permanent job as a creative designer

Much to my delight, I have now been offered a full time permanent role as a Creative Designer for Microlearn. I found the 6 week work experience offer through the careers service at the University of Portsmouth, where I am just about to finish my MA Illustration degree. 

I managed to utilise the resources and information they equipped me with, including making a creative CV to impress them with, to secure the placement and now a great job. 

As the company is quite small I am excited to be included right at the beginning to see it grow and help develop it. 

My painting in Southern Nature Art Exhibition

Recently I had the pleasure of taking part in a local exhibition, the Southern Nature Art exhibition. There were a lot of fantastic artists included and I was pleased to be one of them. Although my painting didn't sell, I received some lovely feedback on the private view evening and one lady even voted for it as her favourite in their competition. 

I entered my 'Puffins' watercolour painting as it is one of my most popular works and it didn't disappoint. One lady told me it was zesty and that it made her smile which was lovely to hear. The other paintings in the show had a wide range of subject matter, from Scottish Wildcats to Elephants. As long as your work included some form of nature it could be entered. 

I was able to have a description of my practice next to my work as well as a link to my website, allowing me to showcase more than just my Puffins painting to interested viewers. This exhibition was a great experience to talk to other local artists, see the work they produce, get feedback and push my work into the world of art even more. I would definitely like to take part in it again next summer, hopefully with more than one piece of work. 

Book accepted for Offset competition

To my delight, The Siren of Southsea has been accepted and included in the Offset 2018 artist book competition/exhibition and is now featured on their website: http://rejectamenta.com/wlyb/offset-2018/

This has been a great opportunity for me to show case my work alongside other artists and illustrators. Hopefully it will generate more interest in my book and result in it being displayed further.

Being a Creative Designer

I have recently started a 6 week contract as a creative designer for a company called Microlearn. Even though I have only been working it for a week I have already learnt so much.

http://www.microlearn.com

They are a small company that make e-learning resources for businesses such as New Look. They create modules on subjects such as customer service and health and safety. These consist of bright engaging videos with quizzes. 
My job so far has been to make videos in their style, working from a voiceover script. I have to find, edit and animate appropriate images to match the script and time them with the voiceover. 
I have learnt a new software, Videoscribe, from doing this as well as developing new skills on Adobe Illustrator. 

I feel this role is very relevant to illustration. I am using a lot of skills learnt from my illustration MA course to help me achieve my goals in the workplace. It is challenging to think of images to convey the more abstract ideas such as 'welfare' or 'understanding', but being in a stimulating environment with other creatives helps to overcome issues and encourages me to think on my feet.

Hopefully in the future here I will also be creating posters and info graphics as well. I am pleased I managed to get this job as I don't have much video experience which I am now gaining for my portfolio. I hope this will help me obtain similar jobs in the future. 

Applying for competitions, jobs and residencies

Now that I have completed my book The Siren of Southsea I am trying to get my work and myself as a professional artist/illustrator out into the world. To do this I have been looking for opportunities on the Arts Jobs website as well as contacting my universities careers advice team and subscribing to arty newsletters such as Book Arts Newsletter http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/newsletters/

This is where I found the Offset competition which I entered The Siren of Southsea in to! I am still waiting to hear whether I have been shortlisted

I also applied for an artist in residency position at Portsmouth Cathedral but was unsuccessful, you can see what the selected artist is now doing on their website:
https://www.portsmouthcathedral.org.uk/annualtheme

As well as this I applied for the Shell Heritage Art Commission for which I was short listed but unfortunately not chosen. I was pleased that my work was considered by them considering there were a lot of applicants. It gave me hope and encouragement to continue applying for roles. 

Finally, I am waiting to hear back from my most recent interview with a company called MicroLearn who are looking for a 6 week graduate creative designer intern to assist them with the creation of infographics, posters and videos. I feel this would be a good placement for me as it would help develop my digital skills. 

Barton Peveril Art Foundation Show

I recently visited the Art Foundation exhibition at Barton Peveril College (my old college) to see what kind of work was being produced this year in comparison to when I was there. I have several friends who took part in this course so I wanted to go along to show my support as well.

There was a lot of interesting work and all made to a high standard with thought out concepts and ideas. The course seems to have really progressed since I was there which is pleasing to see, the level of work is more like university standard. I hope this is a sign of more time and effort being invested into arts within the education system. 

I was immediately drawn to these concertina books as my major project revolves around this format. I like the use of colour that flows throughout them and how the patterns lead you on to the next pages. As I did in The Siren of Southsea, creating a continuous flow with colours and patterns seems to work well within concertina books so I am happy I decided to choose this method instead of keeping each page different and separate. 

Displaying my Book in Portsmouth

Now that my book 'The Siren of Southsea' is completed I wanted to start displaying it locally in the Portsmouth area to spark interest in my project and get people engaged. As  my narrative is based in Portsmouth, I wanted to contact local shops/museums/galleries to display the book in. I think it will do well and be more appealing to the local community because they can relate to the area. 

The first place it's exhibiting is in the University of Portsmouth Library. I filled one of the glass display cabinets with one of my final books and my older mockup watercolour book. As well as these I included prints of my original screen prints and prints of the watery background to place the books on, I think this makes the display look more interesting and enhances the ocean theme. I also included a description of both books, the poem in the final book and my contact details. 

The cabinet is by the entrance of the library so is a good spot for everyone to see it as they walk past. I am happy with the display as I think it is quite eye catching with the block of blue colour. Everyone who visits this venue either work, live or study in Portsmouth so have close ties to the area so I am hopeful that they will find my work interesting. 

The next place I wanted to display my book was at The Portsmouth Museum. I emailed them and they were very interested in my work but unfortunately they couldn't accommodate it:

So as suggested, I have contacted Aspex Gallery and am waiting for a response to see if they would be interested in displaying or selling my book. 

WSA Degree Show

Going to local university degree shows I think is a great way to get a feel for the standard of work in your area. It can help to see where your work would fit in. At Winchester School of Art, they had exhibitions for all the disciplines in the university, Fine Art, Graphics, Fashion & textiles and Game Design. Although they don't have an Illustration course, I still wanted to explore the work from each of these as a lot of creative subjects cross paths and interlink with one and other. 

It was a very inspiring show with a lot of textural work I found interesting. 

I love the mark making and colours in this fashion & textiles set, the use of orange, yellows and blues are similar to what i've use in my own project. This comforts me that it is a colour scheme that is proven to work and will be successful. The textural backgrounds and line work also remind me of my own work. I created a lot of textured backgrounds to use under my more delicate line work which you can see this designer doing as well. Although there are many differences in our work, the creation of depth through these techniques proves to be effective in captivating an audience. 

Making GIFs

Last week I decided to attend a GIF making workshop to further my skillset. I had made GIFs before online but never in photoshop using its timeline. This was a very useful experience as I got to see how some of the video making side of the program worked as well. I did two experiments that you can see above, one putting together a selection of images that already existed (the orange kicking donkey) and the other creating the images of bouncing balls myself and creating the spacing to make it look like its accelerating/bouncing. I found this workshop very useful as I now have another skill I can take into the industry with me. 

Volunteering my Painting Skills

Now I am nearing the end of MA, I am thinking of my future and how to progress to my desired career goals and how to become more noticeable to the public as an artist.
So within the last week I have volunteered to help a school with their super hero week by painting a comic book background for them to stand and perform in front of. 

As well as this I helped with a bird box painting workshop at my local garden centre as part of their half term activities for children.

 I thoroughly enjoyed both of them and it has made me consider teaching or running workshops as a career choice. I'm glad I gave up some of my time to do these activities as I got to experience something new and actually ended up enjoying it. As a result of my work with Hamble Primary School, they have asked me to help out with painting and prop making for their school production this year. I will happily take this opportunity as it will be something new again for me to do and more work may come from it.

Lynda.com

As my current project has moved on from traditional processes to more of the digital editing, I have been using Photoshop and InDesign more and more. Although familiar with both to some extent, I have had to teach myself some new skills in order to achieve my desirable outcomes. For this I been doing a lot of research on Lynda.com. They have many high quality video tutorials for different softwares including Adobe. From this, I have decided to take exams to become Adobe certified in Photoshop, InDesign and hopefully Illustrator if I have time. Lynda.com has videos on how to prep for these exams and what you need to know for them. This website has been of great value to my research for this project as well as helping me get recognised more in the creative industries with my Adobe Certifications. 

My Illustrations on RedBubble.com

To get my work out into the public eye a bit more, I decided to use some of my previous designs and current work on redbubble.com. This website lets you upload artwork for free to be places on the many products they have for sale (mugs, t-shirts etc.) They then give you 20% of the sale price. 
I decided to do this as it would earn me a tiny bit of money as well as making my work more relatable and accessible to a wider audience because of the many products people could purchase my prints/paintings on. 
I hope that people who like the look of my work on phone cases or cushions would also be interested in my current project and other illustrations I have created. I think websites like redbubble.com are a good way to spark an interest in artists, first it is purely commercial but it could lead to someone becoming deeply interested in my work.

Check out my shop here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/bethfrostart/shop?asc=u

Meeting Artist Ruthy

Along the seafront of Old Portsmouth are historic remains of what were once army forts and barracks, now these barracks have been transformed from disused empty spaces into studios for local artists. Hotwalls Studios contains a collection of wonderful artists, all specialising in something different. http://hotwallsstudios.co.uk

The day I visited, they had an open studio so I could wonder round and watch the artists at work, browse the lovely array of paintings, pottery and textiles, as well as have a chat. I was drawn into one of the last studios, seeing a lot of nautical imagery and spotting some mermaid postcards. Inside was artist Ruthy who was busy painting a watercolour fish scale piece. 

I complimented her mermaid drawings and got chatting to her about my project and how it is based on a mermaid living in Portsmouth. Funnily enough she was from Cornwall, St Ives, where I originally became interested in mermaid folklore. She spoke about this a lot, we joked about my research (not being able to find any old mermaid tales in Portsmouth) saying the water in the Solent surrounding the city isn't lovely compare to Cornwall, and that she didn't blame mermaids for not wanting to live there! If mermaids are real, perhaps this is true!

I purchased one of her postcards as I love her mermaid character. Ruthy argued that all artists have a slight obsession with mermaids. I like the watercolour techniques she has used for the background, I think the splashes work well to mimic the water as well as her blue and green colour choices. This emphasised to me that I have made the right choice within my own work to use this colour pallet. Her character also has a connection to a boat, similar to my illustrations of a mermaid with The Mary Rose. Although this painting seems to have a more  modern anchor, based in a more recent time period. This shows the links between mermaids and man, including their manmade boats, are a strong recognisable theme to the majority of people. I feel I made the right decision by taking my project in that direction. 

Hotwalls studios was great to look round, I definitely want to return in the future to take in more of the work and look round other studios that weren't open the day I was there.

Artists Book Event - Portsmouth

Recently my concertina book was featured in Aspex Galleries one day artist book event, Substance! The day contained various groups and artists showcasing their unique books as well as talks and performances. My book featured alongside others form the University of Portsmouth. This was a great opportunity for me to keep my work in the public eye, as another piece of mine has already been up in Aspex (see my previous blog post!). 
My continued theme of mermaids makes my current project recognisable and hopefully will get the audience to link the work together, creating greater interest. 

I have had work displayed in exhibitions before, but I feel exhibiting in Aspex is an even better opportunity as it is a public gallery which is free to enter, accessible to all people, meaning more exposure to everyone in general (hopefully)! The previous exhibitions I have contributed to have always been part of a university or college, whereas Aspex is an independent gallery, so my work is reaching a broader audience.

I am very grateful to have been part of the exhibition and look forward to having my work in the public domain again soon!

Instagram

As an illustrator, I tend to have several different styles in which I like to work and different audiences appreciate different things. I know a few artists who make most of their money commercially under one name, and then sell their more personal work under a different name so they can appeal to different audiences.

I thought this was a very good idea as my more commercial work is primarily pet portraits (www.facebook.com/bethfrostart) which obviously has a very specific audience. Whereas my work for my current project and things I like to draw in general might not appeal directly to the audience I've already obtained. As much as I love creating paintings of peoples pets, I also want the world to see me as more than this and show them my other abilities. 

This is why I have decided to create another Instagram account to keep the two separate. I have my usual account where I post my pet portraits and my day to day life, and then an 'illustration' account where I post purely project or personal work. I have already used this account to contact several galleries about displaying work, this makes it easier for them to see my work as a whole instead of individual pieces I show them.

You can check out both accounts: @bethmayfrost and @ethel.red.the.unready
I wanted to choose a name that was completely different from my first account so people wouldn't link the two together. Ethel is the name I have given to my current mermaid character in my project and is also one of my nicknames so I thought it would be a good second account name. 

I hope that this will make it easier to continue making money from my pet portraits and showcase my personal work to a new audience as well.

My work in Aspex Gallery

Aspex Gallery in Portsmouth are currently holding an exhibition 'Postcards From My Neighbourhood' https://www.aspex.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/postcards-from-my-neighbourhood/
where people who live in the surrounding area (in a PO postcode) can send in postcard sized pieces of work responding to their surroundings. 

I saw this as a great opportunity to get my current work out into a public space. I thought this was fitting for my current project as it's set in and based on Portsmouth's history. Work representing Portsmouth, exhibited in a Portsmouth gallery - I could'nt think of anywhere better for my work to be. 

After the exhibition has finished, all postcards will be donated to Portsmouth city archive service for future generations to enjoy. I think this is a great idea so they can reflect on our views of the area now. I also enjoy knowing a piece of my artwork will become part of the cities history. 

I gave them one of my first mermaid etching experiments titled 'the siren of Southsea'. I hope the work and the story I create for this project will now be enjoyed for generations within Portsmouth, not just for five minutes after it's completion.