Note To Self...
I've been thinking.
After my animation night class today I talked to my closest Tafe friends about what they were planning to do once this course is over. This is our last year in a two-year design in illustration diploma, so as the months pass us by the question is becoming a bigger issue.
Stating that the life of a freelancer would be too financially stressful for her, Belinda is going to use her contacts to try and land herself a high paying, full-time government design job. From her description the work would mostly involve indesign, illustrator and photoshop to create layouts for official documents. Her computer skills are solid, there's no doubt she could handle that kind of work if she can get it.
Petra was the most vague. She knows she's going to go back to her home town, Wollongong, and she wants to find some kind of full time job. She mentioned she was interested in working at an art gallery, but I'm not so sure she's thought about the issues involved in finding a job like that, or the work itself. For one thing that kind of employment is notoriously hard to get in Sydney... I don't know what the situation is like in 'The Gong'.
Bernadette is going to enroll in a course at COFA, to consolidate her practical skills in fine arts and dive into the theory side of making and appreciating art. She said she always wanted to go to university right after school, but because she was able to land a place for herself in the Enmore Design Centre (very competitive placement) she had to put it off.
Of these three choices, I'm most in line with Bernadette's. While I do suffer regularly from anxiety related to my financial situation, Belinda's target job sounds like an incredibly unfulfilling existence. Moving text and lines around on screen, 9-5, in a government office is not my idea of a creative occupation, and does nothing to utilise our hardwon skills in illustration. One of the things I really love about what I do is that I can work from home without dealing with all the issues of living in that sort of environment. I've resigned myself to poverty, and I think I'll be happy as long as I'm improving my art. I don't think I'd like to work in an art gallery, or some other random full time job. That's a very counter-productive path for myself to walk as it doesn't leave any room for illustration work or personal expression, and I hope that Petra will find more satisfaction in what she does after this course than I expect she will.
The things is, though... these three girls are very young at 19-20 years of age. They have space to make mistakes and re-assess. Me, I'm five years ahead of them and I would really love to get more education, but I've run out of time. More education would make my life significantly more difficult, or rather would maintain the difficult lifestyle I have been living this past year and a half. No money, no time, no social life, constant stress in regards to school work and paying the bills. I'm not sure that I could live with that for another 3 years, if I did launch into a fine arts degree. I desperately need to brush up on my skills, and I honestly believe that further education is the best way to do it, but I'm not sure if I can afford to take that option. I have a plan, however.
Next year, I will send off portfolios to publishing houses and illustration agencies. I will become more involved in online art communities and get a website up and running. I would like to find out more about work in storyboarding., so that needs to be chased up somehow. I need to look into what work is like in America and Japan and decide if they are realistic options to be considered. I will still need to pay bills and have a bit of cash on the side for art and personal expenses, so a part time job 3 full days a week would do it. A job that would allow me to draw in quiet moments would be ideal. I doubt I will be able to land pro jobs with my skills without being extremely lucky, so I need to focus on personal projects and improve myself. I would like to do some life drawing regularly and fill sketchbooks with drawings of things I see everyday. I have several projects with friends that need to be concluded, including a pitch for a children's book. I could do individual illustrations to stretch myself and give out to people as gifts. I also want to work on a comic. Jesus, a comic is going to be a monumental task. It is however something that I have always wanted to do, even though I haven't decided on anything yet - style, medium, length, subject, characters... I'm keen to get started, but I hope I don't lose the desire to work consistently.
It is very, VERY important for me to keep in contact with the friends I've made at Tafe, as they are the only people in my life that have similar interests in illustration, or really in illustration at all. I'm thinking about ways to meet more people - I know there are support and social groups in sydney, and there are life drawing classes where I could meet people... note to self: look into it.
With all these plans, and once I have gotten the initial frantic stuff like sending out portfolios out of the way, I suspect my daily life will be busy but unhurried. Something I'd like to do is to go out at night, see some bands, get more involved in that part of Sydney. You know the cliche: experience things so that I may do art. I need things for my mind to bounce off of. I should set myself these sort of projects and take a sketchbook along with me. Search for inspiration in real life, that sort of thing.
In my time in this course I have come to this conclusion: To be very good at what we do we have to make our work the most important thing in our lives. It's taken me a long time to come to a decision, but I am willing to do this.
After my animation night class today I talked to my closest Tafe friends about what they were planning to do once this course is over. This is our last year in a two-year design in illustration diploma, so as the months pass us by the question is becoming a bigger issue.
Stating that the life of a freelancer would be too financially stressful for her, Belinda is going to use her contacts to try and land herself a high paying, full-time government design job. From her description the work would mostly involve indesign, illustrator and photoshop to create layouts for official documents. Her computer skills are solid, there's no doubt she could handle that kind of work if she can get it.
Petra was the most vague. She knows she's going to go back to her home town, Wollongong, and she wants to find some kind of full time job. She mentioned she was interested in working at an art gallery, but I'm not so sure she's thought about the issues involved in finding a job like that, or the work itself. For one thing that kind of employment is notoriously hard to get in Sydney... I don't know what the situation is like in 'The Gong'.
Bernadette is going to enroll in a course at COFA, to consolidate her practical skills in fine arts and dive into the theory side of making and appreciating art. She said she always wanted to go to university right after school, but because she was able to land a place for herself in the Enmore Design Centre (very competitive placement) she had to put it off.
Of these three choices, I'm most in line with Bernadette's. While I do suffer regularly from anxiety related to my financial situation, Belinda's target job sounds like an incredibly unfulfilling existence. Moving text and lines around on screen, 9-5, in a government office is not my idea of a creative occupation, and does nothing to utilise our hardwon skills in illustration. One of the things I really love about what I do is that I can work from home without dealing with all the issues of living in that sort of environment. I've resigned myself to poverty, and I think I'll be happy as long as I'm improving my art. I don't think I'd like to work in an art gallery, or some other random full time job. That's a very counter-productive path for myself to walk as it doesn't leave any room for illustration work or personal expression, and I hope that Petra will find more satisfaction in what she does after this course than I expect she will.
The things is, though... these three girls are very young at 19-20 years of age. They have space to make mistakes and re-assess. Me, I'm five years ahead of them and I would really love to get more education, but I've run out of time. More education would make my life significantly more difficult, or rather would maintain the difficult lifestyle I have been living this past year and a half. No money, no time, no social life, constant stress in regards to school work and paying the bills. I'm not sure that I could live with that for another 3 years, if I did launch into a fine arts degree. I desperately need to brush up on my skills, and I honestly believe that further education is the best way to do it, but I'm not sure if I can afford to take that option. I have a plan, however.
Next year, I will send off portfolios to publishing houses and illustration agencies. I will become more involved in online art communities and get a website up and running. I would like to find out more about work in storyboarding., so that needs to be chased up somehow. I need to look into what work is like in America and Japan and decide if they are realistic options to be considered. I will still need to pay bills and have a bit of cash on the side for art and personal expenses, so a part time job 3 full days a week would do it. A job that would allow me to draw in quiet moments would be ideal. I doubt I will be able to land pro jobs with my skills without being extremely lucky, so I need to focus on personal projects and improve myself. I would like to do some life drawing regularly and fill sketchbooks with drawings of things I see everyday. I have several projects with friends that need to be concluded, including a pitch for a children's book. I could do individual illustrations to stretch myself and give out to people as gifts. I also want to work on a comic. Jesus, a comic is going to be a monumental task. It is however something that I have always wanted to do, even though I haven't decided on anything yet - style, medium, length, subject, characters... I'm keen to get started, but I hope I don't lose the desire to work consistently.
It is very, VERY important for me to keep in contact with the friends I've made at Tafe, as they are the only people in my life that have similar interests in illustration, or really in illustration at all. I'm thinking about ways to meet more people - I know there are support and social groups in sydney, and there are life drawing classes where I could meet people... note to self: look into it.
With all these plans, and once I have gotten the initial frantic stuff like sending out portfolios out of the way, I suspect my daily life will be busy but unhurried. Something I'd like to do is to go out at night, see some bands, get more involved in that part of Sydney. You know the cliche: experience things so that I may do art. I need things for my mind to bounce off of. I should set myself these sort of projects and take a sketchbook along with me. Search for inspiration in real life, that sort of thing.
In my time in this course I have come to this conclusion: To be very good at what we do we have to make our work the most important thing in our lives. It's taken me a long time to come to a decision, but I am willing to do this.