Rebecca East UWE Illustration

 I originally designed both my business cards and website quite quickly last year, I made them initially just to have something more professional to show to people at the events I was attending, and also to make myself more appealing to event organisers when applying for markets and conventions. I used imagery that I had to hand at the time, and was happy with how it turned out, but I have since redesigned my website in order to better reflect the ideas and aesthetics of my handmade accessory brand  Below are some screenshots of my website before reworking it, you can find it in it's current rendition here  it's still very much a work in progress and will probably continue to change and evolve as my practice does. Also below are images of my redesigned business cards, I'm currently waiting on these to be printed and delivered.

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Rebecca East Professional Practice Report. Throughout this module, and over the past year or so outside of study, I have spent a lot of time developing not only my practice as an illustrator but also the small business I have recently started. I began making prints of my artwork alongside small handmade accessories last year and selling these at events like art fairs and conventions across the UK, I’ve found a decent amount of success with this so far and intend to continue this into the future. My main focus professionally has been on marketing and selling my handmade works online and at events. I started quite small with this, taking part in a few small local events alongside other students, and from that I grew the confidence to start selling as an individual. Over the past 8 months I have sold my work at over a dozen events across the UK, including CMYK Festival, Bath Craft and Flea, Brixton Create Showcase and Outertown Festival, and I have more, larger events upcoming like Bristo...

  Rebecca East Process and Practice  Evaluative Statement Throughout this project looking at the theme of ‘Poetic Science’ I wanted to explore the intricacies of mushrooms and mycelium, finding ways to illustrate the complex ecology of these species, while also looking into more fictional mediums like fantasy and fairytales, where fungi imagery is often used. In my initial research I started reading ‘Entangled Life’ by Merlin Sheldrake, which expanded my knowledge of not just how many species of fungi there are but also in how they shape the world around us in many different ways; this made me realise that I would need to narrow my focus away from fungi as a whole, as the topic is far too expansive to cover in a single project. I took inspiration from some places I visited on a trip to Berlin last year, where scientists and artists have looked at specific use cases for certain fungal species and decided that focusing on individual species and looking at them in more det...

 When I first started researching fungi and looking into different species of mushrooms, the first species that interested me and gave me some inspiration for potential work was the Shaggy Mane Ink Cap. These mushrooms not only look quite interesting with their feathered-looking caps but also act in a really peculiar way; they naturally produce a black ink-like substance as they decay, and they decay pretty quickly.  Naturally, when I learned of this fact, I was absolutely enamoured by the idea of making my mushroom-based project and drawing all of these mushroom sketches using entirely mushroom ink. After some research I found that Shaggy Mane ink is not an easy nor cheap thing to source, however shaggy mane spores to grow your own mushrooms are much easier to come by, even if it meant buying them from a dodgy website that seemingly hadn't been updated since 2015. So I bought my spores from that dodgy website and a grow bag kit on Etsy and thought "how hard can it be?". ...

 During a trip to Berlin last summer, I visited the Futurium Museum, and one exhibition called The Outside Inside by Johanna Schmeer particularly held my attention. This exhibition looks at the idea of biology and technology becoming increasingly intertwined, and the potential issues and possibilities of blurring these lines even further.  The main part of the installation is a futuristic garden wherein plants and fungi are encased in terrariums. The specific plantlife and fungi in the terrariums were chosen for their different terraforming abilities. Some of the domes contain Amaranth, " which can grow and sequester carbon dioxide in saline and dry conditions, removing a small amount of salt from the ground in the process" others contain oyster mushrooms " which have the ability to remove heavy metals and other contaminants from their environment, preparing it for other species." (quotes taken from the  Futurium website ) The part of the installation that I found m...