Today is the first day back to Uni and marks the start of my final year. This module is running from 16/9/24 – 19/5/25.

I need to start thinking about my future as an artist and where I see my creative careeer going. Taking all the research and producuctive lessons learned and somehow initiate a self directed business plan. I’ve been in a state of flux between the mediums I like to work with and where I see myself artist, photographer, print make or some very clever fluid mix of all three.

I already have website which i created over 10years ago as a way of my dog photography taken at events. Itwas a bit of a muddle as my facebook page sith the dame name had artwork on it. I was advised at the time to split the two genres. However, after doing a bit of mind dump today and tzlking it through I think it may be better to archive all my old social media posts on Facebook and Instagram and redesign my website, with the intention of creating an up to date digital portfolio.

My reasoning behind this is purely that in the past 18 months, more profiles/pages have appeared on social media with variations around Helen Louise art, or art by Helen Louise. Also I’ve hardly used my horses and dogs photography pages so I could set them up under one name. The key here is that my artistic and photography style are very similar and my passion is really horses, and how I look at an image with the stories I feel they tell.

I’m looking forward to fine tuning my experience and knowledge of business and finance especially in relation to the art and design industry sector.

One thing I’m taking forward from last year’s final tutorials is to improve the way I conduct contextual effective research and apply it in my outcomes. And also updating this blog.

Career planning is a little up in the air as I’m not sure exactly what I want to focus on other than my creative practice. However I feel that my practices are possibly niche rather than mainstream so will need some kind of regular income to pay the bills. Obviously my previous life as an accountant/bookkeeper is handy, but I really need to identify my skill base and how that will help me pursue a creative careerr

Personal skill marketing – this will be fun! I am pretty hopeless at selling myself so this is a major work I progress.

Branding…. I am my brand…. see above!

Locating an audience…. scared to get my work out there, so looking for ways to exhibit my work and competitions will be good for me.

I think that pretty much sums up today, tomorrow is a research tip to Bristol.