Portfolio

Hi everybody, welcome back to another week and another blog post! Hope you've all had a nice week, and have kept nice and warm, it's been very cold this past week. Warming up now though, so I suppose I can kiss my dreams of snow goodbye, a little shower and an icing sugar dusting looks to be all we're getting this time... (sigh). You'll all be pleased to know that I am on my way to recovery from the illness that plagued me last week, although it is slow going. (It's so incredibly frustrating, I am so fed up of being unwell, it's been the better part of two weeks, come ooooooonnnnnnn!!) Anyway, slowly but surely getting there, so I'll stop my whining and get on with the post! This week I've been putting together a brand new page for my website (exciting eh?) and so that's what I'd like to have a chat about this week. From the title, you're probably already gathering that the new page I've been making is a portfolio page. Now, for those who know what a portfolio is, I can hear you asking why I'm creating a portfolio page when there is clearly already a gallery page, what's the difference? Why do you need both? Why are you being greedy? Are you trying to confuse us? Whoa there. Hang on. Let me explain.

I do think that the majority of artists or photographers tend to stick to either a portfolio or a gallery, seeing as they are essentially the same thing. (I'm just gonna check the actual definitions to make sure I'm not making a fool of myself here, hold on...)

gallery

ˈɡal(ə)ri/

noun

1. 1.

a room or building for the display or sale of works of art.

"an art gallery"

portfolio

pɔːtˈfəʊlɪəʊ/

noun

1. 1.

a large, thin, flat case for loose sheets of paper such as drawings or maps.

"under his arm he carried a large portfolio of drawings"

So, based on those definitions, and applying them to a web-page-version of those definitions, they basically amount to the same thing, a display or collection of art-type-things. For my website, I chose to use my gallery page almost like a mood board, showing art but also other things as well, I also like to include some photography and images that are not my artwork, but things that complement and inspire my own art, like photos of the sea surrounding Anglesey that I have taken, for example, or artistic-ish shots of myself on a spiral staircase. It's a page for a collection of images that aren't necessarily just a selection of paintings, but a page to try to show a little bit of everything I love and what inspires me. Whereas, for my new portfolio page, I want to showcase some of my artwork and also be able to explain some of it too, to add some context, to describe the materials used and sometimes a little more information about a piece. It's also a place where I feel I can demonstrate the variety of work I do, as since this is my Puffin Prints website, I tend to try to keep it consistent and mainly keep to my illustrations of puffins and pals, whereas I actually enjoy a large range of drawing and painting, and have tried my hand at a myriad of styles and art applications. As I don't often have the chance to show any other types of work anywhere else, I thought some people might be interested to see and so that's why I am creating a portfolio page!

For example, I did some work last Summer for a publisher, Red Hand Books, www.redhandbooks.co.uk , which at the time I was keeping very hush hush, but I thoroughly enjoyed working on those pieces and am excited to showcase them, along with some of my own personal works that I mainly create for experimentation.

Anyhoo, if you are interested in having a little look at my spangly new fancy portfolio page, click here to be whisked away! If not, then I'm sorry if this was a very boring blog post for you, I'll make sure next week's post is super interesting and applicable to all audiences! Thanks for reading everyone, and catch you this time next week, Rachel x