Part Five 

Reflections

"You selected portfolio shows a good range of approaches; your overall style comes across as slightly scratchy, sometimes quite odd (in a good way!), but with a strong underlying technical ability and good compositional sense".

I am over the moon at this feedback. I feel my tutor has understood and noticed the style of my work. "sometimes quite odd (in a good way!" is how I would describe my ideas.  I am delighted to hear that I am showing promise in a technical ability.

"Your ‘How green is your food?’ sketchbook and idea development is good; of your three sketched-up ideas, the version with the scales is the strongest as it visualises a relationship between food and the planet clearly. The middle broccoli idea makes the broccoli look a little like a nuclear explosion which doesn’t quite work in the context of the brief! Your final version is a striking image, but it doesn’t articulate the idea of balance and relationship as well as the scales image. Also, your topography of the earth is not really recognisable from the land masses."

I really enjoyed working with the title 'How green is your food' and thought very hard about which image I should use, the scales being a very strong contender. I would have course use this as my main idea if I was to go through this exercise again.

"You write that you were less engaged with the ‘Travel Guides’ exercise. For this reason your finished Milan design is not quite resolved. Your idea to adopt the Minton-style drawing was a very good one but you didn’t seem quite able to combine the different elements of foreground, middle and backgrounds. Something like this would have resolved the composition: "

I struggled with this exercise, it felt like and uphill struggle working my way through it. I'm glad the inky street scenes have been acknowledged as a good idea, I really found a happy place sketching the streets. However, this feedback is right, I did find it very difficult pulling my ideas together. I feel this shows a lack of experience in this field. I am grateful for the opportunity to revisit artist Minton's work and for the opportunity to practice street sketching.

"Your typography exercise seems to have been a little rushed; the impression is that you’re less

interested in typography and more engaged with illustration. This may be simply about confidence as
your interpretation of the use of images as text in the biscuit packaging exercise is very clear and
in-depth. Your reading of the chocolate fingers, etc packaging is great. 

I felt studying the existing, famous brands of biscuit packages useful research and it helped
set me up for this project. I was glad that I spent extra time studying the packets. I will use this to help with future projects, to study the experts in their field!

"From there your brainstorming and sketch ideas work through the brief and design possibilities well. As the exercise develops your drawing line strengthens which is key to a dynamic packaging design. You don’t quite take this as far as you should; the final drawings need to have a much bolder and less sketchy line. Also, the subtle crayon drawing does not stand out as boldly a solid pantone or ink or digital colour would. The context of the exercise is to make a design that stands out; your drawings would look great in a children’s book but less so in a on a supermarket shelf. Scanning your artwork and boosting the colour would make it much more graphic and striking".

Scanning my work and boosting the colour is a very good tip and one that I will exercise. I should have been bolder with my use of lines and colour for a striking look. This has been noted. I will look to see if I can boost the colour on this design.

"Within the form of a five frame strip you were asked to help illustrate an educational leaflet called ‘What’s happening to my body? It’s all going mad!’ 

Your couplets are a very good way of communicating difficult information (although ‘broody’ would be just as good or better than ‘brooding’). You should have kept the whole text in the finished version, it would have made for a great balance of sometimes quite jagged and stylised artwork with reassuring and comforting writing. As with the packaging, the final colour is a little too subtle. Scanning your artwork and boosting the colour would make it much more graphic and striking".

I had written an entire verse for this exercise and should have trusted my gut feeling here in using it! I used less words in fear of losing sight of the brief, actually my gut feeling was write and I should have followed it. I have noted this. Again, I need to be bolder with my use of colour.

"The final assignment was an opportunity to consolidate the understanding you’ve gained so far by developing illustrations around the theme of ‘Seven Days’. 

Your initial drawing of the armchair actually looks like a sad face and has a genuine air of melancholy. The finished ‘vignette’ illustrations are very gentle, sensitive and fantastical at the end. The two drawings of the cliff and flight contrast very well with the images of the armchair. The use of colour is much stronger and better here than in the exercises, and the effect is much bolder. The writing is also very gentle and moving, and the effect is moving, reminiscent of Mackesy but also Raymond Briggs’ stories. Overall this is a very well completed assignment that shows the strength of your sketchy drawing styles, a quiet but controlled drawing style, and strong narrative and consistent style".

This was the big one for me. An entirely emotional and a true sense of me. I am so pleased that my tutor understood what I wanted to display to him. 

Lonely the armchair was my main character in this verse, to see him as a face, to humanise him means that he does stand as a character. This is very, very pleasing. 

A narrative and consistency in style were my prioritises here and I am pleased I was successful in delivering. 

I wanted to show my tutor a true sense of who I am as an artist and Lonely was my best shot at that.

I will take this opportunity to look through the work of Raymond Biggs.

I am very proud of 'Seven Days of Lonely'.