End of module Self Evaluation

Throughout this module I have learnt how to approach a brief and use the timescale to the best of my advantage. I feel I have learnt a lot about brainstorming quick ideas and producing a series of thumbnails in order to generate ideas. From this I draw and re-draw images to stimulate visual thinking and assess my drawing technique. I need to remember to pick up different pens as I am thumbnailing to try out new things. After this module I am going to buy brush pens and experiment with those as well as other media such as watercolour.

I feel that I have progressed from the first brief to the last looking back and evaluating my work I realized coming to the last brief the areas I needed to work on and things that were working successfully for me. I need to draw more, and to a larger scale - which is something I worked on in the last brief using loose sheets of paper rather than my little sketchbook. This gave me the freedom to keep re-drawing things and working on the proportions. I need to consider my composition more in future briefs. 'A day in the life' was a great brief for this and made me realize how framework can actually enhance your image rather than using it as a restriction. I have opened my eyes to other possibilities of working when in group crits seeing how others perceive a quote or an article and the media they use to display their concept.

I think my final brief is the strongest in terms of development, ideas, and putting those into a polished final outcome. I would not consider my body of work as consistent - I do feel in the first couple of briefs I was still trying to figure out what media I enjoyed and prioritising my work load. I feel I have successfully got the hang of this now and I am ready to take on future briefs.

I feel overall if I am being totally honest that I have not been very interested in the briefs up until this last one. Given the freedom to put my own spin on a quote inspired a vast amount of ideas; and the final idea I came up with meant that it could be interpreted in many ways. I became very interested in this brief and with it being humorous enjoyed creating images that would make people laugh. Therefore I feel I was more motivated into spending time drawing images, re-drawing them, working on the proportions, figuring out compositions.

I will buy bigger sketchbooks and draw constantly to show a constant development; as well as being more experimental with media. Working more on Photoshop will allow me to be experimental with collaging textures and exploring shape more rather than detailed drawings. I am going to practice more with paint and creating work that does not rely on humour so much.

From the feedback I have been given throughout people have commented on how I should practice with ink and watercolour for more subtle colouring which is something I will definitely bare in mind in future when creating work with tone. 

STUDY TASK 1 & 2 & 3 & 4

Why am I here? What do I want to learn?

- Why do I chose to study this programme?

- What do I wish to learn during my time on the programme?

- Skills I think are my strengths

- Things I want to improve

- How will I evaluate my process?

I chose to study illustration because for most of my educational life I have never found something I have been 100% passionate about. Nothing quite made me feel complete. I studied fine art for most of my time alongside English literature and language. Though I excelled in creative writing and poetry I felt language did not fulfill my ideas to their potential. Art alongside this was also great to be able to show off my skills and techniques and explore my passion. To be able to combine the two together to create work applied to a brief and have a meaning behind it, a sense of narrative has finally gave me a sense of direction and where I want to be. 

I chose to study this programme in particular because with it being the first year of the programme I knew that allowed me to lay the foundations of what illustration is and could be. I knew that it meant a great sense of competition within the industry against other subjects and also working alongside them in the art college. I also wanted to live in Leeds as a city I think it provides a great balance between the hustle and bustle and a chilled atmosphere, with so many things going on and opportunities to take up. 

What do I want to learn? Everything.. anything I possibly can. I wish to improve my skills in all areas. Foundation degrees just give you a taster for what you want; this is how you blossom. I wish to become better at my digital image making on Photoshop and Illustrator, improve my drawing, learn how to approach my drawing with different media, experiment more. 

Learn different painting techniques and experiment more with paint

I want to learn new techniques with print rather than just monoprinting

Be more experimental with media

I think I have a great figure drawing skill attending life drawing for a lot of years. I have a strong sense of the human form from the flowing fluid movement lines, creases in clothing, to skin tones, posture and measured drawings of the body. I think one of my skills is that I am open to all aspects of illustration. I have not found my niche yet - my style if you will, which enables me to stay experimental.

Things I want to improve on would be technology on a whole I feel I am quite behind with - I am only just getting to grips with using a Mac! Digital image making. I want to improve my drawing skills by drawing obsessively and getting into the swing of doing that. I want to improve my use of media and be more experimental constantly. 

Improve drawing skills - simplified confident lines rather than fraying.

Improved digital techniques - as you can see I'm still learning the basics!

I will evaluate my process by constantly updating my blog and referring back to this. I will use my mistakes to learn from by blogging images that I don't necessarily like - or scanning them in and trying to improve them maybe on Photoshop. I will take feedback from others within the studio and log those on my blog to be able to refer back to as well and improve on.

What is Illustration? 

Categorising Illustration

Narrative, Conceptual, Investigative, Promotive, Informative

Looking at the tone of voice within an illustration, its purpose and its audience.

Illustration/illustrators that interests me : Lis Watkins

Olivier Kugler - The fruit & veg guy

This piece for me sums up everything that I think illustration is. Informative, educational, personal, investigative, reportage, the human form, exploration of tone, exploration of line, text, layers, blocks of colour. 

Matt Bannister

Philip Bannister

Colour

Margaret Welbank

Derek Bacon

Narrative

Dave Hill

Greg Becker

Advertisement - text

Marta Cerda

Black and white

Robert Butler

Caroline Church

Political references

James Benn

John Bradley

In the seminar group we brought in 5 images that represented either colour, narrative, simplicity, black and white, humour. My illustrations showed narration. We teamed all of our images together and categorised them. From this we decided on subcategories that were included within the illustrations. For example, for colour we listed: digital, traditional media, washy, soft, vibrant, shape, limited lines, contrast, selective, tone and shade, textures, analogue. These all made up the aesthetic of the pieces. 

 This is an image from our group discussion where we laid out our images

Pinned up illustrators that interest us from our group.

Illustrator that interested me someone else brought in - Nathan Bulmer. Humorous and really lovely line work. Could influence me to look at comic strips, illustrations with a storyline and an outcome. Simplistic.

5 things to improve

 - More experimental with media

- More open with my ideas

- Look more into illustrators and the field

- Improve my drawing skills

- Improve my technical skills on the computer, print, photography - make my work more finished

5 ways I will evaluate my process

- Crits in class

- Writing self evaluations

- My blog

- Asking my peers and tutors 

- Comparing my work to those around me and illustrators to constantly push myself

What is illustration?

How do these illustrations reflect my interests?

Humour - I am interested in illustration that makes me laugh, makes me feel something, a purpose to simply lighten a mood or a twist on something. I quite like seeing animals with human behaviours; or characters that are not the norm

Emotive - I really like seeing work that uses the aesthetic to reflect the concept.. For example ink washes with water to portray a really sad delicate moment. I like work that is quite disturbing sometimes, leaves an impression on the viewer. 

Composition - I am quite poor at considering composition within my work so I really appreciate when a piece has been well planned out and structured in a really intelligent way. 

Narrative - Having a background of English and creative writing I am very interested in sequencial illustration that portrays a narrative, or even one piece of imagery that tells a story in itself. I would like to one day become comfortable enough to tell a story through my illustrations alone without using text

PURPOSE OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS

HUMOUR

'Blueberry nocturne' - Tumblr

This made me really laugh. The cat looks so moody!

Unknown - tumblr

Personifying objects. I like this!

Seal of approval - silly things like this make me laugh

 Cyril Ronaldo

Emma Russell

Ian Stevenson

 Love the simplicity of this. I dont think it needs the text!

 Jill Tytherleigh

Lauren Mortimer

I think it is my guilty pleasure to see animals as humans!

Marc Johns

 Nate Frizzell

Pedro Demetriou

Nathan Pyle

 Shelley Revill

Narrative

Unknown  - tumblr

Though this is not necessarily my style of working I can really appreciate the work gone into it to create character and a scene. The colours really set a mood. 

I like the composition of this piece and I appreciate how difficult it must have been to build up these layers and the use of colour to create a line of sight.

 I like this piece because it is looking at an everyday ordinary situation and having sat observing people in coffee shops I really like this sort of stuff. Listening in on coversations and just writing little parts of what you hear. 

Abi Whitehouse

 Chris Russell

Igor Morski

This is mental! So much going on, I'm not sure who the character is but it makes me want to know more about him, why is all this craziness going on inside his head? Compositionally I think it works really well, maybe I'd like to see more emphasis on the little witch character in colour than the rest of the piece to draw your eye there more? Possibly too much going on, but still, really well crafted. 

 Nico Delort

Shirley Hughes

Emotive

Jason Shawn Alexander

I absolutely love this piece. I don't know what it makes me feel but theres a clear sense of struggle, of emotion, a scream and a crying out. I think the colours match the concept beautifully along with the application of the paint, running down the page. Lovely! Possibly one of my favourites

Joanne Nam

Megan Howland

I love these pieces because theres something quite disturbing about them. It reminds me of the film 'Birds' but at the same time theres a calm in the faces of the people, they seem at ease despite the busyness of the birds around them. 

PROCESS - MEDIA - FORMAT

Packaging

Unknown - Pinterest

Though packaging doesn't really interest me as a field to go down, some of these I thought were quite clever!

 Cecilia Uhr

Collage

Unknown - Pinterest

I like this idea of taking people out of circumstances to see if we appreciate what is around them. This is something I may try out in the future.

Holly Leonardson

Lesik Iren and Anshu

Really like this play on human and animals switching it round to create character

Lynsey Hunter

I really like the linework here combined with textures of everyday objects like maps, really nice

Mira Ruido

I love the colours used in this

 Rosanna Jones

I think this is a really interesting way of collage, taking a photograph and painting over it still keeping realistic aspects - creepy!

Sammy Slabbinck

Editorial

Elana Pei Ying

I really like this piece because it is taking something thats normal, and putting another worldly spin on it.

John Holcroft

This piece reminded me of the postcard brief we did where I drew a man eating a huge burger as a stereotypical representation of New York. They so say you are what you eat!

Jules verne

Koren Shadmi

This piece has good line of sight and use of colour, I need to work on both of these within my own work.

 Melinda Beck

Nas Chompas

 Shual

Unknown - For new york times, typography

Composition

Annie Owens

 Karl Kwansy

 Unknown - tumblr

Sketchbook

Unknown - Pinterest

I really like the composition of this piece it looks like the image maker has just got carried away with a doodle then decided to make it into something but at the same time looks planned because of the stroke of ink at the bottom left corner. 

Amanda Kavanagh

I think these are lovely and delicate especially at such a small scale I would love to be this precise and think in this way, sometimes I think I'm too messy. 

 Paul Heaston

I really like the linework on here I especially like the sky, and the way he crosshatches for tone. 

Ronald Searle

I love the fluidity of the linework here, reportage style you can tell he was rushing to get all of the information onto the page but it looks lovely. 

 Sabrina Ward Harrison
This to me just says thoughts, ideas, dreams all on one page. I love the colours, I love how it is put together so many levels and just one big thought mess. 

STUDY TASK 4

10 things I have learned about myself as a learner

• I struggle to concentrate on a morning
• I have to learn from my mistakes, particularly in workshops for things such as Photoshop, listening doesn't really sink in until I do it myself
• I have been quite ignorant to other practises
• I work best when I am alone 
• I can be easily distracted
• I tend to take criticism and actually use it constructively, I do listen
• I get comfortable with one form of media and concentrate on that for too long rather than being open and experimental
• I have a lot of ideas that don't always come across as well
• I am very good with researching a subject
• I am good at coming up with a unique and interesting concept

10 things I have learned about myself as an individual

• I am quite mature
• I am punctual, never late
• I don't take criticism to heart but rather use it to be better
• I am secretly quite competitive
• I am organised
• I never think I'm good enough
• I get quite stressed, but inwardly, I never let it show
• I am quite hard on myself
• I like funny things, funny people
• I am determined to succeed
• I fear that I don't have enough of the drive to be competitive within the industry
• I fear that I will not be confident enough to talk to clients and meet demands 

Overall, I think that I have the ambition and the passion to become an illustrator but fear that sometimes I may be too laid back to be driven enough to go out and look for work rather than letting work come to me. I think that I definitely have what it takes to meet briefs, and I am open to new ideas but sometimes do not like being told what to do, and like things my own way. I think that I am quite a shy person at first and this will be hard for me when meeting new people and getting work, making myself recognisable within the field. I'm a bit of a dreamer

Images associated with me

I've found that even looking back over all of these illustrators my interests change constantly as to what kind of work excites me. Initially I liked a lot of reportage artists, who use ink whereas now I am becoming more interested in narrative, sequencial illustrations, digital, and more about line and character.