About Me

Hi, I'm Amelia and welcome to my blog! I'm currently in the second year of an illustration degree and plan to use this platform to give you an insight into my thought process, inspirations, aspirations and just to learn a bit more about me. From a young age, I've always loved children's books and their ability to immerse you into their world- for 8 year old me this world was usually accompanying 'The Jolly Postman' on his postal adventures or the spellbinding and whimsical world of  'Winnie the Witch'. Since studying art exclusively for the past 2 years on an Art and Design extended diploma, of which I got a distinction, I've been able to broaden my knowledge of illustrators, learning what I enjoy creating and my intended audience. As you'll soon realise, I love experimenting with watercolours, ink, riso print and other traditional printing methods like etching which I enjoy incorporating into most projects. To me the process of etching is so gratifying, making something that has a different outcome each time makes the print unique and distinguishable; a true art form. 

A slightly different aspect of art that I enjoy is photography; I'm definitely the dedicated photographer in my family, any holiday or family occasion I'm usually found taking photos of the landscape or capturing memories to be made into scrapbooks. Scrapbooking is something I've recently got into, you'd think after producing around 10 sketchbooks to date for college and now degree work I'd be getting tired of it! I love my sketchbooks to take the viewer on a visual journey, seeing the progression of an illustration from an initial sketch to final product. For my final project last year I produced a prehistoric board game called 'The Lost Diplodocus' which took players on an expedition to find Pudge the Diplodocus' family travelling through the Jurassic landscape, with missions and fellow dinosaurs along the way! My sketchbook showed how the board and characters evolved; with the board being professionally printed main character Pudge being made into a metre tall vinyl cut-out for display at the final exhibition- he went down quite well with my tutors and visitors (in fact he seems to have been adopted by my tutors!). This was the first time I had properly displayed my work which I remember finding daunting being quite the introvert. Once the nerves had settled I began to enjoy connecting with people I'd never met about my work, it helped that I had stickers for children which went down well. It was such a positive and (as my mum would say), character-building experience that made me realise that all the years I've spent dreaming of being an artist, I was one step closer to fulfilling it. 

For my 18th Birthday last year, me and my family went to one of my favourite places in the world, Disneyland Paris. I've always been a huge lover of Disney and Pixar, my dream was always to work as a Disney artist- maybe one day I'll make the credits of a movie. A lot of the artists I admire have worked at Disney earlier in their careers, illustrator Joey Chou being one who recreates iconic movie scenes in his abstract yet child-like style for Disneyland in Florida's Wonderground Gallery; my family usually leave me for hours while I admire everything! I like taking inspiration from past experiences and places I've visited when creating as it adds personality and gives the artwork a purpose, something people close to me can relate to. When you choose to do your hobby full time, it's easy to become drained and feel like you've exhausted all avenues of your creativity however I try to keep a positive mindset and aim to create artwork I love- I don't think I could ever get tired of creating!

This year I hope to develop my printmaking skills with access to the Printing Press and Risoprinter and use these in the development stages of my projects. In addition, I aim to keep up good time management to post my progression regularly on this blog and keep on top of sketchbook/practical work. I hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about my interests, see you soon!