Reflective practice.

How does reflection improve my practice ? Well, as a person who tends to generally reflect and over analyse most things I do this is standard ! I tend to go look at work my peers are producing, read twitter posts by artists such as David Shrigley , who as an illustrator gives me insight into the daily working practice of life in this area of work. I intend to create a Portfolio career so illustrating forms part of my future and current work. I am also planning my trip next week to sketch in the V&A for two days where my illustrating skills will be put into action. I intend to focus on sketching trees, florals, geometric shapes and birds from various ceramic collections. This will form the basis of my surface pattern design for my final pots and also a useful collection of prints to support my project.

According to The a Design Trust February is a good month to apply for Craft and a Trade Fairs.

Craft in an age of change .

Spent the evening reading this very useful report. As makers with degrees we are now called ' Craft Careerists' and we are more likely to earn a living of about £21,000 pa ! Good news , this can be through selling in shops / galleries and websites, however only 3% of sales through social media , hmm interesting . Key to work structure though is through a diverse range of revenue streams, I'm glad I had already figured this out ie Portfolio working. Bad news , takes about 16 years to become really established . Still I aim to give it a go !

I now have an 'Inkling'!

Just installed my new wacom Inkling, have to have the patience to wait for it to charge- whoopee !

Useful professional development chat !

Met with Denise Malone in Print room yesterday. I have seen her work at The Great Northern Craft Fair and at other events over the past two years. We discussed how I might get my designs out there !
She mentioned a couple of suppliers of 'Whiteware' that I can check out for my business in the summer. We discussed the use of Trade Fairs, price and how useful they are. It might be a large outlay initially but I think I need a presence there for at least the first couple of years. Food for thought, many thanks Denise.

My Coalport pot.

'Flog it 'and me.

Went to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery to sketch some 19th Century novelty pots last friday. It was an interesting experience. There were hundreds of people there queuing to get their prize possessions valued on the tv programme Flog it ! I was not fazed by this but determined to get done what I had gone there to do, sketch . I walked past the cameras and warm-up guy to get up to the first floor where the Coalport and Davenport pieces were shown. I ignored the camera on the top stair and went over to the cabinet. There I found exactly what I wanted, so I began to draw. I stood there for 10 minutes and then they started bothering me, " excuse me but can you move for this shot", "Er, no".
The presenter came over to me , " Hi, are you okay ", "Yes thanks I'm working". "Oh".
Another 10 minutes went by, "Hi, sorry to bother you but could you possibly move for this shot ?",  "Well, give me five more minutes ", the presenter "This lady needs a minute ", everyone looked at me .
I moved after five more minutes. I like my drawings though.