Career Track Tuesday's: Selling Your Work

The session was run by fine artist, Phil Hopkins, in which he described it as 'a brief guide to the etiquette of the art industry'.

Task: How much is this worth?

In groups we had to make a judgement on how much we thought this piece was worth; a section of a poster with 'Joseph Beuys' written on it.

We had no idea! Maybe a couple of hundreds as it is almost 40 years old? Apparently it was worth £3-4k because he is dead, it is signed and dated etc...

Look your best

Everything we already know about CVs, business cards, websites...

But he did mention to make sure we own a tripod and a good camera to take good quality pictures of our work.

Pricing work

-One of the greatest challenges you'll face as an artist

-Many artists price there work emotionally and inconsistently

-Nothing will betray you like not knowing how to price your work

Material costs x Time x Size

Look at similar artists and also consider food and rent.

Always have a price in mind. Don't be embarrassed and write it down if you have to.

I haven't written the rest of the notes up because they are more directed at a fine art practice.

Central Illustration Agency: Ben Cox's Visit

Today we were lucky enough to have the founder of Central Illustration Agency visit, Ben Cox. His visit was extremely helpful, and opened my eyes to potentially looking at registering with an agency in the future.

Key points/tips from presentation:

• The agency presents a diverse roster of artwork and provides a match making process with the client and artist
• It's important not to put yourself in a box and limit yourself-the creative industry is very fluid 
• Advantages of being associated with an agency: you can work anywhere, in teams, collectives etc
• There is no room for divas in commercial art as you are selling something. You need to be aware of the clients methods, which can be challenging but you have to find a suitable solution
• There isn't a wrong or a right way to work
• There are different reasons why people sign up to agencies. Some people want to be given work, and some want help managing their work load
• All artists can promote themselves and get their own work too
• A portfolio has to have a continuous thread. The work has to speak for itself and have its own visual language
• Passion+Skill=freedom to speak through your work

How they set up a job:

First Contact:

-What is the brief?

-How many illustrations?

-What is the schedule?

-Which artist?

-Who is the client?

Quoting:

-How many illustrations?

-Which media?

-What time period?

-What territories?

Copyright:

-Who owns it?

Process:

-We agree the deal

-Introduce the artist and client

-CIA sends a bill

Starting out/Important terms

• Graduates usually start with editorial as they are quick turnaround jobs and fairly straight forward
• Publishing houses are good too, but they can be a bit cheeky with rights sometimes
• Advertising, however is a different kettle of fish involving intellectual property
• MY WORK IS MY WORK- it is MY intellectual property and I give the client permission to use my work. There is only a limited number of things that they can do with it
• Production fee (years of graft)/origination fee e.g. £1000 per illustration
• How will they use it? Online? Social? Billboards? 
• More media-greater benefit. It all adds up!
• They are buying very specific usages of your work

What makes a great portfolio?

• Consistent style- you're not going to be able to talk through your work all the time, it has to speak for itself
• A variety of clients, lots of mockups to show that you're adaptable. For example, if you read a book and really enjoy it, make a cover! SPOON FEED THE CLIENT
• Variety of subject matters
• Originality
• Outstanding quality

One-to-one chat with Ben

When given the task to select four pieces of work I was a bit overwhelmed as my work is all quite different (but I wanted to show that I am adaptable)

This was the first thing that Ben noticed, but he really appreciated my level of craft and use of different media. 

Points from his perspective:

• One consistent style is required 
• Go with something that I enjoy the most
• The more narrative, and connection with people, the better
• My work could work well for restaurants, travel brochures and those kinds of things- 'life improvements'

I then told him about my FMP ideas about producing a body of work based on my trip to Amsterdam, and he liked the sound of it, so that has given me a positive boost to put all of my energy into producing some really good work. 

Settle Stories Application

I recently discovered the arts council jobs website, and its great! I feel like I have moved on a step from aimlessly scrolling through indeed.com, thank goodness.

On the website I came across a call out for workshop leaders for a two week summer school in Settle, and thought I'd apply to get some more experience teaching (and money over summer!) They asked for an outline of an art workshop that could be taught; I have many in mind that could be adapted/adjusted accordingly but I decided to go with something similar to the world book day workshop I helped with a few weeks ago.

I hope that this was polite enough? Anyway, it's all experience. Fingers crossed that they get back to me!

Advances on Drawing Club: Collaborative Mural Pitch

Whilst I was in the student rep meeting on the 9th, Alice went on an absolute mad one with an idea she had about using the drawing club as a potential collaboration to create a mural for the illustration corridor. Such a great idea! She spoke to the students union, Patrick and is planning to pitch to the SLT. 

(I am not taking credit for the work that the others have put in!)

I am really willing to help run the development and construction of the mural, but like I said, it was Alice's idea so I don't want to take glory for the things that I haven't contributed to as I have been in Amsterdam. Whilst I was away, Alice and Sophie came up with a pitch to present to Patrick and the SLT, and plan to have a meeting with everyone who is interested in taking part on March 28.

Drawing Club: Session One

Drawing club was so much fun on Tuesday, it went really well considering that it was our first session. It wasn't a huge turn out, but at least a few people came!

Theme: SHAPE

Activities:

-30 circles: In 1 minute, create as many drawings as possible from a grid of 30 circles. Challenge of quick draw and innovation.

-Musical shapes: Kind of like pass the parcel/musical chairs but with pen and paper! When the music stops, everyone draws a shape on the piece of paper that they were passed. Repeat this five times, and on the sixth, draw a character or image from the shapes on the page.

-Shape whispers: Like Chinese whispers, only you have to draw what you think that the person whispered in your ear. All is revealed at the end.

-45 minute CLOTHED life drawing: Taking it in turns to draw each other in a variety of positions.

Environmental Exhibition

A weeks days ago I was asked by one of my instagram followers if I wanted to be involved in a small environmental themed exhibition associated with the environmental society at Leeds uni. 

I thought that this would be another good opportunity to get some exposure for my work so I agreed and went ahead with the request. As this was a fairly small exhibition, I didn't want to spend too long producing final work. So I took some studies I did from the Barbican botanical garden in London over summer and printed them out to an A3 size.

Studio 24 (it's a great exhibition space!)

This was a small but great opportunity, and the organiser, Tami has said that she will ask me to feature in any future exhibitions that she may put on. Happy days!

Colours May Vary: Out Of Order

Continuing on from my studies of Kirkgate, I decided to look into the unused/derelict buildings as a contrast to those that have been redeveloped; I thought that this would be really fitting to the theme, 'out of order'.

Sketchbook pages:

The format was 30x30cmcm inside a 50x50 frame. I find at times that very specific formats can be quite off-putting, especially when I don't work in square by default. 

One of my main inspirations for this piece was editorial illustrator, Sarah Tanat-Jones' project on London shop frontages, each based on a particular theme/colour scheme. However, my work differentiates from Sarah's in the way that I like to incorporate the history and usage of the whole building, rather than just the trading aesthetic.

Final piece:

I am pleased with my final piece, but I would have liked to have incorporated and experimented with colour and possibly screen print had I had the time/been in the right frame of mind. However, I have a few regrets in hindsight. I fully admit that I didn't put enough effort into the organisation and curation process as I could have done, which made me feel less enthusiastic about the whole exhibition. Additionally, I didn't carefully enough about pricing my work-I just pulled a figure out of thin air which wasn't wise. Subsequently I doubt that my work will even sell (lets admit that £40 per print is rather extortionate) and I wasn't organised enough about producing new and improved business cards.

On a positive note, I feel that the piece is of high enough quality to be featured in my portfolio, and could be 'recycled' and used in different ways. There is nothing to say that I can't go back to it and possibly add colour/screen print at some point too. But I have learnt for next time to be more organised when my work is going into the public domain!

CYP Arts

I saw another opportunity on the bulletin this week about an arts organisation called CYP who are offering teaching experience for people wanting to work with children in the arts sector. I thought that this was right up my street, so I thought I would enquire!

Creative Presence Study Task

Feedback from peers:

I've made the effort to go out and do stuff, but I NEED to get on it with my online and creative presence. This includes making a website, re-doing branding, contacting people. In the next few weeks I'm really going to get cracking with this, as I can't leave it any longer...time to grab the nettles!

Drawing Club

Following the illustration for learning workshop the other week, in the group chat we mentioned potentially setting up a drawing club for all years on our course to get to know each other and have a bit of a wind down session after college.

This will be a great opportunity if we can get enough interest from fellow course members to enhance our teaching skills and to bring the course closer together, i.e. working and interacting more across year groups.

Things we discussed:

-Activities could consist of casual life drawing, collaborative pieces, quick drawing games etc.
-It would run one evening a week, maybe Tuesday, from 5-6.30
-FREE BISCUITS WILL BE PROVIDED!

Its kind of a shame that we don't have long left in the year to make this a proper thing, but theres no reason to say that we can't use the time we have to its full potential.

AOI Lecture

The lecture today with the lovely Lou Bones was pretty much exactly the same as last year, but this time I obviously paid more attention to the important parts that were less important this time last year.

The points in bold are ones that I need to act upon asap

Websites

• I NEED ONE NOW
• Best way to showcase my work in a professional way
• Put everything important on the home page
• Get a domain from godaddy.com or iwantmyname.com

Blog

• If you want to have blog, DO IT WELL. 
• Keep it up to date regularly and be committed
• Don't emulate others work

Personal Projects

• These are so important, they make you different from everyone else and are fantastic to keep you interested and engaged with your practice, as commercial illustration can lead astray at times
• If you do work that you're passionate about then you will get work

Social Media

• Separate from personal life
• Follow art directors
• Use instagram to my advantage, it is amazing! 

Personal Connection

• This is great, but use wisely
• Personal mailers are cool to ask if my work would fit
• It is easy to ignore things in the post, so follow up with an email
• Find out the persons name and for gods sake spell it right!
• Don't blanket bomb
• RESEARCH, find suitable ones and send samples of work

So everything else is pretty much the same as last year. I just need to focus on the things in bold above, and of course join the AOI! I aim to do this by May.