Sex Work Exhibition : Sketchb00k Development

* my first idea was focusing around violence towards sex workers, I wanted to be respectful but not shy away from the fact that violence towards sex workers is horrific and brutal. I researched prominent instances of this and thought about something to do with the people who commit acts of violence against sex workers (the first image being a mugshot of the man who killed a sex worker in Leeds). I decided against this pretty quickly as it focused attention away from the sex workers themselves.

* A bit of research led me to find that a symbol associated with violence against sex workers is a red umbrella, so I wanted to use this as a running theme throughout the pieces. (The exhibition was part of a series of events for the International Day to End Violence against Sex Workers)

* I wanted to explore different kinds of sex work, as most people think immediately of prostitution but sex work can include stripping, online cam work, porn etc. and sex workers can be treated violently in any sector of sex work.

* Started sketching out 'scenes' that would include the red umbrella, ranging different kinds of violence, or just scenes of people walking down streets holding a red umbrella.

* I asked a couple of people about their views on how to depict the violence, as  didn't want to just draw it happening & I wanted to keep things respectful. These people said that they believe other sex workers would not want the violence sugar-coated even though it is really violent - to communicate the severity.

* I found a quote from a trial which was " whatever work they did, no one is entitled to do these women any harm, let alone kill them" which I found really powerful as it communicated exactly what I wanted to through the work.

LOGO

Talenthouse - Space

I only ended up making 3 pieces for the space instead of the intended 5.

I used this as an opportunity to play with digital media a bit more after really enjoying it with the Travelling Man Brief.

Is this suitable for social media? One of the specifications was that the images be suitable to be shared on social media, which is perhaps where  I fell down by including an exposed nipple. Personally as the images are not sexual, and just show a simple drawn nipple that I would consider them fine to be shared on social media. We have to break the boundaries, smash the societal norms that say a female nipple cannot be shown. 

Overall I'm happy with the look of these pieces, I think they work together cohesively and I enjoy looking at them. I could definitely adapt them to put on products as well! I'm finding ways of being more comfortable working with a mixture of traditional and digital media, and really shaping my tone of voice. 

Sex Work Exhibition - Research

I have been researching into violence against sex workers and it is absolutely horrible, as you may figure. 

Here's a chart o what's going on, from wikipedia.

It's pretty horrific that sex workers have been the targets of attacks for, like ever. Serial killers targetting them throughout history, and client violence as well.

I also found that the red umbrella is a symbol for the international day to end violence against sex workers, which is the 17th December.

[pics]

Sex Work Exhibition

The Charity ‘Basis Yorkshire’ are asking for artwork around the topic of ‘sex work’. I thought this would be appropriate to my practice as I am a feminist and sex work is an important topic within feminist discourse. 

I am aware that there are lots of different kinds of sex work (not just limited to prostitution. There's all sorts of sex work) and the charity wants the brief to be open so artists can put their own views on sex work into the images. I definitely don’t want to make anything that could be seen as offensive to sex workers because that’s not what I’m about – I support sex workers and their right to be safe and this is what I want to communicate in my work. There are no restrictions on media so it’s very open. As of right now I don't know what aspect of sex work I want to address in my art, though I think that the exhibition is for  December 17th which is  the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, so maybe looking at violence against sex workers would be appropriate - as it would draw attention to the issues faced by many sex workers. 

About the Charity: 

Basis Yorkshire's Sex Work Project offers support for women involved in sex work, including advice on sexual health, the law, support for migrant workers & personal safety. 

(Some screenshots from their website http://basisyorkshire.org.uk/sex-work-project/)

Travelling Man - FINAL IMAGES!!!

Here they are, the final 3 images - two of which will be displayed in Travelling Man!

I had loads of fun doing this brief as it was fast-paced and just something I could really enjoy doing.

I think this is some of the more successful digital work I've done, a majority of the drawing was done in illustrator and photoshop with only traditional textures added in - which I think just give something more to the image and kind of imply my tone of voice. I had been doing a lot of paper cut over summer and wanted to find different ways of creating the same tone of voice, I think this digital experiment really worked and has definitely helped me find methods and work that I enjoy doing. 

Working with the colour palette was a challenge but a challenge that I embraced, it was really fun playing with settings and digital techniques to make the set of colours work. I've made three pieces that clearly fit together as part of a set, using the same palette and they don't all look the same, there's nice continuity. I'm happy with what I've made and I'm excited to make more work!

Tutorial wi That Ben 4 // 11 // 16

Y3 BOI

Positive vibes all round from our lad Ben.

He thinks my work is looking more me, and he's right. I'm much happier with what I'm doing and what I'm making. I'm choosing projects that suit me and sacking off stuff I don't want to do so I don't end up making crap. 

I was feeling a bit sketchy about the fact I've only done quick briefs so far, this tutorial was re-assuring cause Ben was fine with what I'd been doing and encouraged me to just keep going.

He suggested I keep making work and then have a moment to review everything I've done and really refine a few favourite pieces. I just need to give myself time to refine, & it's not I'm doing small quick briefs, I'm doing bigger briefs but making them quick.

The Sex Work exhibition is going to be a challenge and he suggested I look at how other artists have depicted sex work, as it's got to be respectful and my work has a kind of 'brutal' edge to it. 

I was linked some useful surrealist artists for COP as well, as I'm doing about subverting the male gaze which I think will be useful as I'm still struggling a bit with finding appropriate works for my case studies. 

FEELIN GOOD BOUT EVERYTHING. 

Travelling Man "Crit"

The day all the images are in to me and Jack the tutors assembled us and gave us critiques.This was helpful as we were all able to improve our images and we could get some fresh eyes on the pieces, but it was 2 hours before we had to get them printed so it was a bit of a rush to do the final bits on time - as well as organising everyone getting their final final final images back to us!

 This is what I had initially, a lot of people had told me they really liked The Crow piece and though I wanted to submit my Yu-Gi-Oh one I thought it best to capitalise on the positive attention this piece was getting.

Ben told me to try the image without the text, and the dark blue circle, as the crow kind of disappeared into the dark blue. When I took off the circle I was left with a lighter shadow of it because I'd erased the shape from a different layer, which I thought was pretty cool cause it still had the halo element of the image. Taking the text off meant I could crop it in further, which did look good but I preferred it with text so I used my judgement on that and left it.

Someone ended up dropping out last minute too, so I was able to submit both The Crow and the Yu-Gi-Oh piece so leaving the text on meant the two images would look obviously like part of a set.

INKTOBER [and how I bailed]

I had high hopes for myself in regards to inktober, I thought "an ink drawing every day how hard can it be". It's not hard per se but I found it just so uninspiring, especially when I got behind in it and tried to catch up. In the end I only managed to do 11 before bailing on this completely.

I used the 'official' words list - my first mistake. I struggled to come up with creative ideas for the words list. I feel like I should have set myself a theme like "these will all be mushrooms" or something like that and owned it from the beginning, but I didn't - I fell into my old pattern of flitting from idea to idea.

I thought I could do them all in lino, as that is still ink. I had a lot of fun doing lino pieces, but some pieces were better, and already my inktobers were inconsistent. I think for me, trying to do lino was biting off more than I could chew as I couldn't really do one a day unless due to the times the print room was free to print in so I would have ended up trying to do five prints in one day.

I found some processes that I like though - I enjoy lino and I liked using papercut textures and ink together, I thought they gave a really cool effect which reflected my tone of voice.

Again it kind of feels like I'm giving up on stuff too easily but I was just so uninspired by this project, and since it wasn't a live brief or anything I had no reason to keep going with it. I was making sub-par work and would rather give the time I dedicated to inktober to a more worthwhile brief.

Talenthouse - Create an image inspired by space

Talenthouse - Space

Create an image inspired by space. You can submit up to 10 pieces so me being me I am going to do a set of 5 space inspired ladies. This is pretty similar to my 'monster girls' project, but I just enjoy drawing ladies. 

The deadline is the 10^th November so I have 8 days to get them done. I have already got one in the works and can bash these out fairly quickly so this is a short brief, I am just going to make the images freehand, minimal planning 

The images should be appropriate to be shared on social media

Deliverables: 5 Images inspired by space

Materials I intend to use: Digital drawing – photoshop and illustrator, with traditional textures.

Doing a Logo ??

A local singer approached me via my facebook page after being directed to me through Girls that Gig network. (I got permission from her to post some screenshots)

I was interested in doing this as I love music and sought out doing something to do with relating my practice to the music scene, though this was a Jazz singer - which is not usually the scene I am interested in, but I thought I would try it out anyway for the experience. 

It was the first time doing anything like this so I was a little apprehensive. 

The 'client' asked for a design that was mainly type - not my strongest suit, but it's all experience eh?