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I’ve just finished three years of online study with Falmouth University; I’ve completed their BA Visual Communication over three years. I chose the part time route, which was roughly 27 hours a week and a 12 week cycle for each of the modules – it’s been intense! The skimpy assessment period breaks between modules allowed me to just about regroup, remember my own name and give the house a cursory clean through before starting the next 12 week cycle.
Now, that end is here, and I am starting my new chapter, I have used the degree to pivot my previous graphic design business in the direction of…illustration.
I should have seen it coming really, but the question I am asked by most people at the moment is, ‘so, what’s your plan?’ and it’s a very good question, one that I’m checking in with on a daily basis myself.
Some days, my plan is clear and I can see the steps ahead of me, but other days, it’s a bit on the hazy side. Roughly, it involves, exhibiting the work I made for my final major project as part of the Somerset Art Works Festival – tick – that one is currently underway and I’m feeling good about that. Taking on and setting up new studio space nearby, so I can make a mess and not have to clean it all up and put it all away every day – tick – I’m nearly there with that one too. Then…well, this is where it gets a bit hazy, my plan is to develop a commercial side to my illustrative practice as well as maintaining an art practice and producing not just work for myself (feed the creative wolf) but to sell online and at fairs.
My new studio space is shaping up beautifully, it’s suitably scruffy which is tempering my inner control freak and I am able not to feel the need to ‘tidy-up’ before I start and finish work. It’s just on the edge of sociable, enough people around for a bit of chat but not so much that it becomes demanding.
Even here, as I am writing I can feel myself shying away from the crux of making this all work, ‘develop a commercial side to my practice’ – easy enough to say, not so easy to do. My tactic is going to be the, ‘you can’t eat a whole pizza, but you can eat it slice by slice’ approach.
First Slice: set myself some sample editorial briefs and make visual responses. This is something I talked about with the super helpful Anna Wray of How Do You Do Illustration Agency and it’s an intimidating task but I’m looking it in the face now and ready to start.
Check back with my blog for progress, the blog is for me and you, it will keep me on track (or document where I’m losing my way) and I hope build an honest picture of the journey for you. Maybe it will offer some insight for anyone considering a similar path, who knows…
