Exercise 1:

My Biography

As a small child, all I can remember is writing stories and illustrating them. I remember tapping away on my typewriter for hours on end. My spelling and grammar was never great and now I know it was due to me having dyslexia, but it didn’t stop my imagination. I knew when I was four I wanted to be an illustrator and if I was to fail; I thought I would be a zoo keeper instead.

As you can see below is a book that I wrote at age eight using my typewriter.

As I got older, I continued to draw and write and whilst at secondary school, during an English class, the teacher set some homework, which was to write a story. I became so engrossed in this homework that I made a fully illustrated book at age 12. Not realising at the time that all the teacher was expecting was a short story in my exercise book. However, the teacher loved it and the school awarded me a certificate of commendation and a five-pound voucher to spend in a bookshop.

Moving on, my GCSEs were approaching and at the time my only interests were English and Art & Design. Therefore, my main option selected was Art and Design.

After successfully completing my Art GCSE, I wanted to go onto college and and study Advanced GNVQ Art and Design. Unfortunetly, I did not have good grades in English or maths GCSEs. Therefore, the college informed me I would not be accepted. Yet, I was adement that I wanted to study this subject and arrived at the college with my portfollio. After the tutors from the course looked through my work, they accepted me on to the campus providing I resat my maths and English.

Successfully completing the course with Merit, I wanted to go on to extend my knowledge of Art at university and study illustration or fine art. At the time, sadly it was not finacially viable. Yet, this didn’t stop me trying to succeed as applied constently for jobs in the creative field and at age 19 became a Graphic Assistant for an architect company. Sadly a few years later, the company was struggling for clients and I was made redundant. After, I tried numerous companys in the creative field for employment but without a degree it seemed difficult to be taken notice of.

As a temporary measure, to help with my life costs, I took a job as a sales assistant within a garden centre. Yet, I have to say I was not expecting to enjoy it so much and because of the team I worked with and loving the job I stayed for five years, working as a tropical fish manager in an acqatics company. It was here that me and my husband decided it was time to try for children.

When my first born turned one, I wanted to return to work from parental leave but didnt want to leave my son in a nursery. Thinking about different options I decided to set up my own business as a childminder. Again, this was a rewarding job in that I could raise my own child at home but was given the privilege in caring for other parents children, and watching them grow into caring, talented young children.

However, when my second child was born we moved home and the house needed repair work. This meant I could no longer work as a childminder because the house was not OFSTED fit for working. Whilst our home was under going major repair, and watching my two children developing quickly I realised it was now my time to return to what I set out to do originally and that was illustration.

What do I need from the course

I guess why I am writting all my back story is for me to come back to this page from time to time and remind myself of my passion and my life time goals. Sometimes I think I am to old to try and fulfil my dream (40). It scares me a little that there are people that went to university at 19, 20 and will have twenty years work experience compared to me. However, I know I am grounded, commited and can succeed.

What I hope to gain whilst completing this unit is:

• Constructive critique.
• Encouragement.
• Advice from my tutor and peers, as they will and may have had many more years working in the creative industry.
• Help with pushing myself out of my comfort zone.
• To keep pushing myself creatively and step away from technology.

Areas throughout this degree, that I have enjoyed are designing and creating bookcovers, this aspect really appeals to me because I want to do the author justice, to make the book stand out from the crowd and above all for the book to be taken home. I also enjoy creating illustrations for childrens books. Knowing that children are entering a world partly constructed by my by drawings is rewarding.

Areas I need to develope more based on my learning journey so far are the following:

• Allowing enough time to creatively explore different options and not just stick to the initial idea.
• Get a better understanding of formal grid layouts and composition.
• Understand the correct use of fonts better and possibly create my own.
• Improve time management and stop procrastinating.

By doing this unit I think it will greatly improve my creativity.