Opening Statement: New Beginnings

And…. Here comes the third year. It is astonishing to me how there is still so much to go yet, how close to the end of this journey I am.

During my second year of university, I develop a liking towards animation and illustration. It was not entirely the direction I was planning on taking. In fact, before that I always wondered whether I could or not draw.

Joining a graphic design course was a decision I made because I enjoyed editing on Photoshop, it was something I pursued on my own time as a hobby. I spent countless of hours editing gifs and pictures for a tumblr blog I had at the time while studying sciences in my home country. After moving to the United Kingdom, I had the decision to completely change my area of study and that is what I did.

Until second year of University, I had not actually delved into illustration, however during the Motion Graphics module we had to do animation and that is when I started to pursue it.

And, here I am, starting third year and wanting nothing more than continue developing these newfound skills. Hopefully picking up a few more as well along the way.

This year, I ambition to, primarily, continue animating. Do as many of them as I can, watch and observe even more. I have always had a passion for animation, having spent my entire childhood watching the same animated movies and series on repeat, I had just never done them until university.

Another area I would like to develop on is illustration. Possibly to illustrate children books, since this is also something that I got to experiment in last year and I would love to do more of it. An interesting narrative is also something that I have always quite been interested in. There are other aspects in illustration that I know I have to develop, such as perspective and learning how to paint distance, as this is something that I have previously struggled with. How to use values and colour to portray the feeling of distance in a drawing.

And thirdly, painting landscapes. What I will use this skill for, I am not entirely sure yet. Maybe to draw concept art, maybe to paint the background landscapes of games. One thing I do know, is that this is the thing I enjoy painting the most. I am constantly observing nature and my surroundings, and I would love to bring them to live in a picture.

Most importantly, I want to have fun making art. If there is one thing that I think is important, is to have fun with what you enjoy doing. If not, then what is the point of studying it.