Art School Blues

Art School Stuff...

So today I thought Id talk a little bit about the work I did for my Fine art diploma. Its a little bit different to the paintings and drawings I do for myself because for my diploma you had to be able to justify what your doing and be able to talk about your work on a proffesional level and I couldnt really do that will my old stuff because I didnt really have a reason for doing it in particular, I just draw what I feel like or whatever. Also I decided to do something different because I didnt want my personal work to be affected by "the rules of fine art" lol.

 Heres a picture of what I usually do...

I usually draw Anime and Manga styled stuff so I decided to play on that for my course. I made a body of work based on the dark side of childhood, the feeling of not being in control, anxiety and fear. I used animals as my characters to refrence fairy tales and story books and used dark "old" colours to show heaviness and sadness. I was influenced by alot of japanese artists like Yosuke Ueno and Aya Takano and lots of pop surrealists like Brandi Milne, Emma Overman, Camille Rose Garcia and Amy Sol.
So I really liked how it turned out :)

My Graduate Exhibition...

Anyway, to carry on studying and get my bachelors degree I had to apply at another art school. I had really good grades, lots of good feedback from my tutors and and the end of year exhibition went great so I should have gotten accepted... but I didnt..

Getting my application in was a nightmare! I just kept getting back luck, everytime I tried to print out my portfolio the printer would break, I tried a bunch of different places and I just kept getting the same terrible luck. I FINALLY got my application ready, spent like $30 just to print it, and then sent it off. Only to get one of those default "sorry try better next time" letters. At this point I didnt even care anymore, I was sure the universe was sending me a sign that it was not to be so I just rolled with it haha. But I still wanted to know why I wasnt accepted.
 I had a meeting with my tutor, who was pissed off that I wasnt accepted. He sent them emails and phone calls to try and get some information about the reason why. Unfortunatly Im still not sure why. BUT I have heard rumors that that particular school have completely stopped accepting students that are influenced by anime and manga.
Which SUCKS.

 I guess I can understand that there are probably quite alot of people who are influenced by it and it might be too much for them, but my entire application letter was pretty much based around how willing I am to open up to new ideas and Im willing to try different styles ect..

They need to warn people of this stuff though! I just spent the last year building a portfolio based on the genre of art that theyr NOT accepting. But it is nice to know that it was just the genre of work that they didnt like, not the quality. But still! It is a bit unfair. Oh well....

The universe has other plans for me apparently.

But! Im still going to keep doing the kind of art I want to do, even if it never goes anywhere, thats ok.

And a message to fellow Anime/Manga artists! If youre applying at an art school, make sure you find out theyre not doing the same thing here!