1, 2, 3 Best Pieces of Advice

1. "David Shrigley, Paul Davis and Bragg - soon started to establish a school of drawing chic that prized emotional honesty over visual spectacle and charm over draughtsmanship, and saw crossings-out and wayward grammar as more forgiveable than vacuous sterile polish." Peter Lyle

 This quote was taken from the Varoom article, Paper Tigers. This is not necessarily advice due to it being a quote, but rather more a source of influence. I feel that in my work that the more raw the image is, the better! Once I place an image into Photoshop to clean up, it loses its soul. The process of scanning something in and then, for example, adjusting it's contrast levels just seems to lose all respect for the hand-rendered stages. I feel that I don't want to work in Photoshop for this reason, but when a brief arises that requires some digital element, I feel that I HAVE to. This ruins the sense of enjoyment, and in turn, ruins the piece of work as I feel I am only working digitally for the needs of others.

2. "Concentrate on your drawing. Just keep playing." Ben Jones

 This is an actual piece of advice that I received in person from Ben Jones when we were discussing what to put into my portfolio. Those probably weren't his words, but he delivered the same advice. He said that my drawings are evidently the main driving force within my work and that I should keep it as raw as possible. This I respect highly considering he has worked and been successful in the professional industry. He advised drawing on various surfaces and textures too, which I will take into consideration because my work always seems to be against a standard white background. And he also criticised my Big Sleep book cover due to it being clean and not messy enough. This makes perfect sense because my lead-up to the final outcome consisted of my best work and it was all purely hand-rendered. Therefore I shall keep playing with imagery within my sketchbooks.

3. "I get a kick out of being an outsider constantly. It allows me to be creative." Bill Hicks

 Bill Hicks was a controversial comedian from America who performed stand-up during the 70's, 80's and early 90's. I had heard of him due to the legacy after his death, but only began watching him properly about two years ago. He satirised topics of society, politics, music and religion which is what I find humorous and can sometimes be evident in my work. This quote again isn't direct advice obviously, but it describes how I feel a lot. It may sound arrogant, but when I feel like I'm an 'outsider' I feel the need to rebel and this in turn makes my work a lot more creative and original. I think a shock factor is something I crave when I show people my work, which is what Bill Hicks always accomplished to his audiences.

 Here's one of my favourite videos of him doing stand-up. He talks about musicians who 'sell out' and don't sing 'from the heart'. This further encourages my work ethic of doing what I want to do, rather than what someone else may want.