COP EVALUATION

Overall I don’t think I excelled in this module for many reasons. There were parts I enjoyed and parts that were almost torturous but mostly my attitude towards the work effected my performance in the end.

  Since COP was such a long module and was mostly on the back burner due to the constant demand and urgency of other projects, I ended up doing a lot less for it than I would’ve liked to. Throughout the year I have been a little negligent with tasks and sessions because there was always something more pressing to be done at the time. I started to get behind and never really got the chance to catch up, which wasn’t helped by various poorly timed instances of illness.

 If I were to do this module again I would make sure to complete study tasks when they are set or they will slip my mind. The work was usually there or I had benefited from it in someway but it’s less formally presented than would be ideal.

 The practical element I had great confusion and some trouble with. I struggle usually to invent a project with no existing stimulus, and I never tend to make work that has any social political or cultural comment or involvement. None of the things I make are particularly serious or poignant so to think of a project from nothing about something of that nature is something of a nightmare for me. When I eventually decided what direction to go in (analogue and digital materials) I spent a long time refining the idea and thus ended up with less time to make and develop the product. Even so I allowed three times as long as last year.

 I am almost satisfied with what I produced but a lot of the drawings inside it I am discontented with. I think a lot of it looks rushed and I didn’t get to explore the topic in as much detail as I would have liked. Were I to do this project again the first thing I would try would be to make my own paints and tools for the earlier pages to paint the items with. I think this would make it more interesting because it would be a physical demonstration of the capabilities of these old tools. I would also include more pages, time frames, tools and landmark inventions. Constraints of time meant I had to keep a limited amount of pages and I even had to omit two proposed pages from the book at the last minute. These were continuations of the tools timeline into the future wherein I would predict where digital tools are to take us. The first of the two was to be a Photoshop tool bar (essentially another toolbox) with additional icons that don’t yet exist, and the latter an image of a brain operated drawing machine that would call on my earlier research into drawing machines, as I think they have a greater but unpredictable potential. I don’t think my book is missing these pages but it would have been nice to try them out.

 The written aspect of the module was the most difficult because, as much as I used to excel in school at essay writing, it’s a skill I seldom put to use and have thus lost. I struggled a lot with my chosen topic because, as far as I can find after rather extensive research, there are very few writings, let alone academic writings, on the topic of digital illustration and it’s comparative value. I think its because it’s something that has only gained popularity and recognition in more recent years so there are not yet many texts published on it. Alas there are many digital artists voicing their love of digital art informally on blogs but these are hardly enough to build a structured academic essay around. The few I found were very useful but limited in their information. Maybe I should try again in a few years and give the academics chance to catch up and write some articles for me to reference.

  A lot of things went badly with this module but there were some successes. I think there’s a strong synthesis between my two projects as they’re very related and the book perhaps backs up the essay somewhat, despite it being about different time eras. I’m happy with some of the drawings I made throughout the module, like the tracing paper drawings from the museum trip and some of the more focused tool studies in my book. I enjoyed experimenting with materials in the book, particularly the thick gouache painting I did because often I forget to try new things, or lack the time and reasoning.

  Next year COP will have to take more of an active role for me because of the dissertation element, so third time lucky, maybe I will finally allow myself enough time to get the results I want this time around.

503 EVALUATION

Overall I think responsive has been a very useful and enjoyable module with moments of hellishness. It's been a valuable exercise to actually put my work in the outside world into real competitions and answering real briefs because it's really quite different to working to college briefs. There's more freedom of choice but tighter restrictions with formats and deadlines and concepts and colours and it has to appeal to a whole new set of people each time. The audience is actually an audience of real people instead of an abstract audience I made up for my hypothetical project. The people seeing this work are real and it has to appeal to them or it will be unsuccessful, which was something very daunting at first and I think I learnt that most at Thoughtbubble. It doesn't matter if you think the work you produced is good or not, it matters if the people who it's made for actually like it, and thats a difficult balance to achieve, making something I'm happy with, in the time available that meets the brief and appeals to the actual existing audience. I think I failed to do this most at Thoughtbubble but following that I started to get the hang of it with subsequent briefs. Looking back at the work I actually exhibited at Thoughtbubble I can hardly believe I allowed myself to sell such scrappy unfinished work because I definitely wouldn't now, so at least my own standards for my finished work have improved. Also it's a new experience to have a running dialogue with somebody who the work is being made for because they can ask for changes to be made and I have to make them or they won't want the work, unlike college where advice about changes is at my discretion.
It has been satisfying though to see the tangible product of my efforts on websites and in print and through receiving payment of some kind for doing work. It's very stressful and confusing to have to consider so many different deadlines at one time so it's meant this module had multiple times the stress of a normal one because I've had the mad deadline rush about eight times. I have improved slightly at meeting deadlines as a result, but only slightly It also has made me more accustomed to the pressure and showed me that I can make work for a tight deadline in a small amount of time, which was another positive attribute of this module. It made me churn out work faster than I'd like to so I got results faster and it was nice to build up a body of work over a relatively short space of time. The tightness of time also made me try a few different working processes to get the work done quickly and to a good standard, so I think I've done sone useful experimentation with the way I make images and now I have more options to choose from when drawing.
 I think my most successful submission was my Save the Children YCN brief, probably because I spent the most time on it but I'm almost entirely happy with how it turned out, except for the cover where the illustration is rushed and the mandatory font is hideously ugly. This was where I got very into drawing digitally which has been quite a strong aspect of this module for me. I made over half of my entries entirely in Photoshop and the rest were drawn by hand and completed in Photoshop. As a result of this I think my Photoshop skills have improved a lot and I've learnt many a new trick that's helped me refine my process and increase my productivity. I had a brief digital backlash around Easter when I realised I was putting so much effort into making my digital images look natural and handmade when I could just cut out the middleman and actually draw. This is when I made most of the watercolour painted briefs but after doing too much painting I decided neither option was to be chosen over the other and I should refine the way I use both processes together harmoniously, which is what I was really trying to do with the Film Doo posters. I think I'm at a stage now where I can start to combine all of my processes to make work that looks how I want it to, with both the slickness of a digital drawing and the craft and textural gestural nature of an analogue drawing.
 My biggest failing in this module was probably, as always, my time keeping. There were countless competitions I wanted to enter where I would look back at the website to reread the brief and realise the deadline had already passed, or was in two hours. This meant I didn't get to respond to all of the briefs I would've liked to, particularly the RSA Animate brief, among many others. I think I've still improved at this though because prior to now having so many deadlines across the module would have been disastrous for me as I struggle to keep track of a lot of events happening in quick succession and I don't always prioritise my tasks wisely. I managed to keep on top of it enough to complete the required amount of briefs within the allotted time and I did this entirely through list making.
 This module has also made it apparent how lacking my skills at anything vaguely graphic design related are. I struggled to place text on posters and format my images with features they needed that weren't part of the design and I am quite poor at making boards. Learning and practising making boards was useful because it's a concise way to present work without hauling around a pile of paper and sketchbooks. It makes the work I have in development stages easier to evaluate because its all together, as often in the early stages of a project the work seems so abstract like it isn't heading anywhere because it's all sketches and lose ideas, but having to format all of that progress into physical boards makes work easier to consider. I am still bad at making boards though, I find I don't know where to put anything and it ends up cluttered and confused looking, but I'm sure it's something I'll get more practise at.
 If we were to do this module again I would definitely start working on it earlier in the year so I could get to enter all of the competitions I wanted to and as a result easter would not be such mad rush of trying to complete briefs on time. I would also spend more time on my entires so I could feel like I stand a chance at winning something, but I think this is probably just the beginning of this kind of work for me as I definitely want to continue submitting work to things over summer when I have the time to complete things to a standard I can be satisfied with.

Off Life entry

I thought i posted this ages ago but apparently not
this was my entry to the off life open submission last month
it didn't get printed but the ones that did were definitely better so its fair enough

tried to make the panels look nicer this time, less scrappy
did them in water colour, it took a lot longer than other methods but it was therapeutic to paint and I like how it looks, a more organic and consistent colour palette comes from using an actual palette..
its kind of more difficult though, brush marks being permanent and whatnot

pints and pencils

I went to a monthly drawing competition evening called Pints and Pencils at fab cafe, run by the owners of Travelling Man.
We had to draw onto this photocopied image of a bear
I had fun with it because I'd spent all day working so I just made silly pictures
Turns out the guys judging it all thought they were hilarious
I was awarded both first and second prize, but they didn't realise I did both, so a vote evaluated whether i was to turn the prize to the next runner up (which was Rowena) or whether my 'talent overrides' and i should be awarded both. The vote went in my favour which meant I got second prize of £15 to spend at travelling man, and first prize of 20 to spend at travelling man, so now I'm rolling in comics vouchers. Ideal prizes. Also now I know that my tastes and humour are in line with that of the travelling man owners so should I try and sell my comics with them they may be more willing now.

Anyway, drawings

painted a cute lil bowl

on holiday at the manor houes hotel, its a craft hotel we've been coming here my whole life
i didnt get much craft time bceause there was still work to be done but i did paint this lil bowl
im gonna make some for my mothers birthday in june
also i wanna do more porcelain painting and crafts in summer its well fun

drew millward dust

went to the opening of drew millwards exhibition dust
it was very impressive technically an visually but he's still not really my cup of tea
its a bit too much
but i can see the appeal and a lot of the prints are very nice, and mind boggling
there was a nice atmosphere, hes a pleasant chap, and they raffled all the stuff off which is a good idea
very appliable work, works on all products, set audience, yeh hes got it sussed