Self Evaluation

Leeds College of Art BA (Hons) ILLUSTRATION	Level	04
OUIL404 Visual Language	Credits	20
End of Module Self Evaluation

NAME	KATIE MAY WADE

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? PHOTOSHOP – Learnt the basics which then helped inform my personal practice. Now much more comfortable with it which allowed me to play around with composition, colour and other things learnt in this module. WACOM – I had never really used one of these before but I used it at various points across this module. I am now more comfortable with it and it now impacts my personal practice. USE OF PENCIL – For one of the tasks within this module we were required to use just pencil, I didn’t like it initially but now I have seen what can be done with it (through what I did myself and what other practitioners have done with it) I will definitely be employing it more within my own practice. OBSERVATIONAL SKILLS – We also had a module on observational skills, it really improved these skills. It helped me both to draw faster and to draw more accurately slowly. It helped me be less precious about my work and to just record things I am seeing around me. I have been using this skill already in my personal practice and it has really informed my sketchbook work already.
COLLAGE – I didn’t like this but after looking at other practitioners helped me open my mind to collage and see how it is a useful sketchbook tool and how to arrange things in a more aesthetically pleasing way. Now I have seen what can be done with it I will be using it in my own practice to record my findings, among other tasks.
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?
COLOUR – Learning about colour was a real turning point in this module. I had never before heard about accent colours and had never really noticed colour palettes in films I had watched but after learning more about it I found it was one of the most valueable things I  gained from this module. I now think about colour palettes before I start most of my work and consider accent colours, it has already informed another module I am working on and I hope that it will also inform my own practice so I will be producing more considered work. FRAME – This was also another key transitional moment in this module, learning about frame completely changed how I work. I learnt how to work to a frame and what frames suit what I am doing as well as learning to work to a frame.  Thumbnailing is now something I am constantly doing in my work and putting a frame around my thumnbnails helps me consider Line of sight and composition before I turn it into a larger image. I am already using what I learnt about frame in my own personal practice and it is very successful thus far. COMPOSITION – Composition opened my eyes to illustration, I had never before considered anything more than a background but now I consider it much more. I think before I make, I think about materials and how the size of things within the frame suggests different things. Using thumbnails before I make a big picture is something I do often now to establish different compositions and view points before I actually make the picture. This module also helped me to look at other practicioners work and identify foreground, midground and backgrounds before going away and considering my own.
3. What strengths can you identify within your Visual Language submission how can you capitalise on these?
FRAME – my work is always considered within a frame (after frame lesson)         Working to dimensions the rest of the module improved my outputs        Thumbnailing improved the way I considered things MARK MAKING – Tried variations of mark making within the submission               Tried new things and produced interesting work as a result               Helped me think about ways to show tone using hatching etc. COLOUR – Much more considered after the lesson on it           Create colour palettes before most things I make now           One of the first things I consider and my work within the module improved as a result.          SHAPE – After the lesson on shape it helped me be less precious with my work and to know that there is a time and place for mark making. When I am thumbnailing I now just use solid shapes rather than worrying about shading or details. Work is now stronger as a result.
4. What areas for development can you identify within your Visual Language submission and how will you address these in the future?
PENCIL USE – I enjoyed using it but I need to practice how I use it to suit my personal style of work. I will do this by using pencil more in my own personal work and looking at how other practitioners use it to see if theres a way it will suit me. COMPOSITION – Although I am good at composition I could be much better at it, I will keep practicing through the use of thumbnails and thinking about new ways to show the background of things. Looking at more artists will also help inform my work as now I know what it is that I am looking for. COLLAGE – Initially I didn’t like this but now I will be using it as a means to record things in my journal. I will keep a record of artists such as Nick White and Caitlin Hazel and see how they use collage to create something that is collaged but considered. COLOUR – This was also both strong and not strong in my submission, some pieces of work have a colour palette that really works for them and others don’t (screenprint). I think I will have to keep looking into accent colours and keep it in mind more as I create work.
5. In what way has this module informed how you deconstruct and analyse artwork (whether your own or that of contemporary practitioners)?
After this module I can now look at a piece of art work and see the considerations in it. Now when I look at illustrations I see that they aren’t just made- they are a product of various considerations. Looking at other artists helped me see how different people employ line of sight, composition, colour etc to their advantage and to suit their own style to it. Now I can look at a finished piece of work and identify areas that I need to improve on (composition, colour) and know where to look to help improve my work. Analysing my work constantly through this module really helped me think about what I was making and to understand further why I was doing what I was doing. It also helped me to visually engage people by seeing how other practitioners do it and to learn about the visual devices that will engage people (colour, viewpoint, line of sight etc).  I will continue to do analyse my work and see each time where improvements can be made so I can become a better illustrator as a result of it.
6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance				x
Punctuality			x
Motivation			x
Commitment			x
Quantity of work produced		x
Quality of work produced			x
Contribution to the group					x
The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self-evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

A copy of your end of module self evaluation should be posted to your studio practice blog. This should be the last post before the submission of work and will provide the starting point for the assessment process. Post a copy of your evaluation to your PPP blog as evidence of your own on going evaluation.

Notes

SB1: Collage and Ephemera

This week we thought about collage and ephemera and using odds and ends in our work. Our task was to create a poster using scanned in images/textiles/found items/ephemera to do with our chosen subject and giving a spin on our subject. I wasn't really sure how to proceed with mine to start with, my first attempt was a hamster fashion show but my hamster ate the clothes and the pictures didn't work out so well for that. 

So I decided to do some research on how others might tackle the same sort of thing. I looked at Nick White's blog (thisisnickwhite.com) and how he brings ephemera together to make a picture.  He used a mixture of hand drawn type and scanned in images to create this poster and I think it was really effective because of it's weirdness.

 I also think in some of his work although it looks random he is actually considering the colour palette involved. The background of this poster is red and he uses green type and green snippets to combat the red. Then he uses blue and yellow next to each other and they are also complimenting each other. Although it is messy, it is well considered mess. I thought about this as I was creating my own work. 

This is my final poster, I decided to do a chronic bitch face competition poster after I scanned in lots of textures and faces from a fashion book and noticed the same dead expression. The whole page is made from scanned in textures (including the pink dotty background) and I used photoshop to combine them all together. I could have printed them out seperately and combined it that way but I found using photoshop allowed me to keep changing the position of the girls faces without worrying about having to pull them off from glue. 

I used the pen tool to keep in some handwritten type, although I think it works, I also think it could have looked nicer if I had just taken the time to photocopy in some type or scan in my own handwriting. 

Overall I was quite pleased with the final and liked the look of it. 

SB1: Colour, value and notan -do something good screen print

This week were given the task to create a screenprint of "something good" using 2 colours and the background colour of our print. At first I didnt really know where to go with it so I drew out some roughs. I was thinking about literally doing something good to start with (making a cake for someone, diving to rescue someone) but then I got onto the idea of communication and giving someone a call. 

 I decided on the idea of two people communicating, first I thought of doing it through phones but then I changed my mind and thought letters would be better. Before I started thinking about colouring I looked at some more of Matt Taylor's stuff because I really like his colour palettes he uses within his work. 


After I looked through his blog I started to play around with some colours to see how it would work. My initial idea was to split the story into 3 but after I created the first draft I liked the two either side more than the middle. 

I decided to then create a screenprint that could be viewed from either direction, to fit in with the idea of letters being sent and letters recieved by both persons and to show how its something good for both people. 

After I was happy with the design I created the two negatives and put them on tracing paper to line them up. 

When I got into the screenprint room I changed my mind on the colours, I originally wanted blue and yellow but decided against yellow for a lighter pink instead. On reflection I wish I hadn't done this because the pink didn't come out as well. 

The blue however worked really effectively and picked up on some of the finer details. Whereas the pink struggled to come through. After speaking to the technician he suggested the reason the pink wasnt coming through was because I let the paint dry on the screen after the first pull and also that my screen might not have been exposed as well as it could have. Both of these things I will take into consideration next time. 

I think if I got to do this again I would do a similar concept, I really liked the idea of the screenprint being able to be read from both angles but I think I would make it with more solid colours inside for a stronger overall effect. 

SB2: Line of Sight: Transport

This week we were thinking about transport and line of sight, we looked at different pictures and identified their line of sight. 

I wanted to think about some different kinds of transport, I started thinking about underwater worlds and the city of atlantis and what they would use to get around. I had a lot of fun just inventing a few ideas for this. 

I started thinking about the background city and what kind of things would be in the midground as well as the background. I then started thinking about the frame to put it in and what story could be told from each frame. I picked one which I thought would show the most transport and started to work on that. 

I decided to work with ink and pencil on this piece of work, which i think worked quite nicely although I think I could have been bolder and worked on blue paper and maybe white on top. I was quite pleased with the end piece as I think it does have a line of sight and things leading your eye to different areas. 

SB2: viewpoint and depth: 3 figures

After drawing it out a few times, I drew it in a more square frame just as it worked better with the rink. The one restriction with this piece was it had to be done in pencil crayon. I struggled with this the most but I think that I used colours better this time as i was ensure with the media I wanted to keep it simple. Although I do not like drawing in pencil I like how I was forced to use it and I think this is a stronger piece of work coming from that constriction. Im also really pleased with how my human proportions have improved through this module.  

Before I started with the pencil crayon I looked at Laura Carlin's work as she uses it throughout her pieces and it is really effective. She also really considers viewpoint and depth which was a good thing to look at throughout. 

 At first I wasnt sure where I wanted the coach but in the end I decided he would look best as the biggest figure in the picture so I placed him in the far right placing the viewer just behind him looking in on the scene. 

After a while one became prominent to me and I decided to pick it. It took some playing around with sizes though. I decided to make the coach really big in the frame and the skaters slightly smaller depending on their distance. 

I decided to go with the actual ice skating rink as the focus of the 3 figures as I could include two skaters and their coach and the crowd would help form a nice frame. I started sketching out different ideas. 

These are just some stances I picked up from watching the ice skating olympics on youtube, they did later help inform my work.
This week we were thinking about viewpoint as well as considering composition in our work. To start with I was thinking about ice skating mostly because I had been looking at their clothes as an extension of the Haute couture (as I was getting bored with it I wanted to look at some other aspects). These are some of my first roughs. 

SB2: Frame: Elephant, butterfly & You.

For this task we were told to draw a elephant a butterfly and ourselves within a frame and include all three somehow. I found this task quite easy to do, I roughed out a few and quickly picked one which I thought fitted well with its frame and included all 3. 

 I then drew it bigger to see how it would work to scale. Afterwards I got some black ink and inked it onto the final piece of paper. 

Here is a picture of it on the wall next to others and one in my own room, a bit closer up. I was pleased with the final but I wish I had drawn the butterfly stronger so it looked more like it was trapped inside the cup. I enjoyed using the ink and I feel much more comfortable with it now then I did a few weeks ago. This task made me realise how important thinking about a frame is before you draw something in final. This piece works well within a square frame but it would look completely different in a rectangle frame.

SB2: What is composition: 3 elements task

On this task we were allowed to deviate from our topic, this was good for me because I was getting bored with fashion as i found it hard to create personable characters. For this task I drew some roughs and knew before I made it that I wanted to experiment with gouache on this. For this reason, most of the first drafts involving a mermaid were not considered for the final because i realised after experimenting with the gouache that it would take a long time to dry and create scenes like I had planned. 

I looked at Mikkel Sommer again for this because I think he has a real sense of composition and frame in his work as well as consideration of media. 

There is an obvious foreground, midground and background in his work and when I was getting stuck thinking about them his work helped me draw more roughs. 

Instead I tried to think of some simpler scenes, I created my roughs in sequences of 3 so I could be thinking about a long shot, mid shot and close up and what I could include in these. This came from looking at Wes Anderson and Quentin Tarintino films where frames are heavily considered and every element is essential to the shot. 

I finally decided on one where my gouache would work in the backghround but there was also consideration of mid/foreground. I created the gouache background first using cellotape to keep it out of areas I wanted to marker over, then I created the buildings and finally I tipexed in buildings to the background.   I think it worked reasonably well and if I was to do it again I would perhaps think the colour palette through a little better but I was pleased with how it turned out. I think if I did it again I would probably make something bigger to emphasise it being closer.