My email to Owen Davey

On PPP session, John suggested us to contact professionals so they know our existence either my email, visit their studio, letter (promo pack) etc.

I also sent a work of mine and he seems to like my work he said 'Yeah exactly. That's the way I use texture anyway. Keep up the good work'

The use of textures on his works look so professional. He use the brush tool and lower the opacity of the texture so the illustrations have some depth. 

Project Manager

I think being a project manager for our exhibition is harder that I thought but I learnt a lot especially communication, leadership and team working skills.

It was challenging for me because English is not my first language and sometimes I feel nervous talking to people especially in a big group. However, after a while I started to get used to it. Especially I got some help from other team leaders such as Orlaith (drink team leader), Jessy (Promotion team leader) and Adam and Tom (Hanging team leaders). By the end of the exhibition, I don't think the language barrier mattered too much as long as I was confident.

The most important thing while being a project manager is communication, mainly with the team managers, the tutors, the photographer, the Colour May Vary's staff and the other illustration students.  I usually email tutors and team managers so they know up to date information regarding our exhibition. One day, the promotion team scanned my hijab because it has a precise colour scheme as they were struggling to choose one and another day I rang more than 10 of my peers just because they had not handed in the Colours May Vary form. Then the next day I had to go to the venue to help the hanging team to exhibit the work.

I also collaborated with a photographer student to take our group photo. It was really hard because I don't think the photography did a good job because he didn't help us or suggest to us how to improve our position of standing. This would have been especially useful as there were 35 of us. I think it was my fault in the first place as I only told him to take photos of us not to help us arranging ourself on the photo.

Whenever I wanted to make a decision, I usually asked the team leaders  and others for their opinions because I think it is bad and unfair for the team  others to just follow my lead all the time. I usually made sure that I held at least one meeting with everyone on the course so everyone knew up to date information for the exhibition.

More than 300 people came to our opening night and Colours May Vary said that this was the greatest number of  visitors that had ever come on an opening night. It was amazing when visitors said to me 'well come', 'congratulations', 'this show looks very professional' etc.

Some important characteristic of being a project manager are confidence in making decisions and having a leadership qualities. I am not good at making decisions but as long as I believe in my decisions then everything will be just fine. I had to be a bit bossy so all the targets for each day were achieved. For example I had to keep reminding people to answer the poll on Facebook regarding the exhibition and to fill in the Colours May Vary form etc.

Overall, being a project manager was an amazing experience and everyone was willing to participate in  the exhibition and I am willing to be a project manager again at some point next year and Ifeel more confident talking in front of people, for example in critiques and group tutorials.

What we learned from our experience exhibiting at Colours May Vary

• Simpler to sell work with a business than we first anticipated.
• Saw many Pro's and Con's to selling work with external businesses, e.g. gaining attention vs taking a profit cut.
• Learnt to trust fellow practitioners more.
• Saw the importance of keeping up communication between peers and CMV.
• There's a strength in having team leader roles in order to keep control of things.
• Getting the balance between over pricing work and underselling.
• The importance of small professional touches i.e. labels, packaging.
• The importance of having confidence in order to help sell work.
• The social nature of  a gallery helps the flow of communication
• Getting the audiences attention from the start is very important in bringing in the crowds , through both promos and word of mouth.
• Allow time for unexpected issues
• Free drinks appears to equal a great turnout, bar created nice atmosphere. It became busy and sociable with lots of people staying for whole night.
• Leaving the comfort zone of the studios can be successful, our work is acceptable enough for selling
• Learnt some useful hanging and layout technique
• English as second language isn't a problem if I'm confident

Issues that arose

• Pricing wasn't clear enough, solved with more communication
• Improvement organising set tasks, too many cooks spoil the broth as it were
• Our end of year show has now got to top this

Liverpool

I wondered around Liverpool and I saw this beautiful thing. This reminds me of paper cutting technique like Rob Ryan. I like the weave-shapes at edges of bright brown shapes. 

Trees illustration

Different ways to draw trees. I cannot remember the designer but I like the used of shapes and lines to create different trees. I think I need to set myself a day out just to draw my surrounding as I think I am lack of observational drawing. This is important as it will feed into my future illustrations. I probably will do a day out during holiday or weekend as I do not have any free days during week days.