Hopes, Fears and Opportunities

Aims

This year is my last chance inside of education, and therefore, in my eyes, the last real opportunity to find a style for myself with some direction. I hope that doing this will make me more connected and proud of the work I do. I plan to try and get this done in time for my Final Major Project.

I also really want to gain more skills to do with the broadening field of illustration, as I enjoy learning new things and think it is necessary to survive in the industry.

Finally, I want to work with topics that I am interested in, which I'm currently doing with the Non Place/Consumerism project.

Objectives

Experiment with different ways of working.
Gather feedback from peers.
Take advice from one to one tutorials with tutors and group crits.
Make contacts with people from the industry.

Look into workshops.
Experiment with animation, photoshop, illustrator, and printing.
Get help from peers who have different skills.

Research my different interests and look into what I can turn into a Final Major Project.

Reflection

This semester has been a big learning curve for me. I feel a lot more confident about my own ability and my work as I think I am finding my place. I have experimented and have found that my drawing has grown since last year a lot already in that I'm no longer afraid of the blank page, so to speak. Working with backgrounds, thanks to the advice of my tutors, has really given my drawings depth and they look much less "tentative" as referred to in my last assessment. I would however like to experiment more in the next project, not with drawing styles but animation, print, and making things, which will also help me to achieve my objective of learning new things which I have started but not got far in.
While making work I often ask for advice from people around me as I think an objective view always helps me make design choices. It is this that makes me think I would like to work in a collaboration way or in a studio with other creatives in the future as bouncing ideas of other people, I think, is the best way for work to grow.
Overall I'm really happy with the way things are going and I hope to keep improving through the next project.


Themes for Major Project

I have learnt from the project that I'm currently undertaking that having a broad theme, although interesting to me, can leave me a bit lost at the start of a project and cause me to lose some time pinning down a topic. Over christmas I plan to research the different ideas I have to narrow it down before actually beginning the project to ensure this doesn't happen again.

Current Ideas

WANDERLUST/SERENDIPITY - these are my favourite words and I love their meanings, but I am unsure of how to get a project from Serendipity. Wanderlust would be interesting as travel is my main ambition but I'll have to do some thinking to narrow it down.

POETRY - I have a poetry book by Bob Dylan called Tarantula that always makes me want to draw, however I wouldn't like to just make more from the imagery as the work is quite abstract and I might struggle with it as I have with my project on the mind. I may look into some other poetry that I like and find someone with a more clear narrative as I find these more accessible and enjoy finding the running themes.