29.04.13 - Guest lecture with Andrew Foster.

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On Monday afternoon we had a guest lecture with Andrew Foster.
Andrew Foster is a well known British illustrator. Working mainly now in a authorial style, with a mix media capsule of stunning work.
Here are my notes:
Graduated in 1994
Avoids illustration events
Aged 13 - drew record covers
Went to st. Martins to do a MA
Gary Powell
Greyson perry - lack of fashionability
Scale impacts the viewer and informs you
Work is about his life
Draw stories, doesn't matter what it looks like


I found it really hard to process this lecture.
Andrew was a big personality, with a lot of strong ideas and concepts.
As you can see from the notes, it was hard to really get anything down on paper. I was definitely more into just listening to what he had to say.
I had a very long chat with my roommate (who is also on the course) about the whole experience afterwards. It defiantly resonated with me long afterwards.
It had confirmed a lot of things that were bubbling around in my head for a very long time.
I knew that after my last project, I needed to stop focusing all my work around what grade I get. There is absolutely no way you can ever make everyone happy when you are dealing with your artwork and trying to, to get the grades you think you deserve will make you unfulfilled at the end of it all.
At the end of the last two terms I received the exact same mark, even though I had known I worked on one considerably harder then the other. When recovering my first term marked it spurred me on to want to do better and work harder to achieve higher grades, then at the end of it all, I got the exact same.
I now know my place, and have found this pattern all the way through my life. I am a middle achiever (not failing and not flying) I had to work SO hard to get even my merit to get into university, while others sailed through, and at the time I found it so hard to deal with, I felt short changed, and misunderstood. And these past few months and put into perspective that I jut do t want that hassle in my life anymore.
I only have a handful of months left in school, a place in my life where I can spend all my time focusing on making art, and I just don't want the stress of grades running my last years of that.
Getting a high grade is pleasing one person, the dude who's marking it, and i'd much rather enjoy making my work myself.
Andrew, made it quite clearly that whatever path you choose, whatever grade you get is all relative.


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