photography

SELF EVALUATION

END OF MODULE SELF EVALUATION 

1.  Which practical skills and methodologies have you developed within this module and how effectively do you think you are employing them within your own practice?

I feel as I’ve developed my practical skills in this module through the introduction to new mediums, before this module I had never used ink, Quink, had a decent blade to cut with or ever seen a Wacom Tablet. I think by having these available to me and being able to experiment I have been able to expand my skills as an illustrator. I have started using ink a lot within my own personal practice now to develop my characters and I feel like that has carried through to this module, especially within Studio brief 1 and studio brief 3. Paper cutting too has become more of a focus for me and I feel comfortable enough now to include it in pieces of work and work bigger than before. I used paper cutting within three of my finals and feel like it was successful, I will definitely be employing within my own practice now I feel comfortable enough with the medium. I have also developed my Photoshop skills to a higher level where adding extra tools such as a Wacom tablet is no longer a scary thought for me, my work has benefitted a lot from developing these skills as I show in Studio Brief 2 where I made (successfully I think) 3 final pieces digitally which was a personal first for me. After the brief I have gone back to digital and am practicing my skills and feel that I am improving and am far more capable of producing quality digital work than I was at the start of the module.

2. Which principles/ theories of image making have you found most valuable during this module and how effectively do you think you are employing these within your own practice?

The introduction of frames into my work has been, for the most part, helpful towards my development. I find working within frames challenging but when I force myself to do it my work benefits as a result. Working within frames helps me conjure up a clearer idea of how I want the composition of my pieces to work.  I have however struggled with dimensions, especially within Studio Brief 2. I’ve learnt that working to dimensions is something I will have to do more off and that I need to constantly double check my work to make sure I’m not going over or under the dimensions. Within this module I have also had to consider composition and format more than previously and that my work is developing better as a result. By having to consider format I am now faster at decision making when it comes to deciding what medium my work should be on and sometimes when I will be drawing something in a rough and know immediately what that piece of work would look best on. I’ve wrestled with composition a lot throughout this module and know that it is something I will have to tried harder at with the next module. I struggle to see the bigger picture when image making but through this module have learnt that working on a bigger scale and working to constraints will make composition a lot easier, this is something I will carry through to the next module and also to my own personal practice. 3. What strengths can you identify within your submission and how have you capitalised on these? Idea generation is one of my strengths within this submission; I have had a lot of concepts for the different briefs and been able to come up with varied and interesting pieces for each brief. This has been helpful as it has left me with a lot of options for what I want finals to be and also allows more of my work to be critiqued by others as well as improving my decision making skills as an illustrator.  I have also been relatively experimental within my submission but been able to reign in the experiments when I have found something that I find really works for the brief. I think I have stepped out of my comfort zone where necessary, this is a strength within my work as it my submission is varied and on a range of different mediums whilst also sticking to the brief. By being experimental in my choices of medium I have been able to find things which suit my style of work, using ink is one of these. As soon as I realised it suited my work, it became a staple in my work and a staple in my character development (even if the finals were not in ink it helped me created a feel for my work that I had not previously had with fine liner). Tone of voice is something I also think is a strength within my submission. I feel that all of my work has a tone to it, whether that be humorous – studio brief 1 or have dark undertones – studio brief 2 I feel that when creating roughs I’ve kept in mind the audience and what I want them to feel when they are looking at it, I’ve tried to give them all a tone when creating the roughs and that as a result has carried through to my finals in one way or another.  4. What areas for further development can you identify within your submission and how will you address these in the future? Presentation is something I feel needs developing, as there are things within my submission that I think let me down such as folds on the poster and slightly wonky borders on my play pieces. These were picked up in my feedback but also there were some suggestions in my feedback that informed me on how I could be improving on my presentation such as different tools or borders. In the future I will try to consider the tools I’m using, rather than using a singular blade during paper cutting I will make sure that I buy more so that the blade isn’t blunt and I will also invest in a metal ruler rather than a plastic one. I also think that consideration of composition is something that needs to be developed and my work would be neater as a result, thinking about borders and where type should be going on my work (if at all) and placement of things I think would improve my work as there are bits within my current submission that feel unconsidered. This might also be addressed through more thorough drafts with more detail so I can have a clearer plan of what is working and not working composition wise. Narrowing down ideas is something else I think needs further development. Although having lots of ideas is a strength I think that my decision-making needs to improve. I need to be more self critical of my own work rather than just coming up with loads of ideas and asking others to help me pick out some, although I did pick some of the concepts for my work I think I relied to heavily on the opinions of others, particularly in studio brief 2. By having a more self critical view on my work I can be producing a higher quality of roughs that will then lead to a higher quality of final pieces. I think I can work on this by producing more roughs and narrowing down from those before peer feedback and producing work that I can root for (so to speak). Consideration of composition is something I touched on earlier. I think that although I struggle to do it, working within frames and working to dimensions is something I should aspire to do as it will benefit my work. By working in frames I will be able to see the bigger picture and see what is working and what isn’t. I also think that if I work to a bigger scale when roughing (especially when making A2 or A3 pieces) I will have a better feel for the composition than I would if I create roughs in a A4 or A5 format which is what I usually do. 5. In what way has this module introduced you to the Ba (Hons) Illustration programme? This module has introduced me to the idea of having peer feedback, this is something I never had previously and I think that it’s helped me fit into the group. By having the feedback sessions, I’ve developed my personal opinion and listened to the opinions of the others on the programme. The briefing process has introduced me into the programme as it really outlines the expectations and the structure of the course, its been helpful because it gives you a bigger picture of the course and allows you to plan ahead and to know how much time you have to play around with a brief before having to focus on making the finals. It’s been a good introduction as it feels serious and important rather than having a first year that is all about experimenting, this module introduces you to the programme that you will be having for 3 years and the structure gives you a good insight into how the rest of your time on the course will be spent. This module has allowed me to mature as an illustrator and introduces the idea of deadlines and briefs that you could be getting in the real world. As well as this the module has allowed me to socialise through the peer feedback and see the level of work others are creating at which personally I find motivational.

Studio brief 3 - PLAY PLAY PLAY - developing, crits and finals

CRITS 

There was another mini crit after our first week of development. This time I didn't find the crits as helpful as before. There wasn't as much criticism as I'd have liked only that none of my ideas felt very connected in their style which I did agree with. It was suggested that I try using borders and drawing inside boxes and narrowed down my ideas. I joined a second crit group and they were a lot more helpful, saying that they really liked computer games as an idea, that the triangle playing was good and the the musical notation could go somewhere. They also picked out that mid summers night dream was a play within a play and that made it good to quote from. They agreed on me needing frames which is something I did try to take from the crit (not very successfully though). 

DEVELOPMENTS 

As I felt confident with the idea of space invaders computer game as my image only and musical notation with thread in as my type only it only really left type and image to develop as I felt the 2 other ideas were more defined and could be made more or less straight away. 

For the space invaders idea I just looked at the original game and the aliens, I decided to paper cut these out after I decided to make paper cutting the medium that brought all the three together. It didn't take very much development and I think it works well on it's own without too much embellishment. 

As for the musical notation, I picked one of my favourite classical pieces (Clair de lune by Debussy) and  used quink and painted it onto watercolour paper (as I decided that was the nicest quality and colour paper and would work well as a background to all three), I then threaded over the bars with red so it looked more like musical notation. I also painted the word play into the notes but I didn't feel like it was prominent enough, so I cut the word play into the paper and used the black as background. 

I reread a mid summers night dream by Shakespeare and outlined the plot and picked out the 4 main characters (Helena, Lysander, hermia and demetrius) and drew them. I enjoyed the characters I made and decided that this was definelty the idea I wanted to go with. I just wasn't sure how I would tie all the ideas together. 

I started playing with mediums, ink first followed by paper cutting. I preferred the ink characters over the paper cutting but liked the craft of paper cutting so kept that in mind as I developed the idea. I used ink splatters to show the fairy glitter and magic. 

I had a go at cutting the scene out (only a small bit) and using thread in it to try to use bread as a running idea through all three pieces however it didn't work very effectively and I decided against it. But liked the idea that paper cutting could be the thing that tied all three together. 

I drew up mini versions of what I had started to put together in my mind, i was imagining a stage with curtains either side and the main event in the middle but instead of curtains making it into the forest which most the play is set in. I also drew puck because i thought it was important he be there as he's the most recognisable thing out of the play. I soon decided to cut out the shapes opting for black paper on top of white watercolour paper (as it had the nicest texture) 

I then decided to ink in the middle of the circle and draw out the scene. I also added a border which I thought helped the three work together. 

This is the final for midsummers night dream, on reflection I think it is quite busy and maybe it might have been just as interesting with just puck the donkey in the middle with a quote from the play. I was pleased with the overall look for this but wish I had been slower cutting out the borders as they are not as neat as they should be and ruin the overall neatness of it. 

This is my space invaders finished, I think it works well as image alone as it's clear what it is. Again the border on this is wonky and I will be buying a new ruler next week so this doesn't happen again.

This is my finished type play poster, out of the three I think I'm mostly disappointed in this one. I think the last minute decision to cut out the word play wasn't the best one. I think I should have thought through the placement better and thought through that the threads would corrupt the type (the y is funny because the threads were too tight and pulled it in). The border was almost perfect on this one but the threading pulled it in and I was forced to stick it down awkwardly and it ruined the outline. The positives pulled from this is that I really liked the ink and thread working together and I will probably use them together in the future as well as the water colour paper as it really absorbed the ink which made for a speedier production with less ink smears. 

The feedback for these were really mixed 

The positives; 

"didn't even realise this was paper cut, so detailed." 

                        "Great use of different mediums" 

"Nice paper use"

"What could have been perceived as obvious ideas have been really well crafted into interesting and intricate pieces" 

"Seem nostalgic" 

"Fun and calming" 

The negatives/ critical; 

"Borders a bit carelessly cut" 

"Change your blades more often" 

"Use black for all three" 

"Text is abit squished on midsummers night dream" 

I was quite pleased with the feedback because it reflected how I felt about my pieces and I didn't feel any of the comments of the negative side were wrong and all were justified. I felt like there were things that I could take away to work on and feel like it's the best feedback I had so far. 

Overall I was pleased with these 3 pieces because I think I've tried different things with them and that I experimented a fair bit within the brief to come out with a result that I feel is satisfactory and I can be proud of to an extent (obviously not proud of my borders but that's something to take away for next time - buy better blades and a better ruler).