End Of Module Evaluation

I feel that the beginning of this module was a little odd because at the time we’d only just started the course and I was confused as to why we began looking at other peoples work immediately as I’ve only done this before to try and replicate what I’ve seen in terms of their style or methods. However through the course of the year and through the different blog tasks we were set such as the picture book research into books that fall into different categories and the blog post about ourselves as learners, I realised that the point in this module was not to try and emulate other peoples work, but to give us a better understanding of where us and our work could end up sitting within the world of illustration. Once I realised that I felt a lot more engaged with the activities we were being set and was ready to be reflective about myself and my practise for the final presentation and poster.

I have learnt that as an illustrator its not enough to just make aesthetically nice work, there needs to ideally be some kind of driving thought or ethos behind it that you want to convey through it otherwise its going to end up looking how a lot of my work looked at the beginning of the year- soul-less. The illustrators that we looked at and researched have both very distinct visual styles and clear messages and themes in their work which makes their intent very clear and their work easier for people to relate to and that is what I believe makes them successful. It was also helpful to learn about the different categories of picture books as it helped me to see that we don't all have to strive to make things that will only appeal to the very mainstream publishers, we cans till make our work how we want it for ourselves and then find the category in which it sits best.

Throughout the year this module has also helped me to examine the way in which I make pictures, mainly I’m happy using watercolour, gouache and occasionally mixing a bit of coloured pencil in to give a bit more detail. And at the start of the year especially I really tried hard not to get too stuck into using only those methods as I know I’m confutable with them already so instead I used collage, ink and particularly tried hard to use digital methods. Looking back at it now I’m really happy that I pushed myself to trial all those different methods as I think not only they've given me more confidence in knowing that I can work with those if I choose, but its also given me more faith that using watercolour and gouache is a good method for me and my practise. I think combined with my heavily emotion driven work, wet media are the perfect method because they give images a more sensitive feel, and they help me to make the image more evocative, whereas I struggle to translate all those things in digital work. I also think wet media look a lot more organic and you can really see the hand of the maker coming through in those images which is a look I really like.  However I can also see that for more commercial work like the sticker brief my illustrations and digital methods can combine really well, its more being confident and sure enough to choose the time and the place appropriate to using them.

The thing I’m the most glad of from this module has been the end few weeks where we’ve had to reflect on our practise and formalise what we've discovered in the poster and presentation. During the course of the year during this module and others I’ve discovered what a reflective person I am, I like understanding the world around me and in understanding that, trying to understand more about myself and where I fit into the world. This is important to my practise and I can see its influence in my work as I’ve made a lot of pieces that seem to be asking a lot of questions and talk about reflection and discovery, in fact that was the big thing I was aiming to convey in the final poster and I think I achieved it. I also came to the realisation that my struggle with OCD and mental health issues has massively impacted the way in which I tackle projects, at the beginning of the year I was frustrated at how linear my thought process was especially compared to those around me on the course who do really well at abstraction, and although I still find this irritating sometimes, I am now more aware that this is my compulsive brain trying to find an order in everything. It can hinder my progress and make the beginning bit of a brief where everything is a bit messy really slow and difficult, but I’ve learnt during the course of this year that the way to combat this is just to power through it and immerse myself in my work. The tics of my OCD probably wont ever go away fully but I’ve found I can quieten them by replacing their negative compulsions with thinking deeply and reflectively about my work and the tasks at hand and using that to motivate me. 

The presentation has also helped me to realise what kind of things I want to use my work to discuss, this is something I’ve been coming to terms with this year as I’ve often struggled to bring that personal side of me into my work, but now I can see how real human experience influencing work makes it all the more interesting and relatable. I now know that feminism, escapism, sentiment, mental health and emotions are some of the strongest influences on me and are also what I want to discuss and convey more in my work in the future. Similarly another one of my aims for the future is to continue making the work that I enjoy both the process of making and that I enjoy looking at and talking about when its finished, I’ve realised that when I make things for myself I am first of all more motivated to finish them which is something I’ve struggled with this year on projects that I’ve not been that mentally engaged with. I’ve also realised that this helps me to be much more enthusiastic about them and I find it easier to talk about them with other people with conviction. Finally, in the future I am going to make more effort to perfect the methods of watercolour and gouache and make them look really polished. I’m really pleased that these methods mix so well with my practise and what I want to convey with it, so I’m going to make it my mission to champion them next year by investing more time and effort into individual images and by mixing those processes with a bit of Photoshop just to give them that polished, finished look. Overall this module has helped to make me more confident and self assured of both myself and my practise and I look forward to bringing all these influences together to make more exciting work next year.

Final Presentation Slides

I'm Weird

Just wrote out the main body of what I want to say during my presentation, but I thought the way I went about it literally sums up my weird thought process when it comes to my practise. I couldn't think of any other way to brainstorm it in my sketchbook so theres a few failed plans where I tried to work out some kind of outline, but then I got out my voice recorder thing on my phone and just started talking at it trying to explain my practise and what I wanted to say. I did about 4 separate notes of all the different parts of what I wanted to say then I just typed it up into a little transcript and edited it where I felt it was needed. 

SO ODD

but it really worked, I'd definatley do it like that again in the future. The script for the presentation is quite long and rambely but I'm going to work on memorising more of it on the weekend. I kind of wanted it long and rambly as well as the aim for the presentation is to present it like I think about things in my brain, really scattered and just getting the ideas down as quick as I can and hoping to find one good nugget in there. It almost sounds a little bit like a spoken word poem thing?

I'm going to try and insert some of the voice notes here cause I'm not explaining it very well but I don't know if it'll work:

Stream Of Consiousness

Presentation notes so far:

When we were asked to think about the things are at the centre of our practice I was a bit shocked when I realised how much my struggles with OCD and mental health play a part towards what kind of illustrator I’m becoming. Thats not to say it always effects me negatively, it just really does tend to define the way I tackle things. 

So my experience with OCD means that I obsessively tidy when I’m stressed, I tidy as a way to clear my brain and in an effort to focus on work tasks, so for example whilst I was trying to think of an idea for the book cover brief I tidied the kitchen at 3am until it looked like this:

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Or when we were meant to be brainstorming for our persons of note I decided the reason I had no ideas was because my work space was too messy so I tidied my desk until it looked like this:

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But then the problem was that after that my desk was so tidy that I was physically scared to make a mess by getting stuck into the project. I fixate on germs and I fixate on rituals, I get it into my head that if I don't do something a certain amount of times I’m going to fail the year or get a bad mark. I make lists as a way to try and get everything thats in my brain out on the page otherwise I’m scared I might forget one nugget of a good idea and ruin my project. I think that reflects in my practise in that I like things to be linear and have a narrative otherwise my brain cant make sense of them. I’ve realised that as much as I can admire abstract work I struggle to identify with it on any higher level as it doesn't compute to me. So one way I can alleviate the tics of OCD is to just go along with it and use up my precious time making these lists and tidying to try and get the thoughts out of my head, but throughout this year as I’ve become increasingly wrapped up in this course and the idea of myself as a proper illustrator I’ve realised that another way to get rid of those feelings of panic is to completely immerse myself in my creative practise.

I realised this whilst I was getting really into the process of watercolour painting for the visual narratives book, my desk looked like this:

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And I didn't even care. Whilst we were doing the stickers for visual communication I was so fixated on the responsibility of having to convey and important message on a tiny sticker that I found I’d rather obsess over that than obsessively tidy our kitchen, so it ended up looking like this:

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and I barely even noticed. OCD means that I go at everything with all guns blazing so I love that this year Illustration has given me a healthy place to put all that ethusiasm and obsessiveness. It means I can put it into researching everything I can about someone for a brief or drawing out the same character 100 times until I get it perfect. 

I’ve also found that theres been so many other influences on my practise that have developed during the first year of this course, I’ve got much more into feminism and actively consuming feminist media which I like to discuss in my work, not just because I can now recognise how important it is in the greater scheme of the world but also because its helped me to be empowered and recognise my own physical and mental strengths. 

I’ve also realised how much of an influence music and fiction books have on my work, I find that these take me out of myself when I’m being too introverted and inspire the sense of escapism and fantasy I like to have in my work. 

On the other hand I really enjoy non fiction books and podcasts around topics like feminism, sexuality and science. In my work I use these methods as kind of thinking tools, I enjoy learning and trying to understand more about them but I also enjoy the fact that they help me to understand myself and where I fit into the world a bit more. I’ve realised I’m a very reflective and sentimental person, which in turn makes its way into my work and the way I practise in that most of what I do is very emotionally driven.

My first goal for next year is to improve the way in which I already use watercolour and gouache, these are methods I’ve really enjoyed working with this year as it can look different each time you use it depending on what kind of mood your in and how you use the brush. I think that goes hand in hand with the sentimentality of my work. I want to spend more time next year just working on the individual crafting of each painting. 

I also want to try and combine that with working in photoshop, I feel that a lot of the work I’ve produced this year is good but sometimes doesn't look finished. And I need to start seeing photoshop as a way to finalise things rather than “cheating”.

I also want to change my attitude towards mistakes, in that at the moment I’m still in the mindset of A level that mistakes = failure, which I’m now aware isn't true. I think my tendencies towards OCD mean that for me when I look at work of mine that was a mistake I see it as messy and just want to hide it and not show anyone. But I need to get it into my head that mistakes don't mean failure and instead mistake mean development and learning.

I also want to try and own my issues with mental health and OCD because although I’ve established they're difficult to live with they're there and might never go away. And sometimes they do have benefits like making me more organised or making all my work have a clear narrative. You can definitely see them come through in my work sometimes and whilst that can be annoying if I’m trying to loosen up and do something abstract. it means my work has a real sense of me in it, which is nice.

Finally my main goal for next year is to try and create work that is evocative. I was trying to think what makes illustrations successful to me and I’ve realised that I don't see much point in making a picture if it doesn't make the viewer feel something, whether thats good or bad. These are the images I find myself most often connecting with and those that I find it the most enjoyable to make, and since the success of my visual narratives book where I decided to just make something that made me happy even though it was a simpler idea I’ve seen that the best images are those that you put a bit of yourself into, so thats what I’m going to aim to do. 

Finishing My Poster

Today I scanned the painting that I finished yesterday into photo shop and tried to scale it up to A2 and neaten it up a bit. Yesterday I really wasn't happy with how the bottom of the image looked at all, I thought it had no depth to it compared to the complicated layers of plants at the top. Since I scanned it in I realised it really didn't look right so I went back to the idea I had in my sketchbook of adding fish into the water to make it look a bit more real, I painted them and then scanned them and edited them into the existing image on photo shop. It made me realise how far I've come with both my attitude towards photo shop and using it as a means to assisting with making a hand drawn image look polished, and also to not giving up on paintings that I've made and instead just adding elements to it to make it better. These are two things that I never would have done at the beginning of the course, I also have dropped the file off at the print room to be printed properly at A2, another thing I wouldn't have done at the beginning of the year (mainly due to a lack of organisation and poor time management) but I'm really excited to see how it turns out! I also have realised that during the course of this year I've become more fussy with how I present my work to others and the quality of it, knowing that this poster will be in the exhibition at the end of the term and will be seen by people has made me want to make it perfect.

I also think that after the first year of this course I might have worked out how I can make art thats evocative which was one of my main goals. This image for me represents the journey I've been on during this year, and its one of self discovery, challenges, successes and failures, but ultimately I wanted it to have a sense of adventure similar to the sense of whimsy and fantasy I like to show in my work. Although this poster isn't my idea of perfect and this isn't my favourite composition of anything I've done, I think it gets the feeling of a journey and a sense of triumph through it which was my main goal.

My Neck Hurts

Today I sat at my desk from 10 til 5:30 working on the same painting. I've been planning it for a few days and originally thought it could be my final poster but after today I'm not sure:

Successes:

• I'm so bloody chuffed with the top bit two thirds of this painting, I'd go as far as to say that its maybe some of the most technically good painting I've done. I really like the depth of all the different layers of leaves
• I also feel like I've worked really well with gouache in this piece, its got quite a colourful but not overcomplicated colour palette
• The composition of this I think has worked really well, considering yesterday I couldn't work out how I was going to make all the characters look like they were interacting with each other I think they make a lot more sense when positioned like this and it still gives them all their own space to exist

Failings:

• I really, really hate the bottom part of this image with the water and the lily pads, I think it throws the whole thing off balance and doesn't have nearly enough going on
• thats it, its really just this bit letting it down, I think tomorrow I'm going to take the image into photoshop and see if theres anyway I might be able to crop it down and not include the water at the bottom? and failing that I'll edit some of the fish I drew earlier this week into it to make it look more busy

Tutorial

Notes from my tutorial today:

Presentation:

• I need to find a moral or a maxim that overarches the presentation
• talk about next years goals: to master watercolour, gouache and combine with Photoshop
• what motivates me? Failure mainly, need to change my attitude towards failure
• I like wet media because its different every day depending on how I'm feeling, slightly unpredicatable, human
• Successes of first year- visual narratives, how do I replicate that?

Poster:

• SIMPLIFY
• let the characters sing, white space
• mock up different angles
• if in doubt try the original idea with the mixed character body parts
• REMEMBER= EVOCATIVE

Overall, I've come out of this tutorial today feeling slightly worried about how much work there is, but excited to complete it because it is something I'm passionate about. Being challenged to convey an emotion or the overarching feeling of something is a big responsibility and used to really scare me, and although it still does I think I'm on the right track to making something thats evocative and that I'm happy with. I just have to not panic and try things out until I get it right. And if I finish it and I'm not completely happy with it it doesn't mean I've failed it just means I can learn from it. 

In terms of both the presentation and the poster I know I want the overall feeling of them to be exploration, self discovery and ultimately success as thats how I'm finishing the year feeling. 

Poster Progress

Made these roughs of potential compositions for my poster today, I'm pretty enthusiastic about them all but I think my favourites are the first two and the last one. These mock ups have made me really think about what I want to convey in this poster, at first I was playing with the idea of self-discovery and exploration as I think those two words sum up the overall feeling this years had for me. I like the torch light as a metaphor for discovering things about my practise and being surprised, and I also like the element of this we can see in the last design with the boat. 

Somehow in the middle of the roughs I lost a bit of motivation and started making a lot of images of the characters in water, which I like as a symbol but they ended up making the central human character look a little bit lost and scared, and although that is something I've felt a lot this year I don't want it to be the feeling that defines my practise in my first year, I want the outcome to feel triumphant and brave (how I feel now). This is why I'm tempted to go with the last idea with the boat because I like the strong composition of all the characters kind of intertwined and supporting each other rather than dragging each other down like in some of the other roughs.

Tomorrow I'm going to carry on roughing the idea further whilst playing with a bit more character design and using some materials to get an idea of what I might use for the final piece. I'm feeling really enthusiastic about this project though which is helping me power through it.

Brain Splurge

Just had a really good tutorial which gave me a lot of ideas so please enjoy them (sorry they're messy):


Presentation:

• Specific Is GOOD
• Analytical is good, I do this naturally
• theme: order in chaos, narrative, productivity
• representing my practise and how I've become increasingly wrapped up in it through the course of the year, but told through my OCD and the way I interact with the space around me
• writing/blogging: I write more when I have things to figure out, quieten my brain
• REPETITION, TICKS, GETTING THINGS TO STICK IN MY HEAD
• when I'm creating and wrapped up in it it almost becomes an outlet or a place to put my OCD, obviously it doesn't sure it but it quiets it
• Life= keeping up appearances, inside and out, work, life, mental and physical health
• Rituals can help me quiet a noisy mind, help me sleep, but do they help me focus?
• talking points:
• Digital work: development, has a linear process but also unpredictable to me, chaos but in a good way
• Feminism: important in the grand scheme of the world,but also has helped me to be empowered and realise both my mental and physical strengths
• music, fiction books: takes me out of myself, it takes me out of myself, not that I don't like being with myself, I'm with myself a lot, but just like being with a good friend too much it can get stressful. Being in my brain is a stressful place to be.
• Pod casts, media: thinking tools, I enjoy thinking about things and trying to understand them more as well as use them to help understand myself more
• Visiting lecturers: Krystina and Louise- process and order to their practise, logic which made them successful as well as grafting. Nice to out a formula to it? Also nice that they apply their Illustrations to a product- makes sense to me- function

Sidenote: The presentation list I have basically come to realise will make up most of the script for during my actual presentation, those are most of the points I want to make I just have to put them in order

Poster:

• My brain is busy, shouldn't I present this in my work?
• world building, escapism
• escape means less worries
• village, or maybe staircase? obstacles things with a narrative easier to understand and unpack, linear

The main point from this: 

it takes me out of myself, not that I don't like being with myself, I'm with myself a lot, but just like being with a good friend too much it can get stressful, its good to have a little break. Being in my brain is a stressful place to be.