Live Painting; Assemble Fest

Assemble Festival

This year I was asked to do a live painting at Hull's annual Assemble Festival; based on along the largely independent ran Newland Avenue. This was my second experience to date with live painting as part of a festival (the first being Humber Street Sesh 2015), and I found myself enjoying the process a lot more this time around!

I felt a lot more confident within my own practice this year, and I think this allowed me to be a little more bold in the artwork I made. In terms of creative freedom we were pretty much given free reign, the only things told to keep in mind was that it was a family orientated festival and area, so nothing too offensive or risque.

Given the importance of community in this festival, I decided to go for something Hull based. Every Tuesday a pub named Polar Bear runs a night called 'The Sesh', showcasing local and national bands from 9PM to 12PM with DJs till 2AM. It's been on the go in Hull for over 10 years now, and has amassed such a following the annual 'Humber Street Sesh festival' was born through it's ten year anniversary (which now attracts around 32,000 people each year).

I know both Mak and Dan who run The Sesh every Tuesday, so thought I'd pay a little homage to Hull grown talent. The piece could also be used as a kind of promo too given HSS was only a couple of months away.

Experience & Future Thoughts

As previously stated this is my second time doing live art, and though I enjoyed the experience last year, I felt my artwork was really subpar to what I could have made. This didn't put me off however; the networking opportunities that come from gigs such as these are invaluable. It's also lovely to see people genuinely interested in art and what I do as a practitioner. With social media outlets, it's very easy to get spam comments of 'Nice!' with photos of your work, but it's totally different getting that sort of positive feedback face to face. It's reassuring to know that I like what I do, and that other people do to.

I actually quite liked my final piece from this year too, it was something a little different to what I'd normally do, and that was really refreshing. It was also insanely enjoyable to make some BIGGER work too. I feel quite often illustration feels confined to the page, and it's exciting to break out of that context. It got me thinking about the sort of illustration I want to make going into next year. While I enjoy working smaller in sketchbooks and zines, I'd love to do some bigger work this year. The idea of having my work on display in galleries is something that's been on my mind a lot recently, I like the idea of a freedom to create things that are important and personal to me and putting them on a platform other people can engage with. Could I still engage people on the same emotional level I have with my zines if my work was bigger and in a different context?

Bigger painting work and galleries is something I'd love to explore next year.