For this exercise, I was asked to reflect on the work I have produced during this course, choosing pieces that express who I am as an illustrator and show off my strengths. I was then tasked to present this work as a portfolio. As I am actively trying to get paid for illustration work, I thought long and hard about this topic. I had already explored aspects of self-promotion in earlier exercises and my conclusion then was having my own website would be a good option to promote my work.
I thought about how that might work - did I need a new website for the portfolio? Could I add a portfolio to this website (after all, it has the paid domain name which is appropriate for marketing myself as an artist), or perhaps I need to move this blog to a more generic URL and re-launch danwoodward.art without any connection to my OCA coursework? I think once I am at the end of my studies, I will likely separate the OCA blog to a separate URL where OCA students can still find it and gain insight into their own studies. However, for now, I think I would be happy to add a portfolio section to the current incarnation - I am a student illustrator (even if I do want to get paid for work!) and my blog has a lot of information about my working process, work ethic and personal voice which I think are assets, and not something to be ashamed of. Everyone was a beginner once.
I next reflected on what should be in a portfolio. There is a lot of advice out there, and not all of it is clear or consistent. Some people think it is useful to show breadth, others to have a laser-like focus in both content and style. The common factor linking both of these opinions was the market and the type of illustration work that you wanted to complete. So this felt like the place I should start - what work did I want to attract? What work would I enjoy doing? As I looked through the work I have produced for my degree, there was a lot I was proud of. However, that didn't mean that all of that work would make it into my portfolio. I needed to curate the selection, and that meant that some good pieces wouldn't make the cut. I don't feel bad about that; a worse scenario would be to receive commissions that asked me to do work that didn't represent my voice or my interests (even if I could execute them well).
Looking through my body of work I started to notice work that seemed to have some thematic links, and this informed the next step: to focus on the areas I think my portfolio should target. On a pad, I noted the following:
Comics / Graphic Novels / Independent publishing
Game/Film production art (2D)
Tabletop products (Boardgames, Card games, Rulebooks etc.)
Medical illustration (specifically psychiatry/psychology)
Packaging
Using my reference resources and other research, I tried to filter what my portfolio should contain to be successful in these areas. For all of the areas, there were some commonalities:
Showing drawing skills (hands, feet, human figures, animals)
Representational art (drawing from life)
Interior/Exterior environments
Character design
Prop design
This gave me some criteria to filter what artwork would need to be in my portfolio. The disheartening realisation was that I simply didn't have enough of the kind of work I needed yet. I realised that so much of my focus is placed on achieving the objectives of my coursework. I work very hard, and I am pleased that the quality of my work gets better every time. The challenge is that my degree work, by the very virtue of the degree's focus, will mean I create a wide and eclectic body of work. I think this is the nature of British illustration academia, which seems to be focused more on the nature of illustration, as opposed to American models which seem to focus on hard practical skills to get students into work. I don't think either is necessarily better, but it does mean that I am at a disadvantage when it comes to some of the areas that I would like to work in.
I also reflected that I had scant few pieces which I have created for myself simply because I wanted to make them and I enjoyed the subject. I am still externally motivated, and it was an upsetting realisation. This year it's been exacerbated by my challenges with work, finances and mental health, but the fact remained that I was not happy to create a portfolio area on my website given it would not be focused enough. Rather than be despondent, I felt invigorated by the challenge - I now had a clear target about what needed to be in my portfolio. If my coursework was not going to directly produce that work, then I had to do it for myself. I was recently inspired to take a seminar run by the AOI titled "Unlocking Commissions through Passion Projects" (Association of Illustrators, 2024) based on the exercises in this section of the unit. It was an interesting and informative session. One of the key takeaways for me was to not just complete passion projects for the sake of it, but then demonstrate them in a commercial context (by, for example, using mockups). This is also something lacking in my portfolio.
However, now I have a focus. I know the elements that are missing from my portfolio. I also know that they are not going to appear by themselves. My next step is to create a list of pieces that I need to flesh out my portfolio, and then create them as self-commissioned passion projects. I will get to create work that is for me, driven by what I care about. If I want to work in card games, then why not create some illustrations for my own deck of tarot cards? If I were to make a themed Cluedo, what would it look like?
It will mean that my website portfolio might be delayed, but when it is ready (which doesn't mean needing hundreds of images), it will be tailored and focused and I firmly believe will have a stronger personal voice running through it.
In the meantime, I can still make headway in helping people find my work. I recently uninstalled Instagram and Threads, they did not feel healthy to me, and I am focusing my efforts on building a presence on Cara and Bluesky, which feel like much lighter, hopeful platforms. Cara has the capability to select images to be part of your Cara Portfolio, so this seems like a good start to curate a portfolio that can be found by others. Prior to uploading images, I ran the images through Glaze to help protect them from AI scraping. Cara has some in-built protections, but I cannot say the same for Bluesky. When I look at my images, I would like others to say that I have a strong sense of place and that the images have humour and colour. I think those aspects are already present, and I am genuinely excited to work on projects to build out a portfolio that speaks with my voice.
References
Brazell, D. and Davies, J. (2018) Becoming a successful illustrator. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.
Davies, J. and Brazell, D. (2024) Getting illustration clients. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.
Dickson, M (2013) Secrets of Freelance Illustration: How to become a successful freelance illustrator. Kindle format [e-book reader]. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secrets-Freelance-Illustration-successful-illustrator-ebook/dp/B00D2PKUJQ (Accessed: 31 May 2018)
Taylor, F. (2013) How to create a portfolio and get hired, 2nd edition. London: Laurence King.
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