Since I last posted, I applied to four fine art courses and 1 fine art photography course at universities from glasgow to london and everywhere in between. It took me ages to decide what I actually want to do in the future because since I was about 8 I always told people I wanted to be 'an artist' which is so non-descript. I don't want to me a freelancer who doesn't know where their next pay check is coming from, I don't want to be famous. Despite the fact that this in itself is a hard thing to achieve it's never really what I wanted to be- but maybe it was the only thing I knew when I was 8. Maybe it was my ambition at one stage but from at least GCSE level I wanted to do more than that.
I considered studying fine art, photography or illustration at degree level and I now realise that I will have more creative freedom and a broader range of skills and opportunities by the time I leave to do what I want. I still don't know exactly what I want. I know I love illustrative drawing (watercolour, painting etc) and also photography in any form.


At the moment I have two online portfolios to prepare for late January and as usual I'm starting to doubt my ability again. I'm sick of all that stuff getting the better of me so I started a drawing of my Grandma tonight and I'm going to try out new stuff with it... maybe even put it in my portfolio. I want my work to have more emotional resonance. I can talk about my work so much easier that way. I'm pushing my personal art so much recently and developing a new (and more unique) style which I'll bring into my coursework for art foundation. Everything has to reflect who I am and what I want to achieve, what I care about. This is why for my new project I'm looking at street/documentary photography, city life with an abstract and painterly quality much like Saul Leiter. I'm hoping to bring in some illustration and fine art techniques at a later stage to really reflect what I want out of my work.
All I can do is try my hardest and have the passion and enthusiasm that I know is really in me- to project that into my work.

Merry Christmas!

Three photos from Manchester and Liverpool for my pathway project (unedited at the moment, just wanted to show some examples of my ideas)