evaluation, research, SWOT/Target Setting

Reflection – 12.10.18

So, I ended up skipping an update last week- it would have been 500 words of me worrywarting over the presentation (glad that’s out the way!)

The presentation didn’t go amazingly, but I suppose it wasn’t exactly bad either. I’m grateful to have patient tutors that helped me through it! I ended up talking for a little over 10 minutes, which is leaning towards the longer side of things, especially since I tried my best to minimise talking by streamlining what I was going to say. In fact, I had a lot more to say that never actually came out of my mouth because of my anxiousness.

I just hope I’ve done enough to earn a First for this module… which is only worth 10 credits. Every little counts!

Friday AM was spent going through the new module (which includes all of the Semester 1 projects for this year). It’s nothing I haven’t done before- I’ll need to make sure I really keep on top of my Harvard Referencing throughout my research though, as this is imperative to passing this module.

We have the opportunity to do some A4 monochromatic screenprints a week today- quite short notice but I’m familiar with the process, preparing imagery etc., so this will be a nice introduction to my Printmaking project (which is mostly going to focus on riso prints).

I actually did quite a lot of screenprinting during my Textile design course, with (usually) successful results. I printed with single and multi colour designs (e.g. using more than one screen on a design), as well as printing with heat-sensitive glue in order to apply gold leaf to certain areas of wallpapers I was working on- that worked especially well.

I’ve learned a lot since then, so I’ll be applying newfound skills (as well as employing old skills that were successful) when I revisit this process next week. As I’ll personally own my printing frames, I’ll be able to continue making prints as often as I like throughout the year. Hopefully this leads to additional runs of prints, either ‘for fun’ or for final show.

Also, since the Proposal was handed in on Monday, I’ve finally been able to start some research into the risograph print process- I really need to educate myself well on the techniques that are available to me, since this is totally new territory for me and I’m determined to make something nice for the first project (to be honest, it’d be great if I could get the hang of the riso enough to be able to make prints to sell at final show… ^^)

Thus far, I’ve looked a little bit into the actual process and what it entails, as well as the process of preparing imagery for printing. I’ll go into more detail in my research file for this project.

Really I think most of my skill learning for the riso will be ‘on the job’, mainly in the form of trial and error/experimentation… that’s the entire point of Semester 1~

So, my targets for the next week include solidifying my workflow and researching deeper into the risograph process. One of my biggest ‘weaknesses’ of this project will be a lack of prior knowledge, but I’m confident I can turn this around into a strength in my skillset as I learn more about how risograph prints are processed and created.

 

More on this in the coming weeks!

 

evaluation, SWOT/Target Setting

Reflection – 28.09.18

To say it was a busy week was an understatement- as well as finishing off my Proposal and Treatment (just a few small tweaks to complete over the weekend), I’ve been timetabling out the entire year, making action plans for the skills I want to improve.

A quick overview of my 6 chosen projects for the year:

-Personal Project 1- Printmaking (using the riso and developing specific riso-based and software skills)

-Personal Project 2- Narrative Animation Development (developing the characters, backgrounds, and storyboards/narrative for the animation project in Semester 2)

-Commercial Project 1- Penguin Student Design Award (creating a book cover for a given title- titles announced Oct 16th!)

-Commercial Project 2- Adobe Awards (using all my self-produced material from PP2 to create an animated short… probably looking forward to this one the most!)

-Commercial Project 3- Cheltenham Illustration Awards (I want a really nice ‘stand out’ piece for my portfolio and final show- this is the best opportunity I’ll have within my timetable)

-Personal Project 3- Portfolio, Brand and Merchandising (updating my portfolio with new/improved artwork, as well as making nicer promo materials and some merchandise for final show)

 

So now that all the writing is pretty much finished, I’ll have to adapt this into a presentation (which obviously I am dreading!!) I’ll need to really streamline my project proposal for this, including just the essentials so I can talk as little as possible while still getting the point across~

The presentation is due Friday 5th (a week from today), so I’ll be fiddling with my written work over the weekend, going through the corrections I’ve been given and making sure it’s all right before translating it into visuals and a presentation script.

In addition to these tasks, next week I’m aiming to start thinking a little bit more about what sort of imagery I want to bring into the printmaking project- so far on the shortlist there’s things like flora, fauna, and ‘natural patterns’, e.g. geodes and rock formations. I *love* to include pattern in my work (I’ve got quite a fascination with naturally formed repetition, especially) so this should be a fun one to look forward to after the trauma of having to present my proposal!!

I’ll update again next week once Friday is over and I can relax and think a bit more~

 

 

evaluation, SWOT/Target Setting

Reflection – 21.09.18

This week, I began making some good progress with my research file- I expanded upon my artist research, adding some more artists that were especially relevant to my upcoming projects, e.g. Robert Nelson, whose artwork has inspired me to look at similar visuals and techniques when I start the Printmaking project. Using the risograph will be a new experience- I haven’t worked with this medium before, so I’m looking forward to it! I’ll have to carefully consider the imagery I use during this project, as most of the riso colours are much brighter than what I usually use in my work, so I’ll have to keep this in mind when looking at potential subjects for the contact sheets I will be producing. I’ll be able to thoroughly experiment with this beforehand though, as the first semester is all about skill building and improving upon my current knowledge.

I’m finding it a bit more challenging to discover artists and animators that work in the style I’m envisioning for my animation- I think this semester I’ll focus on character and environment design, as that is the premise of my chosen second Personal project (in Semester 2, I’ll develop these ideas into a full animation as part of the Adobe Awards). Ultimately I think it will be more of a ‘moving illustration’ type, with different planes that have small animated components, e.g. flowers blooming, a looped walk cycle for my character, or something similarly simple. In the past I’ve given myself too much of a workload with moderately complex animated projects, so I’d like to avoid this for my final year as I don’t want it to detract from my other projects!

Additionally, I also started to look into self promotion (e.g. promo packs for final show)- I’ll have info on this up on this blog soon! This is something I’m really looking forward to developing as the year goes on- while I’m still pleased with my promo stuff from last year (Summer 2017), I feel that my work will have progressed enough by this year’s final show to be able to re-design my promo pack (including some new items, e.g. stickers, zines, etc)

In terms of my goals for the upcoming week, I’d like to finalise my Treatment and Proposal, so I can start preparing the Presentation I’ll have to do as part of this unit. I’d also like to start pulling together the research I’ve done so far, just to ensure it’s enough- I don’t want it to all pile up as a huge workload near the deadline (which admittedly, I’ve done in the past) so I’m hoping to keep on top of things this year as a good practice!