Visual Narratives Self Evaluation

1.  Which practical skills and methodologies have you developed within this module and how effectively do you think you are employing them within your own practice?
The main skills I have learnt during this module are related to Photoshop as I had never really used this before and it ended up playing a vital role in the production of the imagery for my final book in studio brief three. I also used a Wacom tablet to speed up my work pace on Photoshop. I intend to use Photoshop to enhance my work in many future projects and maybe at some point experiment with a wholly digital piece. Screen-printing is also a new experience for me as I have only ever done this with stencils before. Learning about exposing screens and the level of detail that can be screen-printed made me realise that this is a really valuable method of producing a lot of work very quickly. Making the picture book pushed my skills of drawing with gouache, as I had never really used this medium in such an expressive way before. Book binding has also been a new thing I would like to try more of, I enjoy working with a needle and thread so I think I would find learning about other book binding techniques using thread quite interesting. I have also learnt how to use InDesign, I now know how to set up a document with or without facing pages, add a bleed and slug area and use margins and guides.
2. Which approaches to research have you found most valuable during this module. How have you interrogated your research to identify appropriate ideas?
I had never really appreciated the value of research straight from the source before. In studio brief one, I found it quite challenging to get into the mind set of getting information from my surroundings but once I got into it, I really started to see how these observations could inform my work. I used to get caught up with taking photographs on location and drawing from reference later on but there is a lot to be said for drawing on location and recording a whole experience and not just visuals. I felt my first research day of the tell an untold story brief was quite frustrating as I had a lot of information but no clear direction but looking back at this now, I can see how my sketches from Café Nero have informed my images in my final picture book. My methods for selecting which ideas were appropriate to take forward were simply whether I found the topic interesting or not. At one point I had a lot of ideas but nothing that particularly excited me - I knew this was a long project so I wanted something I could get really stuck into and would enjoy learning more about. A lot of my research ended up being from online sources due to the topic of my book being based in India. Watching short documentaries and news clips have been my main source of reference imagery – I prefer this to just using found images because seeing movement makes it one step closer to seeing it with your own eyes.
3. What strengths can you identify within your submission and how have you capitalised on these?
I think I have done well with evoking emotion in my imagery in studio brief three. I think I have been expressive with ink and gouache and my feedback from the final critique shows that people had an emotional response to my book, which I was very pleased about. I think my composition skills have improved during this brief as well. I have tried very hard to keep pushing my compositions because I see this as a weakness of mine. Working within the frame and storyboarding ideas has proved invaluable to pushing my ideas for composition and the use of Photoshop has also played a large part in this too. I also think I have done well in getting across a clear message purely through the use of image because, to me, this is what illustration is about. I slightly regret adding text to my final picture book because I feel it takes away from the power of the image but in fairness, by the time the reader reaches the text, they will have seen the sequence of images anyway and hopefully understood the concept from them.
4. What areas for further development can you identify within your submission and how will you address these in the future?
There is still a lot of room for learning new digital skills and efficient ways of doing things on Photoshop. I feel I took the long way round with a lot of my functions on Photoshop in studio brief three because I am not aware of what all the tools do – I feel this may be why the production of my images took a lot more time than expected. I also need to learn more about type and which fonts are appropriate for different contexts and purposes. Although I don’t think the type used on my picture book was massively out of place, there are probably some which would be more appropriate.
5. How effectively are you making decisions about the development of your work? What informs these decisions? What problems have you identified and how have you solved them? In the one week book project, decision making was quick because we were working to a tight deadline and because it was a group project, we could discuss options and decide on a plan of action effectively. However, decision making was difficult for me in studio brief two purely because of the breadth of research I had with no clear direction to go in. It probably took me longer than it should have to come up with a plan of action for my picture book. In studio brief three I had similar issues with my media experiments and being quite indecisive on which direction to go in. Group critiques, tutorials and one to one chats with tutors have informed my decisions a lot and this is why I find them so useful. It gives me a chance to see an outsider’s view of my project and makes me realise aspects that I am often neglecting. Most of the problems I have faced in this final brief have been technology based which I have solved by asking my peers and tutors for advice and tips on how to do things.
6. How effectively have you managed this project and organised yourself during this module? I have tried to stay organised with these projects by writing to do lists every studio day for studio briefs two and three. I have also tried to plan my time outside of the studio as effectively as possible, often working into the night to stay on top of my workload. I think I have done well I organising each of my days but in future I need to work on organising the full length of the project by breaking it up into small chunks. If I had done this for studio brief three, I would have had more time to create my final images and they probably would have been of a better standard.
7.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance					
Punctuality					x
Motivation				x
Commitment					x
Quantity of work produced				x
Quality of work produced				x
Contribution to the group			x