PPP end of module evaluation

End of Module Self Evaluation

NAME	Rebecca williamson

1.     What skills have you developed through this brief and how effectively do you think you have applied them? I have developed my line work in this brief by using a multiply of pen thicknesses to create a stronger since of depth and to show different areas/shades of shadow areas. I have also developed my Photoshop skills, I have learned how to apply bursts of subtle colours to particularly parts of my drawings to give the impression of clothing colour but not overwhelm of give complete the illustration, instead I wanted the viewer to be able to do this for themselves with the hint of colour I gave them to work with.
2. What approaches to/methods of image making have you developed and how have they informed your concept development process?
In my development work I tired to save myself time by drawing the intial sketch of the image I was working on, scanning it in to the computer, and reprinting it several times to develop on top with different medias, this saved me redrawing the basic structure and allowed me to spend more time improving, reapliying, and developing meidas until I found a techniquw I thought worked the best. I experimented with using the detailed oencil drawing technique I have used in the past but combining it with other medias such as paint, 3d materials, collage. However in this module I have also pushed myself to develop my drawing technique as well and changing the media I mix it with. Becayse I wanted the jewellery and objects of the different cultured woman to be a main focus I needed to simplify the drawing technique so I experimented with applying less tones and shading unitll I developed a technique that just used shape to represent shadow areas.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
I think my time management on this project (illustrated self) has been good as I have had the finals completed before crits which has allowed me to discuss and take advise on how I could improve them ready for hand in. I am also pleased that I have been able to push myself into a techniquw that I have never used before, this has made me more confindent to come out of my comfort zone.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?
My main weakness on this project was spending to long decided in a theme, beucase we had a lot more freedom to choose our own subject I worried that I would pick one that I would loose interest in and therefore would not create effective work.- this lost me vitial time to research my chosen theme and develop ideas. I think maybe I could of improved of showing the concept in my work, I feel that by just drawing portraits, the idea of a variety beauty is not very obvious
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
PPP- Reflective blog- make sure I post things that are not necessariely illustrations but more about me and what inspires or interests me. Evaluate post each time I unploads them to save me having to revisit! When giving freedom, give myself a time limit on deciding on a idea so it doesn’t eat in to the time I can spend researching futher and developing it practically. Make sure I understand each study task, to save me wasting time in having to redo it. Remember to post activities we have done in studio sessions.
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.

postcards from Barcelona

reflection of year

WHAT HAVE I TAKEN FROM THE YEAR?

At the beginning of the course I felt I wasn't progressing and my work didn't seem to be improving. However looking back I can see where I have had transformative moments and where I have began to enjoy myself and come of my comfort zone.

For example, visually narratives was a great opportunity for me to get on independently and focus and develop on techniques I enjoy, though we have to show experimentations with media I did not feel pressure to use techniques I was not confident with- much like what we had to do in A levels and foundation which I struggled to do as I lost confident and enthusiasm in my work as I found it hard to show passion and interest in certain media choices therefore this year has been great for me  to just relish as a illustrator.

Over the year I have learned to create work, which has a purpose and a potential message behind it, which I have surprisingly really enjoyed. Though before I thought I liked the freedom to draw whatever I wanted, having a direction, guidelines and specific subject to explore has been much more engaging and intriguing to see what I can create from a body of research.

Group work has really help me gain confidence and develop as a learner, though at times I found it frustrating to loose time I could be using to carry on developing my work, without other peoples options and possible directions I think my work would not have the same ending result.

Inspriatations- before I began this course I had very little artist inspirations, purly because I did not give myself the time to find them or know where to look. I had little option on what I thought was an effective piece of work, I tend to just find work which showed detail like this piece by joel penkman

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now a year down the line, I  struggled to pick which work to show! I feel other illustratiors have really influenced my work and allowed me to procress and develop a broader tone of voice.

However this year these artist have been a big influence on my work, I have started to use different width lines like the work of Lucinda Rodgers and I have stated to add suble blocks of colour and use empty outlines shapes like Judith van hoek does here.

Frustrations.

It has been frustrating when printing off finalized work and finding faults which had not notice on Photoshop, this is something I feel I need to, and will improve on the more I use digital printing methods.

Another thing I have found frustrating this year is not having the time to unwind and forget about work or deadlines, though I know this comes with the territories of a degree, I have sometimes found it very overwhelming and stressful to have multiply projects with multiply deadlines running alongside each other, at times it has felt like the thing I love to do has turned into a burden instead of a pleasure.  

Another frustration I came across at the beginning of visual language was being restricted to certain medias and techniques I was not confident with, I felt my work lacked visual quality which inevitably made me loose interest and struggle to find ways to make my work innovative and impressive.

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It was also very frustrating see other people excess in this module when I couldn’t see myself improving.

Transformative moments

Towards the end of the year I think I began to try to hard to make my ideas more interesting and literal, which inevitably over complicated them, from the feedback I have received, I recognize that my simplistic approach has been more successful and visually engaging.

Though I found it really hard to push myself to use the different techniques asked of use in visually language, I eventually found a technique I enjoyed by mixing a method I used to answer the collage and shape visual language task with the detailed drawing technique love.

Though I appreciate and learn from studio support, I have realized my own working environment is very important to me to get into the right mindset to work. I much prefer to get on in my own time, instead of having set times to work, sometimes I can't create work when im in the wrong mood- and this inevitably leads to poor quality and therfore a waste of time.

3 strengths

When evaluating and reflecting on work, I feel I am good at pointing out the strengths and weaknesses within each piece.

I feel I am becoming more confident In the media I tend to use and feel that I have pushed myself to develop and prefect my style by incorporating other medias, this is something I put of doing in previous years as I liked to stay in my comfort zone.

I feel I have improved on how I show concept through final work due to more in-depth research before starting on a piece, where as before this course I sometimes used go ahead with a idea without background research.

3 weaknesses

One of my main weaknesses, which I have struggled with throughout most of my creative education, is the fear of making ‘bad drawings’

I have always struggled to try out new techniques in the fear of producing work that lacks visually quality, and the dread of spending so much time on pieces of work that turn out to be awful, this inevitably is effecting my development as an illustrator and is something I need to address!

Another weakness of mine is leaving the annotation of blogs post till late. Though I regularly post the progress of my project in picture form of my and research, I tend to leave the writing till later as I felt it would take up vital time I needed to develop my ideas practically and might restrict my creative flow. However when having to revisit the posts it has been a challenge to maintain my interest and remember each points I have wanted to make about the work.

This year I have also had a tendency to priorities visual skills/narratives/communications over other modules.

Because these modules have shorter deadlines I have tended to invest most of my time into them, I have always thought they were the 'main' projects and therefore the most important, where in fact they are worth the exact same percentage as the year long modules.

Another weakness of mine is going into to much detail or explaining myself to much in blog post in the fear of my work or ideas not being understood correctly, I find It hard to explain myself directly and I fear that the amount of time I spend trying to do so is minimizing the time I am spending on the practical side of modules.

3 creative concerns

I need to remember to explore each learning outcome equally if I want to achieve good results with my work- this has been one of my downfalls this year, though in some modules I feel I have put more effort into, I have come out with the same percentage, which has been a disappointment and a frustration. I need to make sure I understand what the module is asking of me and how I divide my workloads to fit each criteria equally.

Do I have what it takes to be an illustrator?

Though I have always known a creative careers are very competitive, after hearing first hand from other illustrators (big heads) about there struggles of staying in the illustration business I worry that I may not be as driven, strong or good enough to cope with such a demanding career.

Personal aims

I intend to carry on combing more medias to find effect techniques.

I also want to improve my skills on Photoshop and illustrator so I can use it to visually enhance the quality of my work.

I also plan to take advantage of facilities on offer at LCA –

Such as print and etching rooms: from the etching induction I really likes the detailed line effect you can achieve from both etching and dry point, in level 5 I want to experiment with this technique so I become familiar with the process and can use it to develop my work.

Personal ambitions

I aim to solve through more making! As I now know from my own experience in visual language that though this does involve frustration and awful drawings’ I will eventually find something that is worth further development.

I aim to experiment with simpler drawing techniques, which do deal with detail but are also minimalistic.

But my most important aim I want to achieve over the next year is to figure out which route of illustration I want to pursue in the future so I have something to work towards!

What part of the year have I found the hardest

I found the visually narrative one of the most challenging modules so far; I think I underestimated how long it would take me to produce 16 pages in the style I chose.

Composing the COP essay was also very difficult for me, I found it very time consuming and difficult to juggle other work along side, as I had to dedicate a large amount of time to completing the essay because writing is not my strong point.

Also, Especially towards the start of the year where we were time tabled in for a lot of workshops and studio session, I found it very difficult to balance uni and time i needed to complete work for deadlines after the uni day. However as the year went on and I was used to the expectations of the course, and we were able to have more studio development time this became easier to manage. It has also been difficult to balance day-to-day living, which I did not necessary account for when I studied at home, such as time it takes to make tea, clean, etc.

GOAL study task 4

my goals -

although i do not want to admit it, i feel i am quite a pessimist and therefore tend to put enormous pressure and expectations onto myself which makes me stressed and not always happy with work i produce.though in some aspects i feel its good to put pressure onto myself as it means i always try and do my best, it also leaves me with unrealistic expectations. though i don't want to change my work ethic of wanting to do the best i can, i will try and work on my confidence, and if i create work  i am not happy with i will aim to learn and develop from it. - i.e. embrace bad drawings!! 

i will try and remember Rolf stedmans advise ‘there are no such things as mistakes’