Weekly Update

This week has been productive in terms of personal development. One of my goals for a few months now has been to start an Instagram account dedicated to my illustrations. I wanted a place where I could document projects and the work I'm producing in a visually appealing way so I can look back on the progression. It also allows me to build an online presence which will hopefully help me in the future with clients and my portfolio to show my development and what I've previously done. Although I've had a personal Instagram account for years I haven't been using that other than to follow artists that I like so it was daunting to start posting regularly again!

Currently, I've posted about 10 photos of work I've produced for this project, designing the Goodnight Mister Tom book cover. I've put it off for a long time as I follow so many illustrators such as Oliver Jeffers, Iraville and Sha'an d'Anthes who are all freelance illustrators and they're profiles are representative of their colour scheme and styles. From following such successful creatives, I had set my expectations quite high for the body of work I wanted to put on the account- this is why it has taken me so long to come round to just doing it!

So far, I've enjoyed playing around with my illustrations and overlaying them onto photos and backgrounds with typography which is something I've had good practice within my sketchbooks; the main difference being the restraints of the smaller square canvas size. Although its been top of my checklist of things to do for a long time I'm glad it's finally up and adds to my portfolio as another thing to show people in the creative industry. The account is @amelias.studio if you want to have a look!

Additionally, I've been working towards the final 2 weeks of my project, tying up loose ends and making sure all annotation is up to date so I can focus on producing my final piece. This week I found out via my tutors that the projects hand-in date has been extended a month due to current circumstances. Although this is beneficial in case my piece takes longer to produce than I expected, I'm aiming to work to the initial deadline as I think I'll be able to achieve this. The extra time could be used to make sure this blog is up to date and I've included all the artist research, updates and analysis' required.

Coming back from Easter break, I've struggled more than I thought to stay motivated as I didn't really let myself have the break I probably needed. I did manage to get a lot of development done over the past two weeks while being in the house, deciding to use the time more effectively to develop my project. I've finished reading Goodnight Mister Tom and plan on doing a book review, giving a summary of the book and what I thought of it- this will probably be added to this blog soon. Additionally, I've produced a few looser sketches of the surroundings I been reading about, ready for visualising the final composition. Most of the work I've produced thus far has been refined and purposeful, relating to artists I've researched or descriptions I've been inspired by in Goodnight Mister Tom so I want to focus on my outcome.

Going forward, I want to loosen up my compositions and focus on the overall composition, looking at the key aspects I want to include. So far, I've enjoyed drawing out the landscape of Little Weirwold and want to portray the positivity Will feels while immersed in it. One scene that I took a liking to early in the book was where Will has an encounter with a squirrel under the oak tree and is frightened as he's never seen one before. This scene, in particular, shows the stark contrast in lifestyles, Will has been used to fearing everything in London, oppose to the adventurous childhood he would've had growing up in the countryside. This contrast is something I want to include in the book cover showing his character development over time.

This, among other key themes in the book, is what I plan to experiment with this week, looking at how I can incorporate the themes and locations seamlessly in one long landscape which will spread from the front to back cover. Depending on how long this takes to visualise, I want to create a flyleaf or 'This Book Belongs To...' page for the inside cover using the item illustrations I've previously made.