I wanted to do an Illustration degree when I
enrolled in a Foundation course in Cardiff. Before I wasn’t sure what subject I
was going to do but knew my future ambition was always going to involve art.
Ever since I enrolled I have been inspired by many new forms. In particular
during a study visit to London I went to the illustration agency, YCN and
learned a lot about the industry and the process of becoming an illustrator.
From that moment forward I was sure I wanted to pursue illustration as a
career. The reason I love illustration is because it has so many career choices,
so many different styles of illustrations that inspire me. I enjoy using my
imagination to express my art and create fictional characters and images. I’m
very opening minded and ambitious to learn new methods, techniques and
different mediums to widen my style and skills.
My aim in this degree and in the future, is to
be inspired by others and acknowledge any thing that can be transformed into
art. I would like to help spread inspiration and creativity to anyone and
everyone because art is a very colourful factor in life.
I have been influenced by many
artists and illustrators and have turned to their artwork for artistic
stimulation. For example artists like; Iain Macarthur, Sara Blake, Sachin Teng,
Nanami Cowdroy and many more. I still get inspired by new artists and continue
to do visual research and study to help improve my own artwork. My long time
dream to be along side all of these artists so people in the future would be
influenced by my work.
The comparison between the Foundation course
in Cardiff and the Plymouth illustration course was very different. At first I
much preferred my previous degree because I felt it was more comfortable and
liked how they structured things. I based a lot of my images at the time using
media such as ink and water colours in a large scale, which made my work very
abstract and expressive.
When I
first began the illustration course I felt new and not exactly myself, which
now I think was normal since I was moving quite far away from home living in a
new environment. I also felt, that the first couple of briefs, my style and the
way I approached things seemed different. I thought of this as a negative
instinctively because I wasn’t used to the sudden change. However I later
adapted my way of illustrating things by using pen and Photoshop. My skills
using the Photoshop program have increased a lot and ambitious to learn more
and develop them. Over all I have and grown to like and enjoyed this illustration
course. Hopefully someday I could go back to using ink and watercolours to
create images or even collaborate with my new skills in the near future.
