Reflection on Progress

Time management:

10 things I have learned / recognized about my time management:

1. I can get a lot done if I focus

2. Planning my day can help me organise my workload

3. If I enjoy my work, I end up spending more time on it

4. I need breaks

5. It is essential to socialise 

6. Getting up earlier helps - provides more time 

7. I need to balance academic/ social/ domestic commitments

8. Prioritise important & more imminent things

9. Be realistic about timescales

10. Allow time to think, evaluate and improve

5 things to improve my time management:

1. Make sure I am enjoying my work so that I don't put it off.

2. Plan my processes

3. Plan my days to include a good amount of work

4. Make lists of things that need doing

5. Allow appropriate time to complete work

10 things I learned about myself over the Christmas holidays:

1. Portraits are definitely my 'comfort zone' 

2. I'm good at using an iPad to help create images

3. I need to improve figurative drawings

4. I need to improve composition 

5. I'm opinionated when it comes to essay writing

6. I want to study figurative art more

7. If I put my mind to it I can complete more work than I think I can

8. Bad ideas can be developed to good ones

9. It's ok to change the direction of a project if it isn't working

10. Doing work I feel comfortable with and expanding on it is better than starting over

5 Successes in visual narratives:

1. Portraits are what I enjoy doing

2. Using digital software to create images

3. Planning work (thumbnails, drafts, finals)

4. Managing workload

5. Gaining confidence in my abilities 

5 things that didn't work out: 

1. My spy book

2. Trying to br funny

3. Composition of a scene - as opposed to a single image/ subject

4. Research for essay - books I needed were not in the library - need to plan properly

5. Research for book could have came from more sources & documented better 

5 things I'd like to re visit: 

1. Learn how to use photoshop more efficiently 

2. Figurative drawing - perhaps go to life drawing

3. Illustrating in my own way

4. Using different media 

5. More use of colour 

National Portrait Gallery Visit

Over the Christmas holiday, I visited the National Portrait gallery in London, not a lot was new to me as I went last year, but the work by Jonathan Yeo was. Love at first sight - I thought these were amazing, the detail was so photo realistic, yet he still made them his own by using texture and focusing only on certain areas of the canvas in most cases. (Leaving the background rough textured and empty, whilst contrasting with a smooth skinned painted face/ body parts).

 http://themagnificentsomething.com/2013/12/23/depicting-celebrity-drawing-fame-jonathan-yeo-at-the-national-portrait-gallery/jonathan-yeo-portrait-painting-national-portrait-gallery-exhibition-london/

I believe this resonates with me more because I too enjoy making images about famous people - I feel it creates a good response from a public audience. 

Time Management Workshops

   The time management sessions really helped me after Christmas; the workload was large with a deadline approaching - this is when I feel most pressure.

   The advice was to plan each day by dividing the hours/ minutes up into things I need to do. These included all domestic and social duties as well as academic ones.

   Writing down what I had to complete actually helped a lot, this was because it motivated me to complete work, and everything else too. I learned to prioritize jobs and also plan out when would be best to complete specific tasks.

   This approach meant that I was in control over what I was doing, and therefore reduced stress, because I knew that I could get more done if I kept calm, and didn't let the workload daunt me/ put me off working.

 Also, it made me realize that it's good to have a life too; stressing about work isn't good, and it's healthy to leave the house, see friends etc. Breaks from work are needed to stay sane, for sure!

Academic New Year's Resolutions

5 Things i'm trying to improve;

1. Gain confidence in my abilities by creating work that i'm happy with; found out more of what I like doing.

2. Time management - use my time effectively by using the studio more, by staying in later. (and make the most of days where I don't have to go to work in the evening

3. Blog more - straight away instead of putting it off and letting it pile up.

4. Attendance - the times when i'm tired/under the weather - man up and go to college

5. Find time to draw more

Artists that inspire me - Painting

Laura Hoffman

From http://www.laurahoffmanart.com/

Laura Hoffman paints beautifully, and realistically, and is an illustrator! I like finding illustration that's more my style, because when i'm in class, or generally observing illustrations, they are usually made up, cartoon/ doodle style and i cant do that type of work - and it makes me question why i'm trying to illustrate. When I see this it reminds me to be myself and that there is a way of illustrating with the skills that I have.

Artists that inspire me - Steve Moors

Steve Moors

Moors' work features celebrity portraiture - this is what got me interested - as I particularly like to study celebs.

Pictures from http://www.stevemoors.com/

The work as a whole doesn't amaze me, but some images are really nice. I like how quirky it is. There is a unique style - with some interesting textures and colours.

As composition is something I am trying to improve - (I'm always doing close up portraits, and want to be able to compose more complicated portraits/ scenes involving people more often.) These are examples that I'll be thinking about in my future work.

End of Module Self Evaluation - Visual Narratives

First of all, when I began my research I hadn't really got any idea what I wanted to do. I've spent a lot of my time being worried that whatever I do would be worthless, and was being too harsh on myself. I started by going to 3 places and came out with so much information, and I was confused on how to interpret this, I struggled for a short time to formulate an idea that related to it. When I came up with the 'bad spies' idea, I believe I was just settling with it, and trying to convince myself that I could change my work in order to fit this brief. After development of my idea, I realised I could focus on the facial expression of the spy instead of trying to be funny. Of course, the close ups of faces were more successful as portraiture is my thing, being funny isn't.  Looking back, there were some interesting faces in my early research photos from being out and about. I wish I could have been decisive at the beginning so I would have had more time on my successful idea, and like it was said in my feedback, got more expressions to work with and perhaps I'd have been able to do a happy/sad set of books. I could have also experimented with media instead of pencil - things like coloured pencil would have perhaps been more interesting. What was lost on people was my idea of how people are affected by their environment, this is why I tried to add some text to the images. I could have picked a more informative title than 'facial expressions' and worked on the composition of the images to give more clues as to where they were. The coloured book was more successful in this instance, as they had things going on in the backgrounds. The biggest influence to my work was Kyle Lambert, his work is so inspiring because he used detailed digital portraiture to illustrate, which is what I'm most interested In doing. - he inspired me to work on my iPad too. 

The outcome wasn't too bad, the saddle stitch was simple and effective, and the pictures came out well. This is except for part one, where there were a lot of marks on the page. These were not visible on screen, after I brushed over them, but I should have erased the background first, so that I knew there wouldn't be any marks on the pictures. Also I could have printed testers out first just to check.

The main thing I've realised completing this brief is to not doubt myself so much, and also listen to people, I should be less narrow minded, open to experimentation and not be so afraid to fail. Listening to feedback definitely would have helped me.