her Blog and follow along on her creative journey on Instagram.

Sequential Illustration

Before I started my second year of Illustration I had been studying Graphic Design, so I didn't really know what to expect when I started the course. We could choose between three optional modules within Animation, Graphic Design and Illustration. I chose Sequential Illustration, which is using sequences to tell a story.

Our first project was to create an A3 Graphic Novel about any subject, telling a story for the Thought Bubble Comic Art competition. This is how Grumpy Bear came to be! He was a character that had been in my sketchbook for a while and I thought it was time he came out. Since moving over to Derby in September I have been losing my socks and it makes me grumpy, this is how I picked my story of Grumpy Bear and his missing socks! I used colouring pencils, my favourite medium for drawing. It appears to be a nice, sweet story but it has a dark ending! Grumpy Bear gets annoyed that his socks have gone missing (they have actually run away) so he decides to knit some more socks and ends up knitting a very long scarf which in the final scene he uses to hang himself. My lecturers were not big fans of my ending as they thought it was a bit morbid but I like the surprise twist!

For the second project we had to work in 3D, something I had not worked much in! We were given the task to create a 3D picture in a frame, this only had to be one scene that still told a story. I chose the bus stop scene, again I used animals for my characters as I find it difficult to draw people. I felt a theme developing in my work and that was death. Although this picture looks like a nice innocent scene of some animals waiting at the bus stop, it is in fact, the story of the chicken crossing the road. If this picture was too carry on the chicken would be hit by the bus and die. For this picture I used book pages from a book about murder! This is not obvious at first glance and some people may never notice it, but me as the creator knows this and I feel like it's my little secret. We got to use the light box and camera equipment to take professional photographs of our work. I learnt that by changing the angle of the light and the depth of field it could give my picture a 'moody' look, which i did focusing on the chicken.

The final project for the module was Circus and we were tasked with creating a story around the theme of circus. I went with puppets and my story was the little girl that  always wanted to go to the circus, and then it arrives in town, but it's no ordinary Circus and she ends up becoming a puppet and a part of the show. Although this story is not as 'dark' as my other works I feel that it still follows along the same theme. I found this the most challenging out of all the projects but I think that it pushed me to develop the story and try new things!

I didn't really know what to expect from the Illustration course, other than that we would be drawing, but I really enjoyed my first semester and was excited to see what the next semester would bring!

Hello!

Hello! and welcome to my blog!

I am Rachael and I am in my second year at University of Derby studying Illustration. I know it's a bit of a cliche but I have always enjoyed art! It was my favourite subject in school and I would often spend break and lunch times paddling about the art room. I thought that I wanted to do fashion design but after applying to University and being unsuccessful a few times, I took some time out, got my knees fixed (I now have metal knees) and really thought about what I wanted to do!

Why Rosey Cheeks Illustration? On my Illustrations my characters always have rosey cheeks, because it adds a certain cuteness! I think the real reason is growing up with my mum who has had rosey cheeks her whole life and that has crept into my work.

Before I started at Derby I was studying a Graphic Design course, which I did find interesting but was just not for me. When i completed that course I could either go out into the real world and get a job (eek!) or continue on to University and complete my degree. I decided to move to Illustration and while I could have went into third year, I chose second year so that I wasn't thrown completely in at the deep end. It took some adjusting moving away from home for the first time to a new city, but I think I am finally starting to settle in and find my way, both around Derby and within my course, I can feel my own personal style emerging and am looking forward to developing it!