Life after university

Last November I was so lucky to be able to go back to the UK and visit all my university friends and graduate properly with a silly hat and everything. 

After my stay there however I realized that I and most of my friends were all dealing with the hard reality of life – or that is, life after university. 

The trouble of starting a generic job (if you even found one) that has nothing to do with your degree but still trying to find your place in life, dealing with the depression of leaving university is really hard. The fear of the huge future that you were supposed to figure out, the successful job you are supposed to find, the great life you are meaning to be leading right now! That should all happen straight after university? Right? So very wrong! 

I have felt this gap before in my life, since the Icelandic school system is different but then it’s mainly a question of which school to choose afterwards. But now I am in the real deal. Life, the universe and everything. 

Universities should be doing a better job preparing us for the real world. All we get are “get a good portfolio and apply for everything.” Well that is not good enough. Where do we start, what should we apply for? What if we start to freelance, what if we get a job, how do I make a contract? How do I set up payments? How do I even get that first job?

The sad truth is that I learned more about the business side of art by listening to Christ Oatley’s podcast and The Paperwing podcast (http://oatleyacademy.com/paper-wings-show/)  that I did in my entire 2 years of illustration and 1 year of digital arts. 

To make matters even harder for myself I decided to move back to Iceland were the market is so tiny, that I have no idea how to get going. All I know is that I want to do art but it’s hard. It’s also weird meeting my non-art friends, their lives seem to have moved so much faster, many with good jobs, apartments, kids and I’m still here just going “I just want to draw”. 

Life can really be complicated, and I’m sure my fellow art related friends struggle with the same things. But I guess the only thing to do is like my mom says: “take one day at a time and don’t overthink the future.”

The Martian, trip to the theater

I just had the pleasure of going to the movies couple of days ago and saw the Martian. I had just heard about the book few weeks earlier and have it as an audiobook on my phone, ready to be played while I do my 'amazing' job at the post office. 

I was glad when I left the theatre, I had a good feeling in my heart, which I don't get so much anymore, after trips to the movie theatre. This was the feeling of just seeing a genuinely good movie. 

For those that don't know, the Martian is a movie based on a book by the same name by Andy Weir. It's about a manned mission to Mars in the close future. The crew is however forced to leave Mars suddenly because of a bad storm and Mark Watney, the main character, is presumed dead in the storm and left behind. However he is very much alive, and he is alone on Mars. 

The movie was interesting, entertaining and visually appealing. It feels realistic, you feel like this group of people could be on Mars right now because the technology is believable and based on technology that we use today or might be seen in the near future. The vastness of Mars in the movie is amazing, you really feel like you are there with Mark, as he deals with every possible problem of staying alive on the planet. 
The acting was good, the story was good (even though the trailer spoiled way too much of the storyline) and the cgi was amazing, you really couldn't tell the difference between reality and computer generated backgrounds. Too many movies seem to forget one of these things, for example in Jupiter Ascending, where you had amazing CGI and visual storytelling, but had a horrible storyline that made no sense. 


I would advice everyone to see this movie, even if you are not into space or technological movies. I have not been this happy seeing a movie since I saw Mad Max. I look forward to listening to the audiobook, I'll take a little trip to Mars tomorrow at work.  

China

China. 

I am still trying to make sense of it. 

My trip was amazing, and I saw and experienced so much that my head is still trying to wrap itself around it. 
University of Cumbria went with around 20 students to stay at Changshu for two week in a summer school program. We had the oppertunity to learn everything from Tai Chi, painting, calligraphy, Kung Fu and dancing. The culture was amazing and even more amazing were the volunteer students that took us around everywhere. I already miss the food, the food is sooo good there and very different from what I expected. Apart from Changshu we were able to visit Shanghai and Suzhou. It also felt quite strange to be white and tall there, people were looking at us and taking photos of us all the time. 

As I said I'm still trying to make sense of all the new things I saw there, I hope to be able to use some of this knowledge into my art, and I really did love the old traditional way of painting in China and wish to practise that further. 

 

New Designers 2015

The New Designers show in London was quite the experience. Taking part in it was so amazing. The show itself is so big and interesting, I met a lot of interesting artists, was amazed by some of them. I would love to do this again, but this only makes me more sure that I am going to apply for art shows and cons in the future. 

The only thing I thought was a bad dissapointing is that the majority of the art based students are grapics and illustrations. I wish there had been more game, digital and animation student there, but I guess in the end this is a design show, and at the moment games and animation do not seem to have a big place at this show. 

But I had a great time, only wished it had lasted longer. Sadly I was not swept away by some amazing employer, haha, but hopefully I will have something to do in the future :) 

A year soon coming to an end

The time has moved quite fast since I moved to the UK. I feel like this year is 6 months long at the most. I just handed in the first part of my Final Project in today and all that is left is a presentation of my work, some tweaking, printing and setting up the University Degree Show. 

I feel really strange that this year is almost over, stil I won't be back home in Iceland until sometime in August. There are however a few things to still look forward to here in the UK. I have been picked as one of the students to go to the London New Designers Show in July to showcase my final project. I don't really think my images are good enough, I still have a little way to go before I get really comfortable with digital art, but I'm very glad I was picked and look forward to get to see such a big show! 

Shortly after that I will also be going to China (Shanghai area) for two weeks with my university. I don't look forward to the long flight but I am very excited to go to Asia for the first time! I'm sure it will be very interesting and I hope I'll be able to learn a lot about the culture there (and hopefully do some sketching). 

When I get home I need to go back to my old job (ugh) since I will need to monies! But hopefully I'll also be able to build a good portfolio and get some art related jobs soon. 

Oh well, no point worrying about the future, I have way to much to do in the present. For example sleep! :)

Sick time

I have been so lucky for the past week to be spending time mostly in my bed with a bad cold. Which is fine for maybe one day. But then it get's soooo boooring. And when I'm sick like this I can't really focus on drawing :( I have mostly been watching Netflix and doing some crochets just to kill the time. 

But I'm starting to feel a bit better so I can hopefully soon shift my focus back on my final project. Sadly I'm getting kind of bored with it and there is still a lot of work to be done. I'll have to work really hard next week to make up for lost time! With the help of magical easter egg chocolates! 
 
It is strange that there is so little left of this semester. I feel like I came to Carlisle just a little while ago for the first time.

But here are a few WIP's from my final project, it's a bit further along now but I can't be bothered to save new jpg's. A few people will be chosen from my uni to go to London's New Designer Show in July. I really hope I will be one of the lucky ones!

Hub articles

I was just recently told about hubpages. I'm not sure what I think about it yet, but I descided to put up a little article, or speculations at least. My writing might not be interesting enough for an article page since I like to write from a personal view, which is why I write a blog... 

Well here goes nothing. 

You can take a look at the article thing here: 
 http://ameza.hubpages.com/hub/Creative-work-pace-and-work-space