Update Numero Uno - The jobs, hold the sobs

Okay so my immediate plan after returning from London was to get a regular job as I was considered to be as they say "SKINT". One of my little aspirations in life was to work at a bar, I always wanted to work in a nice family value pub, serving drinks to the locals and meeting some interesting people.

This was my initial plan and I was lucky enough to get an interview at my local pub! Happy days. 

After a wonderful interview I got the job in the nick of time as my bank account was about to start a physical fight with me.

I looked like a bit of a pirate when I started which apparently went down well with the locals, I went on to earn names such as "Salvador", "Sparrow" and "Catweazle" I did not ultimately take to Catweazel at the beginning but it grew on me, just google him. 


I was totally into the barman role, look at me!

I was multi managing things whilst I was working here as I received a few interesting bits and bobs from new designers which was super cool, more on that in a sec!

Update Numero Uno - Jobs, sobs and bits and bobs.

Okay so the last time I posted about myself and illustration I was talking about the summer show. So that happened, it went incredibly well and I picked up some amazing opportunities, which I will talk about later!

Anyway, the next step was for us to take the show to London for New designers 2015.

This was my space at new designers, excuse my Gomez Addams holiday realtor get up, we went to London during the hottest time of the year and I nearly melted.


My table set up was very similar to what I had at our summer show. Demo below

I had a lot of interest with my kids book which was great and it was a good shout that I made a lot of business cards as they were swept up quicker than I could say Bonanza. I saw some amazing artists whilst I was at the New Designers show and I had my fair share business card swiping for my collection.

Top client meetings included - Oxford University Press - The Science Museum of London - Tiger print - Hallmark - Little Tiger and Woodmansterne cards.


We had a little bit of a rough week whilst we were in London due to some complications with our living arrangements. That was probably the most PG way to put it. Let's look at it another way, if I were to say that Tom hanks in "Castaway" lived in better conditions than we did during that week, it wouldn't be much of an exaggeration" Rant over. 

After the eventful week, we packed up and left our quarters, we felt like new men on a new journey for greater illustration enlightenment.

Cheers London, Sincerely, the PCA illustration class of 2015.

A new blog for Short courses

As part of my crazy year that was 2015, at the end of the year I got the chance to teach the Illustration short course at the Plymouth College of Art. How awesome is that? 

I was nervous at the beginning because I had never done something like this before, but I am currently 6 weeks into the 10 week course and I seem to have found myself, everyone seems keen and there are always plenty of questions which is good!

Anyhow I have made an additional blog which will follow myself and the students journey. If you are interested then please do have a flick through!Doodles, scenery and Photoshop wizardry.
                                                     
                                                      Updated every week. Hopefully. 


                                                http://jiantshortcourses.blogspot.co.uk/

I am still alive ladies and gentlemen!

Greetings from the past and welcome to the future. I am aware that I have not posted on here since last October! I know! 

Rest assured this is because I have been super busy and I have so much to update, a lot has changed in this time and I want to keep you in the loop!

Over the next few weeks I will be trying to release some of my updates from last year and that will hopefully bring me up to speed.

In the mean time however I am fully active across my social media sites so please have a browse and follow my journey!

Thank you and much love, team!

Raising money to get us to New Designers - We had an auction!

After all of our hard work leading up to the final deadline and with the great success that was the summer show we were all feeling pretty good about ourselves.
We then started our road to New Designers in London which would ultimately give us the best start into the Illustration industry as it would allow us to meet some big name clients as well as exhibit our best work to thousands of people.

One of the most successful schemes was for us to host an illustration auction, we were to have an event which would feature rare prints and one off originals which we could then auction off to raise money. We got very lucky and the student union allowed us to co exhibit in the canteen with them and their P.U.B event which meant that there would be alcohol in the mix! That could have only ended well!




I donned my best Neon green bow tie and stepped up to the challenge of being auctioneer.


I had two main assistants for the evening without whom I would not have remembered the current bids as I got so excited with the festivities at hand, I may have also been a little bit drunk.

Time for a little bit of cheeky promotion on their behalf.

Firstly thank you to Suzanne Sharpe - A wonderful decorative illustrator click me for portfolio site!

Secondly, thanks to Leah Trengove - Another illustrator who is absolutely dotty click me for portfolio site!


And thirdly thanks to my third helper on the far right, Meghan Hill - A delightfully delicate illustrator! Click me for portfolio site!

The event had a great turnout and people were literally fighting over the artwork, it was a wonderful moment and everyone was so enthusiastic!

I mean look at this turnout! this was wondrous indeed, it was good to see a mixture of students there also! 

In the end we made nearly 600 pounds and we all went for a well deserved pint after the festivities, not like I hadn't already hand enough mind!

Great effort from the entire team and it was not possible without every single one of you!

I made a website!

Okay so in the past I posted about the process of making a website and things but it wasn't until the final months of my third year that was website actually started looking nice and full. It is now fully updated and ready to go.

You can view the full site HERE

Still a little more work to go but it's looking sharp!
I want to change the links so that it is written in my own font, that will hopefully happen sometime this year.





Another screen grab of the site, after three years it is honestly satisfying to see all of these tiles filled with my artwork. I was an aspiration of mine when I started first year to have a nice and consistent web gallery, now I have one. May it continue to grow and evolve!

Summer show time!

After the final deadline we were then tasked with setting up our summer show which was only weeks away!
There was painting to do, posters to hang up, promoting to occur and much more before I could even think about having a celebratory end of course pint!
Each student was to be allocated a space on a table as well as a wall space for their images to be showcased. I was lucky enough to score a wall partition which meant that my work would stand alone and away from a wall, only 5 other students got this opportunity so I felt very honoured.
The table had to include our portfolios, a copy of our CV, a quick description about out work and some business cards and postcards, the rest was up to us.

Above is what I went for. Additional things included:
- A copy of my children's book
- A double fold out post card set complete with perforated edges for easy tearing
- My fully functioning children's menu from a previous project

And this...


Is my wall space!




                    

I even got to include some large character cut outs from my children's book.

AWESOME RIGHT?


It took a lot of moving around until me and my lecturers decided on the pyramid shape. I was overjoyed with the way it turned out.



Next up: Private Viewing!