Forever Learning...

​Charlene De La Cruz
Illustration and Visual Media
 
During this DPS year, it feels like I’ve just graduated and out having to find my place in this world. I didn’t expect to feel like this but now I think about it, I don’t know what I was expecting. There are times where I seriously regret doing the DPS year but then I look at how I was at 2nd year and I need to go on this adventure. This time last year, I had no direction into what I even wanted to do after I graduate and now, I feel like a more mature person through the ideas I have now on where I want to be in the future. There are still mistakes I do that I need to learn from such as how to use blogs more often and as a way of self-evaluating. Blogging is a massive part of my course of Illustration and we get graded on how we look at our craft and analyse it daily so before going into my last year, it is something I must practice on.
 
One element of my craft that I wanted to work on in DPS and is something I have been certainly working on in the first few months was my Portfolio. I need to make my Portfolio a lot stronger and work a lot harder to compete in the Creative Industry. To achieve this, I have been I am currently working on a few commissions from friends and some companies This is helping me expand my Portfolio on different types of Storytelling and also give me experience in working with Clients and the way I should communicate with them. To also strengthen my Portfolio and Skills, I have decided to explore Graphic Design online courses to improve my work and broaden what projects I could take on in the future.
 
After my last blog, I was working on 2 projects which were both at university. One of them was a print project for the Scene-Stealer Collective I am a part of and the other was a collaboration with an MA Screenwriter to do the posters for his TV show “Temp Ting”. I have just wrapped up these projects and I loved the experience of working with people with the same passion and motivation as me. As I have a major interest in Films, the Scene-Stealers Collective is helping me grow into a drawing style that I would like to carry on and experiment with. The Collective has given me a platform to show work that I am passionate about and this style of work interests me as it’s reinterpreting someone else’s work/movie. I enjoy how I could change the scene into something that could have been a better angle to a movie scene. 

​For the Collaboration with the MA Screenwriter at LCC, I produced a main poster and 6-episode posters for his TV Show “Temp Ting”, each poster represents an episode, to display at the Degree Show and for Pitch Visuals. From this experience with Temp Ting, I have learnt how to deal with clients in the ways of keeping them updated and asking if there are any changes in the TV show. The Screenwriter I was working with had to change his episodes and as I was working on his episode poster, I had to start from scratch in September. I loved working on this project as I was working with someone with the same mindset and ideas which was very beneficial, however, I know it isn’t always going to be like that. I was extremely lucky with who I got as a client and I need to be prepared that, next time, I might not be so lucky. I enjoyed how I was able to experiment a lot with imagery because no one has done a poster for his show before. It challenged my imagination as the Scene-Stealer Collective is something I am used to doing and there are many alternative posters for Movies I look at in the Collective, while this project made me think of perspective and things that haven’t been done before.
 
As I am nearly finishing off the planned projects, I have planned my Self-initiated project which I will start in December and is a follow-up project from a 2nd Year Self-initiated project that I want to develop more. It is influenced on campaigning against the Stigma of Mental Illness. This project is influenced by the success of Extinction Rebellion and I am experimenting with how I can make my Campaign more interactive.  I have also reached out to the Production courses and asked if they need any help and a student has come back to me about working on their Film Project in December which is something, I would love to be involved in. I really would like to get some experience in Production to have a feel of it and see if it is something I want to pursue. So those 2 projects are planned to keep me going for the next few months, although, I am still searching for internships to explore my options.