Self Evaluation Visual Narratives

 

Leeds College of Art BA (Hons) ILLUSTRATION	Level	04
OUIL405 Visual Narratives	Credits	20
End of Module Self Evaluation

 

NAME	Adele Pierce

 

1.  What skills have you developed through this brief and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
Throughout this brief I think I have definitely strengthened my drawing skills; analysing my line work by drawing and re-drawing images. I have learnt to not rely on reference material so much but rather using it to influence my drawing. For example, I collected photographs of people in lifts, but having done this on the sly some of the images weren’t at the best quality so I would just use them as a starting point to create my illustrations then adapt them and play around with compositions. I have also attended book binding sessions and Indesign workshops to develop skills in book making that could benefit my work in the future. I have learnt to manage my time effectively to stick to deadlines by making weekly plans and targets to hit to ensure leaving time for any mistakes. I feel I have developed my Photoshop skills more as I mentioned I would in previous briefs; I am definitely exploring this more for example adding text to my final outcomes was something new for me. I also feel that I have strengthened my research and development process by having an idea and running with it; developing it as much as possible and evaluating which pieces work best to be included within my final outcomes, and which weren’t up to scratch which I feel is evident within my sketch book.
2. What approaches to/methods of image making have you developed and how have they informed your concept development process?
Initially when researching into the project we were unable to draw what we saw. I found it very difficult to express myself without drawing so I still included a few rough sketches in my little sketchbook which I feel was a good starting point. These sketches were quick and loose and have a lot of character to them I feel. I was including text around them of conversations I had heard and I find that quite interesting; something I may explore more in future briefs. From this I went on to study groups of people entering lifts and created drawings from this. For some of the people stood a while I managed to sketch; there were many that were passing quickly so I had to stick to photographing them and using the photographs to draw from. I feel this lost a lot of the quality of line because I was focusing more and I quite liked the initial drawings being more free and lively. I worked on my drawing style quite a bit but maybe could have done more so; as I was trying to communicate humour through my final outcome I felt it was important to keep my drawing style ‘funny.’ In order to do this, I referenced an illustrator of whom I felt his work was very humorous due to his drawing style. I explored a similar approach within my drawing my using thick outer single lines, and thinner lines inside to represent folds and creases with a thinner pen. Sometimes these did not come across as well scanned in and edited on Photoshop. I decided to stick to one thin line on most of my drawings and will need to explore this more in future. For my final outcomes I scanned in my drawings; opened them on Photoshop and adjusted the white background then erased any unwanted lines. From this I created multiple layers of different opacity as multipliers to add colour. In order to reflect being in a lift I didn’t want the full book to be really bright colours as it wouldn’t reflect the concept; however I still wanted the book to be playful so it took a while to print and re print pages and go back editing the opacities in order to get it right.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
I feel that my work best represents the concept that I was trying to deliver and is relatable to an audience. That was the biggest concern for me, that my work would not be funny – but from feedback that I have been given everyone has laughed when reading it which is all I could ask for. I feel that my drawing technique is improving and this is done by drawing something out multiple times. I also feel that using a larger sketchbook has definitely benefitted me. It has allowed me to think about my composition and explore my drawing rather exhaustively. I think my sketchbook is well organised which has been a strength for me this brief. I feel I have used my time wisely and got the most out of my days within the studio. I often stayed behind until 7 which benefitted me a lot to get things done. I kept up to date with my blog and this allowed for me to go back and see which ideas were working well and whether I was still being true to my concept. It helped me organise my ideas effectively and not miss anything out. I feel that my work is strong in its development process which is something that I received good feedback on. There is a clear understanding within my sketchbook, I feel, of evaluating every possible outcome and things that aren’t working so well. I think having to make a book whereby there is a sense of journey, there has to be a clear sense of journey within your sketchbook too of how you got to that final point.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?
Though I felt I managed my time effectively, I don’t think I allowed enough time for any mistakes to occur. There were a lot of hinderences when creating my final product that I hadn’t took into consideration. This set me back time to tweak and polish up my final designs which is something I definitely needed to do. I also restricted myself to a few hours of book binding which I could have spent more time on. My final outcome, in my eyes, is a disaster, because I was so organised and ready I feel I was over confident and rushed into it. I should have created my envelope piece and the book separately and spent more time planning out the net for the envelope to scale it correctly. I also should have took more consideration over the layout of my Indesign file; because when it came to printing my pages were not in order and I had to add two pages which messed up the whole concept of my book. My initial idea was to have a book sliding out of an envelope to replicate sliding doors of a lift. The front cover of the book was to be a man stood facing away as if the reader was immediately ignored. When speaking to an IT technician I was told that printing a saddle-stich book meant it worked as a 4 page format, and that only having 18 pages meant I either had to add two, or take two away. Looking back I should have took two pages away that weren’t as strong and humorous; but stupidly I decided to add two. I added these pages in the wrong place, meaning that when it came to print the book the front cover was a plain grey sheet with text; rather than the illustration of the figure which I wanted. I also did not include a bleed which meant that I lost a lot of my image when trimming. I had to trim my book down quite a bit to fit into my envelope as I must have measured it wrong. I did not realise I had cut off a lot of the text on the left hand side which ruins it. However, I have definitely learnt from my mistakes and feel that in future briefs I need to do a lot more mock up attempts to get things right and analyse just how long things take in order to manage my time. I definitely feel as an image maker, I learn more when I make mistakes and so this is all a learning curve for me.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
I will make a conscious effort to plan weekly as I feel this benefitted me a lot towards the end of the project and is not something that I usually do. I feel I spent far too much time researching and not enough time developing my drawing and colouring skills. I need to explore media more when approaching the colouring of my work rather than diving straight into Photoshop. I perhaps could have played around with watercolours or inks as other media outcomes. I will use a range of drawing tools also; rather than fine liners to explore my drawing techniques and ensure my drawings reflect the concept. I will work more on creating images from imagination rather than reference which will help shape an understanding of my drawings and once again create more concept rather than simply drawing what I see in front of me. I think everything that I have said I would do in previous briefs, I have explored in this one other than a broad range of media. This I know is a weakness of mine; as once I get an idea in my head that I want to run with I explore that exhaustively. I need to learn to be more open to other media as digitally colouring my work may not always work out as well. I will also stay behind in the studio more as those extra hours really benefit me. This can be hard sometimes as I work part-time on an evening four nights a week, but I will definitely stay behind on the days where I am not working. I think I work best on evenings, sometimes on a morning it takes me a good few hours to pull round and my image making is not as strong.
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

Time Management

Rules - 10 rules to obide by in order to attend University and cope with the modules better.

Distractions - things that prevent me from doing work and getting tasks done

Splitting our time up to see how long things take within a week

This is a timetable for the week of how I will plan my time, fitting in social domestic and academic tasks and where my priorities will lie. I often write lists and notes of things I need to do but never looked at the bigger picture, at a full week of what needs doing when. This helps if you stick to it!

Illustrators/ People of interest

Adrian Tomine - New York drawings

I find Tomine's work influencial because of his drawng style; it is very simplistic yet the scenes have a lot going on within them. This is something that I find myself doing within my own work and this influences me when working with digital devices such as Illustrator and Photoshop. I like his colour palette which is subtle and this is the kind of style I feel I am working towards.

Arline Oberman

Really nice line drawings with ink, which reminds me to strip down my drawings and simplify my lines.

Colman Andrews - the taste of America

I like how quite simple media is used to create a really nice bold finished piece packed with tone and almost looks life-like.

Joe Simpson - Across America drawing's and oil paintings

I think these are absolutely amazing. He travelled around America collecting sketches of streets and tourist places and then later turned them into oil paintings which is so clever. The oil paintings are like a photograph! And I recognize some of the places from being in New York. I don't think I would ever be able to paint to this standard but even the drawings alone are fantastic. I really like the line quality of them.

Mario Zucca - Dad and Taunus 1969

His work I find really nice just because of the attention to line. Each image made up of tiny little lines to create shadow and tone - but even what is nice in this piece is the street light and the buildings in the background. No straight lines, I like how they are not correct. I find myself drawing similar to this as well. Also again like the subtle colours used here.

Matt Dorfman - Book layout designs

When looking into book design and bookbinding I was trying to find illustrators that encorporate interesting layouts and Matt Dorfman was one that interested me.

Tamsin Nagel

Really delicate line drawings, lovely colour and I even like the encorporation of text, and the style of the text against these lovely drawings.

Tom Hovey - The great british bake off

I like the detail within these drawings yet theyre stylistic, and the choice of colour used.

Chris Wane

Similar to Adrian Tomine I like the digital techniques used, however Wane's has more dynamic, with selective use of tone, and interesting perspective.

 David Foldvari

What I like about these pieces I think the most is the selective use of colour. Monotone pieces with a splash of colour for text or thoughts - they're really humorous and have a lot of character to them. I think as drawings they are beautiful as well really delicate lines against some bold sketchy ones - well thought out. They also work as illustrations well because they reflect on society and politics.

 Lizzie Stewart

     I really like the use of line within this piece and how detailed it is as well as the composition.

Christine Berry

I like how Christine has took everyday simple objects and made art pieces out of them this particularly influenced me when I was looking at boomboxes for visual language.

                                                                   

Sarah Maycock

I love the quality of the brush strokes here in order to create shape - hardly any thin lines used, and yet immediately know that it is a bear. Really nice texture and fluidity.

                                                  

Jonathan Ashworth - Lino cuts

I find it fascinating how Ashworth has made these drawings through lino cuts; something that I don't think I would have the patience to do and planning to think of all the different levels that it entails in order to create tone

 Nigel Peake

I think these drawings best replicate my kind of style and this is how I would draw if I was approaching these buildings/objects. I like the use of ink for the text as well this has influenced me when thinking about my book design.

                      

  Moebius

I liked the composition of this piece and the strong lines when creating the characters. I would like to have the confidence to draw with a single line when creating the human figure - I tend to be quite sketchy because I am not so confident with getting the form spot on.

                                                                 

Laura Callaghan

 I love these drawings because there is no tone involved, and the focus is the quality of the line, selectively capturing what Is most important to be portrayed. However I do wish she would use better media to colour.

                                                             Mikkel Sommer

                                                                    Tina Berning

                                                                David Hockney

 Lucinda Rogers

I absolutely love this work because although it is not proportionally correct it captures the atmosphere so well - especially the New York piece with selective colours. It seems Lucinda uses a technique that I have used previously to apply strokes of colour and then draw on top of those. I really like this technique and is something I am going to work on further to produce more professional outcomes such as these.

 Noma Bar

Influenced me when looking at shape - using objects to create emotions and facial expressions.

Luke Best

Jillian Tamaki

Jenny Bowers

                                                                       Edward Bawden

                                                                 Ryo Takemasa

                                                              Miroslav Sasek

Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (not an illustrator but still)

I love the idea of taking something and transforming it into something completely opposite. Duchamp took a urinal and called it a fountain which is genius because who says it is a urinal? Who decides it's purpose? If we could wash our hands in it then why not? It is ironic and it is art because we would never dream of washing our hands in a urinal.

Mr Bingo

Andrew Rae

Dan Goldman

Tim Kirby

Lis Watkins

Matt Bannister

Kimya Dawson - Songwriter

Sohoyo

Thea Brine

Carol Anne Duffy - poet