Self-identity and the Creative Voice

•Research your own work

•Define your own Identity and Creative Voice

•Consider the first image industry will see of your work


The creative voice is something that defines an artist as themselves for example if there is a style that someone in particular is known for then that is their creative voice, they could draw anything and you would know it is by them. A good example of a person with a distinctive creative voice is the illustrator Oliver Jeffers because his style is very unique and distinctive there is no one else quite like him in the market and this is what makes him stand out and be successful. He has a strong sense of his identity and what he is creating always represents that. Here are a few examples of his work. 

Oliver jeffers, The incredible book eating boy. Image taken from: http://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2009/jan/22/oliver-jeffers-gallery-childrens-books

Oliver Jeffers, Kinder advertisement. Image taken from:
http://www.theloopusa.com/oliverjeffers/portfolio

Within my work I think that I change a lot its a bit like I cant make up my mind, I love to explore my full potential and just create as many different things using as many different tools as I can. I like to work with many different mediums to see what I can achieve. For example I have worked with water colour, gouache, coloured pencils, 3D, pencil, fine liner and many other things in the past. I have likes and dislikes with all of these mediums and I don't particularly have a favourite thing to work with i just respond to certain things in different ways. I sometimes worry that I don't have a real set in stone style to my drawing but then other times I think this is good because I am versatile and can adapt to whatever a client might want from me. Although i may feel my work does not have a style i think that when other people look at my work they could probably tell that I created it. Here are a few examples or my work and how it can vary. 

Carries War book cover design

Oranges are not the only fruit book cover design

Aventine album cover design. 

I think that it is really hard to pin down and define my own creative voice as I find it hard to step out of my own shoes and look at myself from the outside. I also think that my creative voice is hard to pin down because it is quite versatile, as I like to constantly evolve, improve and learn new things. I want to constantly try out new Mediums and techniques to try and find the perfect image that I want to achieve. In some ways I think that this is good because I will always be expanding my creativity across more mediums but in some ways it can be seen as a bad thing because often people like consistency. Maybe my identity is a little bit of everything mixed into one, I really like change and exploring new things and I think this is represented a lot in my creative voice. I like creating a piece of art using a certain media or technique that will respond to the purpose or the look of the image that I want to create. I think that my creative voice evokes more of a feeling rather than a specific style. For example all of my work has a positive happy feel to it no matter what medium I am working with.

I feel in some ways that the first image that industry will see of my work doesn't really matter too much because the next image that they see will most likely be totally different. It really would depend on what the particular person wanted from me as to what they saw first. Overall I think that I would like to improve and work on my self-identity so my work is more recognisable to the market. 

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Image expression and external influences: Grayson Perry's Who am I?

       •Research the topic through Grayson Perry’s – Who are you? Episode 1, 2 or 3  

•          Relate your findings to your own work 

       •Draw a conclusion to your theory 

After watching episode one of Grayson Perry’s TV series who are you? I learnt a lot about image, expression and external influences. In this episode he looked at four people, from very different backgrounds and lifestyles and got to know them by meeting them and seeing their lives and talking to them about themselves. He did a great job of portraying these peoples image through the artwork he created. This episode how people express themselves in different ways and how external influences can change people and how people react to these influences, it was really interesting to see these people and their opinions on themselves and how they think other people see them. There was a story about a young white woman that used to go out and drink all of the time and she didn't lead the best life, but she converted to Islam and changed her life around. She felt as though the religion of Islam had turned her life around for the better but her brother was ashamed of her for doing it because he felt as though she could have became a Christian and gained the same benefits from it. Her views tough were very different. Grayson Perry created an Islamic headdress showing this woman’s story and her previous battles in life going right through to the triumph of her converting to Islam and having a bright happy future. I think that this represented her very well and within the short amount of time that he knew this woman was able to tell her story through his art. 

'The Ashford Hijab' by Grayson Perry. Photo taken from 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/11179439/Grayson-Perry-Who-Are-You-National-Portrait-Gallery-review-highly-engaging.html

The lady who inspired this artwork. Photo taken from:
http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/features/grayson-perry-who-are-you/5078893.article

Another story also caught my attention about a woman that was changing from a woman to a man and her family was finding this hard to except. She had felt like a man in her mind for most of her life and felt that this was the only way to go forward and to be happy within her life but her mother was finding this hard to come to terms with. This woman wanted to be a man and to be able to accept that and be able to celebrate and move on with it but felt although she was being forced into repressing her feelings to please her family members. After leaving school she started to take hormones to begin the transformation to a man and she started to feel happier in life. The mother began to come to terms with it a little bit but she was finding it hard to adapt and begin calling her a he. Perry decided to cast a bronze sculpture of this person as peter pan blowing a trumpet as he felt although this embodied how this woman will have felt after she triumphed and began the transformation to a man. This piece showed a celebration of the woman breaking out of her old self into this new life as a man. I think that this worked very well and fit the purpose nicely. 

Grayson Perry, I am a Man, 2014. Photo taken from: http://www.artfund.org/what-to-see/exhibitions/2014/10/25/who-are-you-exhibition

The man who inspired this piece. Image taken from:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/grayson-perry-who-are-you

I think that within my own artistic practice I can relate to the way that people adapt and change to external influences and how they want to be seen because I think that things definitely have influence on me and how I create art, weather it be conscious or not. I could create a piece of art strongly relating to a certain influence and the next month I could have a whole set of different influences and have adapted my artwork to suit them and what I want to express. I express myself through art and as a human I am constantly changing and adapting to the world and what is changing around me, I think that everyone is really. Otherwise we'd all be the same all the time and art would get very unsatisfying, you have to keep changing to keep interested and to keep up with the fast moving world.

In my opinion people are very complex and often have a lot of different sides to them, people are constantly changing this is why it's really hard to pin down a person to a specific thing. You could think you know them but they could see themselves very differently, you never truly know what someone is thinking and in this way it’s hard to predict who they truly are. This also applies to external influences and how they can change a person, an external influence could cause someone to change in some way and they could think its for the better where as other people could be looking at you and thinking that you have changed for the worse. This often has great effect on people as creatives as they are ever evolving as people and creative voices, it is impossible to stay in one place if you want to succeed because if you were so happy that you feel as though you didn't have to evolve and improve and be inspired as an artist then I don't think you would be fully satisfied and would just stop creating because what’s the point if you've reached your full potential. To me one of the most important things about art and people in general is constant self improvement and allowing yourself to be inspired by external influences to be allowed to strive towards your best self. 

The Message Behind the Concept: Symbolism and Colour in Modern Illustration

Lecture notes

• SemioticsOr realism? 
• How can a black and white photo be real? because real life is in colour.
• There are no certainties about the realities of the reality of a photograph. 
• Semiotics argues that reality is constructed through a discourse of codes. 
• Art requires a spectator to give pictures a significant meaning. 
• Semiotic theories 
• - Signs 
• - Symbols
• -Denotation and connotation 
• -Metaphor and metonymy 
• -Language and speech
• - Codes
• Sound image- Signifier
• Concept- signified 

Tutor lecture notes - Symbolism and colour

• Gunstall Klimt - impressionist
•  Symbols often used within patterns. 
• eyes = protection = gateway to sole 
• Colours and imagery mean different things to different people.   
• The yellow book was brightly coloured (yellow) to draw the eye. It was seen as seductive when it was first brought out, it depicted things that were risqué back then. 
• Aubrey Beardsley used a lot of symbolism in his work. He emphasised erotic, grotesque things. 
• The Purple book is a modern version of the yellow book, showed sexual symbolism. 
• Cartoons show a lot of symbolism
• Chris Ridell makes modern political cartoons. 
• There is often symbolism within children's books with use of imagery, colours and composition.  
• Children's picture books are the art of visual storytelling - Professer Martin Sailsbury and Professer Morag Styles 

Research Symbolism in children's books 

Although upon first though it may not seem it but children's picture books are often full of visual symbols that have underlying meanings. It may not seem it to the child or in fact the adult reading and looking at the book, but after some consideration and visual analyzation it is clear that a lot of subtle things such as the colour and composition used are symbolising different things. An example of this would be Oliver Jeffers book 'The heart and the bottle.' It is a heart warming, sophisticated children's story about a little girl who's farther disappears one day, because of this she gets so sad that her heart comes out of her body and she keeps it in a glass bottle until one day she decides to re connect with her heart. This book uses lots of visual symbolism starting with the front cover (figure 1) there is a considerable amount of empty space, it could be said that this is to symbolise the how empty the girl feels now that her farther has gone. The size of the girl in comparison to the bottle could symbolise how small, insignificant and un important the girl feels because of her fathers disappearance. the size of the heart in comparison to the bottle could show how small her heart feels after her fathers disappearance, this imagery also goes along with the idea of bottling up your feelings.

Pictures naturally have a superior ability to convey the spatial position of the character... We assume that a charac­ter depicted as large has more significance (and maybe more power) than the character who is small and crammed in the corner of a page. [1]

(Figure 1) The Heart and the bottle, Oliver Jeffers 

 Perhaps the biggest use of symbolism throughout this book is the double page spread that features the little girls, fathers chair (figure 2).  The first page shows the chair with negative space all around it this brings all the focus to the chair indicating that something is wrong. It could be said that all of the empty space is referencing the the empty chair and the loss of the girls farther. The Next page shows the same chair but in the context of the room, the room is dark and evokes a sad feeling. The little girls body language in these images symbolises how she is feeling because it can be seen that she is slumping over in a sad manner.

The character's actions can be described verbally or visually, and, as with the external description, the two descriptions can complement or contra­dict each other. This particular aspect of characterization allows probably more counterpoint between text and image than any other and allows the authors a good deal of irony. [2]

[1] Nikolajeva.M, Scot.C, How Picture Books Work, p.83
[2] Nikolajeva.M, Scot.C, How Picture Books Work, p.83