Who am I? Why am I here?

5 things that I want to improve.

1. My confidence in drawing people, I find them really hard to draw in proportion and hard to depict in images. One of my main aimed this year is to try and overcome this , by practicing or finding some kind of way to draw them in an interesting but slightly inaccurate way. 
2. Coming away from my comfort zone of doing detailed illustration and continue to try and develop images by creating much simpler work, simple shapes and colours. 
3. Communication through my work, this year I really want to push myself to really think about the meaning and communication of my work. It needs to be clear , other wise the meaning will be hard to understand. 
4. Trying not to over think things. By keeping ideas simple and in context with the work your creating , I think that you are more likely to succeed with what you and try to communicate, rather then over complicating the image so much that it has lost its meaning. 
5. Not being afraid to make mistakes, because I try and make every piece of work perfect but sometimes it is the drawings that go wrong that actually help you to improve your work more.      

Who am I? Why am I here?

5 skills that you think are you strengths. 

1. Character illustrations, I really enjoy making up and creating characters and they feature a lot in my work because I like to try and create narratives. The characters that I tend to create are mainly animals but this year I want to challenge myself to come up with human characters too. 
2. Print is a technique that I think that I am quite strong with using , i'm not afraid to used bright bold colours and experiment with print in my work. I enjoy the many process and techniques you can used to print images. 
3. I am able when doing projects to think critically about my work , and by reflecting on my work I am able to see where I can make improvements to help the project move forwards and keep on developing it. 
4. I am able to draw finely detailed images, mainly using  black fine liners or black ink and quill, but I really want to try and and experiment with different  more colourful mediums and see if I can achieve the same detailed effect.
5. I am able to create images out of really simple shapes and block colours. I try and draw the shape I am wanting in one single line, then add colour and line work in after and see what I end up with and if i'm not happy with the it then I will try it again until I get the result i'm after.

Who am I? Why am I here?

5 Reasons why I chose this program?

1. The facilitates are brilliant, and are easily accessible. So for example if one day I came up with and image and I wanted to print it in some way then I could go to the print room and create a print of the image.
2. I took the foundation course at Leeds college of art and the way of working that we learned through that course really worked well for me and this course and it content is similar to that, so I have skills that I learnt that I can use for this course.  
3. I really like the industry focused approach that this course takes. it really helps me think about the next step and what happens after the degree. It help you find your place in that industry, and how you would work in industry .  
4. Visiting practitioners come in giving talks about there experience and work as an illustrator. Also the Big Heads program, where Skype is used to speak to artists in there studio spaces, I think is a really great idea and is unique feather of the course.     
5. Final the way they encourage you to be a independent learner and the platforms they offer for you to get your work out there and noticed.      

Who am I? Why am I here?

5 Reasons why I chose to study illustration:

1. Your making images that communicate to people, be that in a small or big way.You can make people laugh ,feel happy and take political or social issues and turn them into a visual language that everyone can understand, that is a great thing to be able to do. 
2. Illustrations can be seen and used for all different kinds of things e.g. card , books, posters, advertisements. it is a very versatile subject. e.g. I bought a mug coaster the other day because it made laugh and I think it is a really good piece of illustration.  (dognut coaster, photo of product below from RSPCA shop.)  
3.  I really enjoy making images. Experimenting with different way in which to do that e.g. I really like using bold colors, also creating finely detailed images, illustration allows you to do both.
4. I wanted to be able to learn new skills and ways of drawing and by learning new techniques it will enable me improve my work and become a better illustrator.
5. I also want to learn about illustration as a industry , how is it used and how to practitioners today create work.