End of Module Evaluation

Finished Presentation

 

 

         

Presentation Link: https://1drv.ms/p/s!AiQXbyiG1n_DgRtlfWjCbwPkOwnz

I found putting together this presentation surprisingly difficult with layout etc. I think having frames on some slides and not others actually works well. Initially they all had frames but I took some away because the slides looked overcrowded. What isn't quite working is the hand written text. just because I have such cross handwriting and I am not sure how readable it is - luckily there isn't text in general. But I do like that it matches the aesthetic of the frames (maybe titles would have been better underlined?). I like how visual it is and it is a definite step up from my last presentation but I could have definitely put more rime into layout. I SHOULDN'T HAVE LEFT IT SO DAMN LAST MINUTE!

In terms of content I also think that I have done well considering I had to cut so much and I like the focus of half the presentation specifically on research (but it was a shame to cut the George Douglas bit). Lets just hope its 8 minutes.

PPP presentation making

Presentation link: https://1drv.ms/p/s!AiQXbyiG1n_DgRtlfWjCbwPkOwnz

So this is the basic script/ mock up of my presentation. I haven't run it through yet so I am worried that it is going to be way too long. I am going to start by doing a timed run through/ making any cuts. I also want to make some flashcards to read from when I am presenting because at the moment my script is way too heavy. I also need to make my presentation look pretty I might try making up the slides in photoshop/ handwriting the text with the brush tool. I also really want to put some gifs in my presentation but I have no clue how to so this - message group.

Finished Poster

What works?

• I am in love with the colour scheme - soft colours work perfectly with them image and the reddy pink against a more purple pink works really nicely. It is crazy how much difference tweaking the colours made to the whole image - I guess this is because it is quite simple and graphic. 
• I also think that having a steeper perspective made worlds of difference to the image because there is less going on/ each of the components are much bolder. I like that there is only a couple of each object. It also meat that I was able to bring forward my favourite part (skull/ plant) and fill almost half my image to them.  
• I also think that I stuck to my concept well and I definitely arrange the objects well to represent there function - the chaos at the back/ the bad - drinking skull/ inability to look after anything (plastic pot plant) then the crystal pyramid sucking up the bad - under which is order/ the good - guardian angel. Then the teddy is just there as a constant comfort (in the middle ground). I like that I kept it simple by just playing with object arrangement rather than literally illustrating the function of each object and that to anyone else it is weird/ nonsensical. This sums up the way that I think perfectly. However, I do wish that I could have somehow made my interest in object research more directly clear in the image. This is something that I really struggled with from the start. 

What could I have done differently?

• I was a mug and designed this in A4 when it is an A2 poster. It didn't even cross my mind until I had already queued for three hours for the print room drop in. Thankfully because it is mainly block colour it doesn't look too pixelated but this is definitely something I need to be more aware of in the future. Had I been more organised and not left printing to the last day I definitely could have resolved this. 
• Even though I added the pink strip at the bottom I still think that the angels look slightly detached from the rest of the image. I do think that the pink stripe is interesting because it puts the rest of the landscape into perspective (and the pyramid would have looked out of place without it) but I could have definitely experimented more with how I placed the angels.

I definitely want to play around with digital collage now that I have finally got to grips with photoshop - I love its simple, bold aesthetic. Creating a collage and working from it is also a really good way of working for me because its quick and enables me to visualise my image. It also forced me to think about composition, which is something which I definitely haven't payed enough attention to in past work. 

Photoshop Experimentation

What is working?

• I love the effect of bitmap and I am definitely going to use it even though I am not doing a screen print. The texture that it creates is interesting and it goes with the block colour vibe of the rest of the piece.
• I also think that the play between solid shapes and bitmapped images works well. I was going to add in some hand drawn elements but I now don't think I will. I like the all digital effect.
• I also love the parts where the plant overlays the skull. Having a few big bold overlaying shapes is definitely much more interesting than having lots of small ones (the middle ground is too much).

What am I unsure about/ how am I going to resolve it?

• I definitely want to change the colour scheme. I chose blue and red because they work really nicely together with screen print. Here I was trying to make a design which I could potentially screen print for the show after hand in but I am finding it impossible to create a design for print which also looks good digitally - it's just not the same. I am going to scrap screen printing and just make it a simple digital design/ use colours which represent me better. - maybe softer colours - pinks, blue, purple.
• I think that the abstract overlaying shapes in the middle ground are interesting and they give some breathing space between the bitmaps but I think that hey are taking up too much of the picture space. I might try using a steeper perspective. - I want more skull/ plant and less abstract shapes. 
• The big white V in the middle of the page is also not working - I definitely want to get rid of this. It would be better to have just a few touches of white in the foreground to balance the bg. 

NOW: Composition redesign/ colour changeup

Bitmap problemos

BITMAPS ARE A FRICKING NIGHTMARE TO WORK WITH!! Once you turn an image into a bitmap you can't edit it. I basically resolved this issue by screenshotting my image and copying it back onto another document but still when you try to edit it it links back to the original bitmap/ if you make it smaller then bigger the dots get bigger then don't return to their original size. I just kept playing around with settings and repeatedly trying to edit it and eventually I got my way. - basically I'm pretty unlikely to use bitmap again unless its on my whole image. 

Tutorial Feedback

Feedback:

• Powerpoint plan looks good but at the moment I am saying quite a lot - structure fine. Maybe just reduce it down a little and only say three points under each header/ say more about each. Focus on: PAST - ETHOS - FUTURE structure. (past = what went right and wrong lists / ethos being a research driven practice)
• This interest in research into place, objects etc. could be interesting to explore in COP - look into Rachel Lillie (going to places, finding stories etc. is a strong focus of her practice)
• Concept is fine/ limited colour palette is fine. Like mix between drawing, photographs, block shapes - overlay is really interesting. Definitely do not do landscape with just block colour - bring in photographs etc. maybe do the skulls as a photo/ overlay with plants?
• Instead of drawing shapes as vectors cut bunny shapes out of back paper and scan
• Don't bother screen printing - not enough time, focus on making image instead and you can always point it next week for the show
• To print photos - try won't print - turn it into a bitmap (under the bitmap settings you can turn it into a halftone

I definitely am happy with the feedback that I received and for the first time ever I have come out of a tutorial with less work than I went in with whoop!!

I think that I am going to focus on the landscape concept rather than the more abstract map one but I am going to start bringing in photos/ reducing shapes down rather than trying to split the photograph into three colours (go the more abstract route). I am going to start by doing some more sketchbook roughing then I'll cut out my main block shapes and scan them in/ start experimenting with bitmap.

Powerpoint Planning

 

(Bold text goes on slides)

Media loves and hates

Love doing lens based work and in particular building models out of plasticine and photographing them. So far I have only worked this way when it is a requirement of the brief because I never initially visualise my concepts in three dimensions. I usually just resort to drawing in collage. However, this is new and interesting to me and I would like to work with it more next year.

Photography and collage is also something which I have in some way incorporated into most of my pieces. Since we used collage directly in visual language - photography and collage is something which has in some way come into most of my work since. I often combine it with drawing. i.e. I used thinners to transfer photographs which I worked into; I photographed my own work and used it as collage which I combined with drawing and I made a collage to drew from.

I hated working with gifs. I found it impossible because I just could not visualise the finished result. I felt like it was all just too much to take in and think about under the time pressure. Even looking at other people’s gifs I could not wrap my head around how they were made. I liked my concept but I couldn’t get him to move in an interesting way.  - I over complicated because I didn’t wrap my head around the mechanics of the software until after I had designed my man = just gave up on my third one. However, this is something that I would like to learn in my own time.

My Struggles this year

COP - my sources were too old - Spent the whole project trying to make them work when they didn't - this was a simple issue that I should have just solved in the beginning
Not working in the studio enough - I can only focus when there is no noise/ no one working around me so I never go in unless its mandatory. The few times when I have worked in the studio it has been really useful - chats with people/ odd bits of feedback - reassuring. I want to go in more next year - even just a half day a week
Not doing enough work during the week - I always end up literally doing all of my work during the weekend because I never do enough during the week. O need to get out of this habit - need this time to relax/ do other creative things outside of practice
Getting way too caught up in concepts - I definitely spend way too much time thinking about my concepts and not enough time actually making. = always pushed for time and I don't produce enough. Need to decomplicate. Why am I incapable of making simple work?
The studio day briefs - I HATE DAY BRIEFS - I find the time constraint/ having to work around other people SO stressful - never going to enjoy these. But they have definitely taught me how to throw myself into drawing/ not think too much and made me much less self conscious about my work.

What has changed this year

I’ve realised my sketchbook is a safe place - started doing much more drafting/ experimentation - saves lots of time/ means I have started to really plan my images - think about how the different components come together

I’ve learned to be selective - particularly in observational drawing - no longer block in tones with shading (like I used to do with painting) - don't put everything in (reducing shapes). Different briefs/ media forced me to do this- vector work/ collage 

I blog alongside working not after - This has become something that fuels my practice as I have become much more self critic/ questioning - not burden/ done at end

I have started to work as an image maker as a posed to a sketcher - VL/ due to the way in which I've altered how I use my sketchbook 

Research as the basis for my practice

Research has become the basis for my image making and all of my concepts have started to have strong roots in research. At the start of the course I was worried about the fact that I struggle so much to invent and draw from my imagination but I have definitely filled this void with my interest in non-fiction. Initially, I was very interested in biology and human anatomy and this was a drive for a couple of my projects (book/ editorial) - nearly did bio degree instead. But recently I have become obsessed with researching people and finding out their personal stories. I have also become really interested in objects and they can tell stories about what has come before as well as their owners. For example, in the book project I looked into objects that I found along the canal and the stories that they tell about what came before and the passers by. For the Sylvia Plath project I became interested in her obsession with things like foetuses in jars and how this reflected reflected her interest in death and poetry.

 

Self Portrait

This all relates well to my self portrait where I took this interest in research and storytelling through objects and looked at my own life/ the objects that I collect and what they say about me. I then started playing around and arranging them based on their function/ relationship with each other. 

Related interests outside practice

Desert island disks

Its really interesting how music is used to story tell - different songs represent different stages of their life

Travel documentaries

Meeting new people (interviews) 

Photographing my friends

Inspiring Illustrators

Olivier Kugler (research)

George Douglas (aesthetics)

Things to do differently next year

Bring more creativity into life outside college - At the moment I think that I keep my social life way too separate from my work life as most of my friends aren’t creative/ never do anything creative. - want to start going to more art fairs/ drawing in my spare time 

Spend more time in the studio 

Go gyming not clubbing - since I stopped going to the gym, I have way too much pent up energy, which I expend out. I definitely need to stop going out so much

Keep my life in order - don’t live in the extremes

Stop doing all my work on the weekends - relax

In the future

Next year I am definitely going to push forward this research driven practice and focus on communicating non - fiction concepts. I definitely know now that I do not want to have a studio job - want a job where I get to travel and meet new people/ work amongst others (can’t imagine anything worse than sitting at a desk alone all day at home).

I'm in a Bit of a Pickle/ Solid Concept

Greatt I'm in yet another pickle with this concept!
The core thing that I want to communicate is my interest in research/ finding out people's stories/ that this is what my ideas have started to spring from. But I am finding this impossible without communicating a certain fact or story. However, I am worried that if I do this then the work will become about the story that I am communicating rather than my love for research.
This is unless I literally illustrate this concept of research and nonfiction but i think that that is way too 2D and I can achieve much more.

Having mapped it out, I'm just gunna stick to my objects idea/ I'm going to write my concept out here so evert time I forget what I am trying to communicate I can come back here and read this:

All of my most recent work has had really strong roots in research. I like researching into people and getting to know their stories/ tell their stories. I am particularly interested in objects and the stories that they can tell about their owners/ what has come before. This was a focus of my book, where I looked at objects on the canal and the stories that they tell about who has passed as well as in my Person's of Note project where I looked at Sylvia plath. Here I started by drawing on her obsession with things like foetuses in jars and looked at what this says about her/ her obsession with death. Because this is a project about me, I want to keep the focus on my interest in research but I am going to look at my own story and how it can be told by some of the objects that I myself have collected. I am going to look at what each symbolises for me and communicates about my life.

Skull: Originally contained vodka - reflects going out and partying/ the deathly side of being a student

Bunny: Comfort - living away from home/ my inner child

Plastic Pot Plant: Trying to bring a bit of nature from home into City life/ my inability to care for a real pot plant/ from a friend who knows me way too well - friendship

Angel: Spirituality - my guardian angel watching over me/ unconditional love and peace (from my mum, who's a healer)

Rainbow Fluorite Pyramid: Absorbs Electromagnetic radiation - spirituality/ all negative energy - particularly spending all day every day on my laptop

The next step:

I think that it would be interesting to start placing those objects together/ seeing how the different elements of my life that they symbolise might relate to each other. Once I've done this I would like to start creating landscapes out of them/ maybe bringing in other elements - this was really interesting last time/ going more abstract? - I am definitely going to try to avoid the use of a figure = too literal

It could also be interesting to illustrate each of their functions separately? - then see how they come together.

Tutorial Feedbabk

In my tutorial it was the weirdest thing, when I went to explain what I had done I suddenly got all shaky and full of butterflies. I was trying to read out my mind map but I could't process what I was saying so I wasn't making any sense. I think maybe this is because it was quite personal. Damn this has suddenly made me terrified for my powerpoint!! I have never ever had problems public speaking before. I was so annoyed at myself for not expressing my ideas clearly because it meant that I didn't get the feedback that I wanted.

Feedback:

• At the moment my objects are too two dimensional - they aren't telling a story. I need to do more than just take objects from my room and assemble them - need to say something about me. Maybe tell the story of the objects?
• In relation to my later college (represents different areas of my practice) it was suggested that I don't try to say everything in a single image and that I just focus on a specific area of my practice. It was suggested that I put my focus on research and this split between order and chaos. 

What was said about the face pieces did frustrate me because collecting weird fascinating objects is a form of research that I love and am interested in (they represent research in the simplest form). I also thought that they were an interesting vehicle to represent this split between chaos and order - because they are literally either perfectly lined up on my shelf or everywhere - in turn with the state of my life (chaos or ordered). 

However, I definitely agreed with what was said about my other collage where they thought I was trying to say too much. I agree that my focus should be simply on research and the divide between chaos and order. 

I think that now I need think more in depth about how I am going to communicate this idea of research and what about it I want to communicate (divide is quite simple - I can just do this visually). Research is all about finding out a story - I either need to think more about my objects and what story they tell/ how I'm going to communicate this or just make my interest in people and finding out their story my focus. = Back to the mind map

• We also discussed how I could make my interest in research a focus for my powerpoint - this is definitely something I want to do. 

Specifically: 

- My ideas are all starting to have roots in research/ discovery (I like illustrating non-fiction) and I don't like inventing things

- I specifically like finding things out about people and their stories

- I then like drawing from this and trying to communicate interesting parts of their lives

- This interest sparked in the book in my book brief when I became fascinated in objects and the stories that they might hold from the past/ the people who owned them (interesting play between fact and fiction = real life objects/ allowed the viewer to invent their own stories).

- This then further developed in the persons of note where I was able to specifically research a single person and ground my ideas on this

- Olivier Kugler has always been my favourite illustrator - his work is all about telling people's stories

- I also had an obsession with desert island disks - finding out peoples stories - interesting how this links with music - different songs can be used to represent different stages of their life. 

Where I'm at Pre Tutorial

What was I trying to communicate?
I liked the way in which my mind map linked things I like in everyday life to my creative concerns through its love of discovery and the weird and wonderful. I.e. I love travel/ meeting people because I like finding out weird and interesting (unusual) things about them (this is the same with discovering and collecting unusual objects). This explains my love of research/ the research based nature of my work. It also explains my love of unusual/ surreal/ conceptual art - I like it because its strange but also clever and thought about.

In this work I took some of the weird objects that I collected and used them as a means to represent my love for research and discovery of unusual things - concepts, ideas and objects. I started assembling them in scenes. In the face images I was using them to represent this strong divide in my personality between order and chaos - by how they are assembled.

I also abandoned this use of the objects and started to create surreal scenes which represented the most important areas of my practice and what I have discovered this year. I like the fact that everything in the image makes total sense to me but to anyone else it is total surreal chaos - pretty much like everything that goes on in my brain.


Below ground is total chaos in contrast to above ground which is quite still and everything has been vigorously arranged in lines (personality split)
The roots represent the roots of my work in research
The ears/ emptiness on the right side of the page represent the total still quiet I need to focus/ get any work done
The arrow to the single man represents selectivity and the lesson I've learnt in blogging - runs alongside my image making
The bubble of the glass skull which is being popped by the bird represents the creative bubble that I have kept myself in which needs to be popped. (keeping my life/ work too separate)
All of the objects are also appropriated from my room or things that I have created in past briefs.
I could definitely represent some of these things in less literal ways but I like the concept of creating an ambiguous surreal world as a way of mapping out myself and what I have learned.