Starting a new academic year has been both difficult and exciting for me, particularly as I have come back to Newcastle College after a year studying Illustration for Commercial Application at Cleveland College of Art and Design (now the Northern School of Art). I didn’t really enjoy my time in education last year, so I am eager to fully utilise this year to my advantage and get ‘back on track’ with my artistic skills, hopefully regaining my passion for the subject.
The first week back was quite formal, with most of the lesson content being introductory. Nevertheless, it was nice to start fresh with a blank canvas- in total, we’ll be working on 3 personal projects and 3 commercially based projects towards our final degree. Thus far, I’ve done some research into various illustration competitions to try and gather an idea on which I want to enter as part of the commercially based briefs I’ll work on, as well as looking more insightfully into my own current practice (strengths and weaknesses), which I gathered into a Reflective Report. This has helped me to identify what sort of routes I want to take in terms of the personally based briefs for my degree- I’ll talk about this more than I begin work on these.
Lastly, I have begun to envision the six projects that I will undertake in a quick overview document- naturally this will become my final Project Proposal as I begin to expand upon each project.
chalon joy collingwood 