Stream Of Consiousness

Presentation notes so far:

When we were asked to think about the things are at the centre of our practice I was a bit shocked when I realised how much my struggles with OCD and mental health play a part towards what kind of illustrator I’m becoming. Thats not to say it always effects me negatively, it just really does tend to define the way I tackle things. 

So my experience with OCD means that I obsessively tidy when I’m stressed, I tidy as a way to clear my brain and in an effort to focus on work tasks, so for example whilst I was trying to think of an idea for the book cover brief I tidied the kitchen at 3am until it looked like this:

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Or when we were meant to be brainstorming for our persons of note I decided the reason I had no ideas was because my work space was too messy so I tidied my desk until it looked like this:

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But then the problem was that after that my desk was so tidy that I was physically scared to make a mess by getting stuck into the project. I fixate on germs and I fixate on rituals, I get it into my head that if I don't do something a certain amount of times I’m going to fail the year or get a bad mark. I make lists as a way to try and get everything thats in my brain out on the page otherwise I’m scared I might forget one nugget of a good idea and ruin my project. I think that reflects in my practise in that I like things to be linear and have a narrative otherwise my brain cant make sense of them. I’ve realised that as much as I can admire abstract work I struggle to identify with it on any higher level as it doesn't compute to me. So one way I can alleviate the tics of OCD is to just go along with it and use up my precious time making these lists and tidying to try and get the thoughts out of my head, but throughout this year as I’ve become increasingly wrapped up in this course and the idea of myself as a proper illustrator I’ve realised that another way to get rid of those feelings of panic is to completely immerse myself in my creative practise.

I realised this whilst I was getting really into the process of watercolour painting for the visual narratives book, my desk looked like this:

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And I didn't even care. Whilst we were doing the stickers for visual communication I was so fixated on the responsibility of having to convey and important message on a tiny sticker that I found I’d rather obsess over that than obsessively tidy our kitchen, so it ended up looking like this:

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and I barely even noticed. OCD means that I go at everything with all guns blazing so I love that this year Illustration has given me a healthy place to put all that ethusiasm and obsessiveness. It means I can put it into researching everything I can about someone for a brief or drawing out the same character 100 times until I get it perfect. 

I’ve also found that theres been so many other influences on my practise that have developed during the first year of this course, I’ve got much more into feminism and actively consuming feminist media which I like to discuss in my work, not just because I can now recognise how important it is in the greater scheme of the world but also because its helped me to be empowered and recognise my own physical and mental strengths. 

I’ve also realised how much of an influence music and fiction books have on my work, I find that these take me out of myself when I’m being too introverted and inspire the sense of escapism and fantasy I like to have in my work. 

On the other hand I really enjoy non fiction books and podcasts around topics like feminism, sexuality and science. In my work I use these methods as kind of thinking tools, I enjoy learning and trying to understand more about them but I also enjoy the fact that they help me to understand myself and where I fit into the world a bit more. I’ve realised I’m a very reflective and sentimental person, which in turn makes its way into my work and the way I practise in that most of what I do is very emotionally driven.

My first goal for next year is to improve the way in which I already use watercolour and gouache, these are methods I’ve really enjoyed working with this year as it can look different each time you use it depending on what kind of mood your in and how you use the brush. I think that goes hand in hand with the sentimentality of my work. I want to spend more time next year just working on the individual crafting of each painting. 

I also want to try and combine that with working in photoshop, I feel that a lot of the work I’ve produced this year is good but sometimes doesn't look finished. And I need to start seeing photoshop as a way to finalise things rather than “cheating”.

I also want to change my attitude towards mistakes, in that at the moment I’m still in the mindset of A level that mistakes = failure, which I’m now aware isn't true. I think my tendencies towards OCD mean that for me when I look at work of mine that was a mistake I see it as messy and just want to hide it and not show anyone. But I need to get it into my head that mistakes don't mean failure and instead mistake mean development and learning.

I also want to try and own my issues with mental health and OCD because although I’ve established they're difficult to live with they're there and might never go away. And sometimes they do have benefits like making me more organised or making all my work have a clear narrative. You can definitely see them come through in my work sometimes and whilst that can be annoying if I’m trying to loosen up and do something abstract. it means my work has a real sense of me in it, which is nice.

Finally my main goal for next year is to try and create work that is evocative. I was trying to think what makes illustrations successful to me and I’ve realised that I don't see much point in making a picture if it doesn't make the viewer feel something, whether thats good or bad. These are the images I find myself most often connecting with and those that I find it the most enjoyable to make, and since the success of my visual narratives book where I decided to just make something that made me happy even though it was a simpler idea I’ve seen that the best images are those that you put a bit of yourself into, so thats what I’m going to aim to do.