I watched his presentation which explained a lot more of his work as well as the company he used to run Little Loud. After his talk we were able to stay behind and ask him questions as well as run ideas for our projects past him and get advice.
Lately, I have been stuck with my project, struggling with the narrative and not knowing which direction to take it in but also how to combine my themes of perfection, mermaids and Portsmouth history into one illustration. So I asked him how he copes with this issue.
He told me about a book he recently read, David Hockney's 'Rediscovering the lost techniques of the Old Masters'. It talks about how some of the earliest painters used techniques to help 'trace' images onto canvas and highlights some examples of how you can see this in a range of paintings spanning hundreds of years. He pointed out to me that you have to step back, look at all of these paintings at distance to notice the running theme, if you look at one in detail you won't see the clues in all the others. His point was to get all of my ideas down, out of my head and visualise them in a big mind map or posit notes. From there I could see all the linking themes and hopefully start to whittle the ideas down and organise them.
I created a mind map which definitely helped me clear my mind and look at all my ideas from afar.
Again, conversations with relevant people have been a valuable research tool for me, helping me move on with my project. Through all my ideas I have kept the mermaid as a visual metaphor for perfection, so I have decided to focus on that mainly and then see later on whether Portsmouth's landmarks could also feature in my illustrations.
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