My Strengths and Struggles

As a Student
Strengths:

• I think that overall I have been really good at keeping on top of my work this year. I have met all of my deadlines and completed work to a standard that I am happy with. I have definitely surprised myself with what I have achieved.

• I think that generally my attendance has also been good this year. I have always made an effort to attend all the mandatory sessions, no matter how terrible I'm feeling and I am generally quite committed.

• I think that my diet is generally really good. I always make an effort to eat three healthy meals a day. It is something that I didn't do last year and I was constantly ill - I definitely learned from this. 

• Getting up in the morning and getting on with work is also something I'm really good at. During the week I always make sure I get up on time even if I've been out the night before.

Struggles:

• Exercise is something which I have literally totally stopped doing because I don't want to pay for gym membership. I really want to start running again next year when I finally live near a park.

• I need to start doing more work during the week. I spend too much time at the weekend cramming in my work before Monday crits. I need this time to unwind/ reflect. 

• I would also love to try to bring more creativity into my life outside of college work. I think that at the moment I am keeping work and life too separate. I would like to start doing more drawing outside of the course and spending more time with creative friends going to galleries, fairs etc. At the moment I spend all of my time when I am not working hanging out with friends outside the art school and going out. Even though its fun I do wonder how much it is benefiting me. I think that maybe I need to cut back on this a bit in second year. 

• I also think that I need to start making more time for me to relax. I am constantly either working or out doing things. I think that time alone is really important and I definitely don't have enough of it.

• Outside of mandatory sessions I also don't spend enough time in the studio because I do all my work at home. This is because I find it really distracting having people working around me. I need absolute silence so that I can get in the zone and be with my work. I think that working at home is fine but I just need to make the effort to spend at least a couple of hours a week working in the studio so that I can see what others are doing and get feedback on what I'm doing. I think that this creative environment is really important and It's a shame that I distance myself from it. 

• I have a tendency to live in the extremes and I definitely need to try to bring more consistency into my life. I will either be super on it - write a checklist before I go to bed on how I am going to fill every hour of the day, I will get everything done, eat three healthy meals and my room will be immaculate or I'll be totally the opposite. My room will be a pig stye, I'll eat crap and I won't get anything done. I think that maybe if I make more of an effort not to slack off I won't feel the need to suddenly get like this.

In My Practice:
Strengths:

• Origionally, I was much more of a drafts person and I struggled massively with making my drawings into something much more refined and final. However, this has really turned around this year and I have become much more of an image maker. This has turned from being one of my biggest weaknesses to a strength.

• I am also really happy with the huge variety of media that I have experimented with this year and I have not restricted my self to a single one that I feel comfortable using. In cop I used image photoshop and mono print, persons of note: collage and drawing, book: thinners and ink, book cover: paper cut and photoshop, gifs: gouache and plasticine, sticker: illustrator etc.

• I think that my ability to research is also one of my major strengths and all of my concepts have had very strong roots in research. I was originally concerned by the fact that I struggle to invent and work from my imagination but I definitely think that I have filled this void well by making my work more research based.

• I am generally really pleased with how my blog writing has progressed and how this is affecting my practice. I have become much more self critical and self questioning. Blogging has become something thats fuels and works alongside my creative work as a posed to something I complete retrospectively to meet a criteria (what it was originally).

• My general drafting/ sketching skills have developed massively this year just because I've been doing so much of it. I really want to keep them strong by doing lots of drawing over summer. 

Struggles:

• I don't think that I invest enough time into drafting and this is definitely my greatest weakness. Because my work has been quite research driven, once I have done this and arrived at my concept I will realise it quite quickly visually, totally missing out the middle drafting stage. This is definitely something I need to work on.

• I also think that I get too obsessed with fixing small details (particularly when crafting a final image) and I sometimes forget to consider the whole picture. I need to try to step back more and stop being such a perfectionist.

• I think that sometimes I'm too hard on myself. I never like my own work and I am too good at picking out small insignificant details. I need to top picking it apart and start celebrating it. I think that something that would help me with this is if I started to share it so that it becomes something less personal. I would like to maybe start an art instagram in second year. 

• I think that on my blog I have got too stuck following a point system. It is really helpful because it encourages me to be more reflective (instead of descriptive) but now that I know what I'm writing I would like to start being more fluent. It also encourages me to pick out small details too much rather than seeing the whole picture. 

• I am quite a slow worker and I do spend a lot more time on things than other people do - it literally makes me forever to fill a sketchbook. I am not sure if this is because I spend quite a lot of time thinking (about concepts etc.) or because I am too precious when drafting. This is something I really need to work on. 

____ I feel like I have done lots of experimentation this year and every one of my outcomes has been very different with no set aesthetic. What I have done though is develop a way of working and processing briefs. Next year I would like to keeping pushing this way of working and interest in research and as a result hopefully generate more of a personal aesthetic.